Apple CEO compares phones that allow app sideloading to cars with no airbags or seatbelts

Cook, in the DealBook interview, claimed that for 85% of the apps in the App Store, the company collects no commission fee at all. For ‘the vast majority of developers’ that do pay a commission, that cut is 15%. — Handout/Apple Inc/AFP

LOS ANGELES: To Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive officer, letting iPhone users “sideload” apps – that is, install them from sources outside the tech giant’s App Store – would be tantamount to making a car that didn’t have airbags or seatbelts.

For Apple, “It’s just too risky to do that,” Cook said about the prospect of allowing app sideloading on iPhones, speaking in a prerecorded interview that streamed Tuesday at the New York Times’ DealBook Online Summit. “It wouldn’t be an iPhone if it didn’t maximise security and privacy.”