Or epic: another company that has a novel approach to use privacy
Or Facebook
Etc, etc
The only option goes “the AppStore with its various restrictions and protections” or “miscellaneous parties with a vested interest in destroying your privacy and/or complete lack of any review”
They can have either the same level of control, less, but never more. As it stands right now, Apple and pretty much all Android manufacturers have more control (Yes, I said Android too. Good luck trying to mod the bootloader itself or gaining access to the TEE)
This would be a great thing because that way you don't force any company to modify their app plattform or change their normal user-facing software in any way, yet those who wish so can do with the device whatever they want in the same fashion the manufacturer could before (and even after) the sale.
> an iOS user can get all the software that they want from the iOS AppStore,
> apple kills software
Which is exactly the problem. That Apple has monopoly power over iOS apps.
> This law means they have to deal with multiple different stores
And in the same way I can choose Android, you can choose to use to continue to use Apple App Store only. Do you think Apple should be the only smartphone manufacturers because you don't want to deal with multiple OSes? No, because you're not being forced to use all of them.
And if they opened up to additional stores or side loading, you would have a choice to stick with only using the Apple one. That choice doesn’t go away. In fact, the vast majority of Android users aren’t installing side stores because the Play Store has what they want. This is why companies like Spotify still distribute there despite fighting Google on fees.
You want the android experience, but rather than getting an android, you want to force that on the people who prefer the iOS model. They like not having to worry about malware. Currently an iOS user can get all the software that they want from the iOS AppStore, and they don’t have to give random companies their CC#, they don’t have to worry about the app subverting their privacy, because they know apple kills software that does that whenever they find it. This law means they have to deal with multiple different stores, that have no incentive to maintain platform security or user privacy. In fact they’re incentivized to abuse user privacy.
As an iOS user I do not want the android experience. This law basically forces ios to have that. Malware and all.
The only things this does is reduce user security, and give scummy publishers the ability to bypass AppStore rules the protect users (like “you must make discounting if subscriptions trivial”, “you don’t get to run a cruptominer in the background”, etc).
Again, if you want to have the android experience, use android. Literally no one is stopping you.