A novel idea. Apple and googles own apps have been tampered with. Indeed there are compromised apps available for download now on both stores.

Perhaps it's 'safer' but now we all ask permission and pay a huge tax to release software.

Is this a better system?

The web is alive but under attack. What freedoms will devs have left?

We will either pay comcast or we will pay google and apple. Either way the entrance fee for development just became a lot higher.

Perfection isn't required. None of the systems we design are perfect. What's relevant is whether or not it's better for the users. In a direct way, for the average user, I don't think you can reasonably argue that it's not. There are of course other issues with walled gardens, but security isn't one of them.