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Apple Blocks Google From Running Its Internal iOS Apps (theverge.com)
Apple has now shut down Google's ability to distribute its internal iOS apps, following a similar shutdown that was issued to Facebook earlier this week. From a report: A person familiar with the situation tells The Verge that early versions of Google Maps, Hangouts, Gmail, and other pre-release beta apps have stopped working today, alongside employee-only apps like a Gbus app for transportation and Google's internal cafe app. UPDATE: Apple has restored Google's Enterprise Certificate so its internal apps will now function.
So... as usual the summary (and even TFA in this case) had me confused about what is going on here. At first I thought Google was redistributing Apple's internal iOS apps. I thought maybe they were embedding iOS apps within their own apps or something. Anyway here's what this is about.
An enterprise developer license for iOS allows a developer to sign an app for limited *internal* distribution of an app. This is for testing and enterprise use internally within the company the license was issued to. This is in contrast to apps intended for public distribution, which as we know can only be done through the iOS App Store, and which requires Apple to approve the app.
What Facebook and Google have been doing is publicly distributing what should be internal-use-only apps to the public - apps that would not be approved by Apple for various reasons (including privacy issues) - through their enterprise developer license. So it's clearly a violation Apple's terms, and it sounds like both FB and Google are doing the overreaching data collection through these special apps.
Apple has reacted, disabling the signing keys for these apps so they no longer function.
Better known as 318230.
Both companies employee tens of thousands of people around the world, and enterprise apps aren’t registered through Apple, so they don’t know what the names of the apps are like you seem to think. Unlike the App Store, they’re signed by the enterprises themselves without Apple’s involvement, other than Apple issuing a certificate that can be reused time and time again.