Don't want to sideload? Then don't. Only buy apps from the app store on mac and pc and android and iPhone. And don't hit me with "But what if XYZ takes their app out of the app store and goes sideloading only?!" Well then don't install their app, it's that simple. If the logic is if you want to sideload get an android phone, then the same should be applied to sideloading in general. Don't want to sideload? Then don't.
On PC, there's Microsoft's store. Amazon sells software downloads online, and I don't think they're the only ones. Lots of game stores of course. You can also buy software in actual stores, although that's less common, and sometimes it's just a big box with a download code.
But yeah, your take on sideloading seems reasonable. You don't need to do it. I ran a windows phone for years, it's fine to not have apps (and it's less fine to not have a good browser, but if Safari lingers enough, it'd be nice if you could sideload something else)
I like being able to buy things on the Windows Store and on Origin and Steam. If you are right and this makes things worse don't you think people will just stick with the Apple store?
Full disclosure : Apple shareholder.
No, they won’t. At a bare minimum, they’ll have the Google store and the Facebook store, and they’ll probably have a dozen others, because most people don’t actually care enough to make a principled stand on these kinds of things, but their lives will be shittier because of this, in the same way that we all have LinkedIn accounts even though LinkedIn is dogshit because we all need jobs and none of us care that much, but our lives are shittier because of LinkedIn and they’ll be shittier because of this.
Why Google and FB in particular? Because of the ad tracking thing? Note that if Apple allows sideloading, then rather than installing G/FB’s official apps you’d be able to install 3rd-party clients to their services that mitigate tracking/block ads. Currently you can’t easily do this because of App Store policy disallowing apps that violate the ToS of services that they access.
And, what’s to keep 3rd party clients from working? The same thing that currently does: Google and Facebook control their APIs. This isn’t the era of the open internet, and that doesn’t change with an open App Store either.
I wasn’t throwing out a hypothetical when offering 3rd party clients as a solution to installing Google or FB’s stores. This is already what’s happened on Android. Rather than download official apps from Google Play one can install a community app store (F-Droid) and grab enhanced 3rd party clients there.
API control is rarely an issue aside from the fact that these unofficial clients tend to use said APIs in ways that violate the provider’s terms of service. As such the client apps violate the Google Play Store’s rules and must be sideloaded. This rule is also why 3rd party clients must be sideloaded on iOS.
Right now we just have contractual monopolies with no other options.
My theory is that for the major non-gaming companies- Google, Meta, and Amazon- building their own third party app store on iOS is not in their interest. They would essentially be carving out a ghetto for their own apps. Even if the law mandated Apple accept third party apps, Apple can still control that experience. And that experience will inherently involve friction. There will be friction to enable third party app stores. There will be friction to sign up for said stores, add payment information, and deal with yet another membership. Users would rather use mobile web sites before they have to jump through hurdles to install an app from a third party app store. There will be a public backlash against these companies for hoarding their apps in third party stores.
I think if they do introduce third party app stores, they won't take crucial apps- Google Maps, Facebook, Instagram, etc.- off of the Apple App Store. They stand to lose out too much by risking being dependent on their own new, untested third party app stores. And they would suffer a lot of heat from angry users for forcing them to sign up for and then manage yet another account.
Besides, these companies' apps aren't exactly the new hotness that inspire organic migration, unlike say TikTok. Imagine: users muddling through the Google Play Store for iOS® to get their Chrome, Google Maps, YouTube, and Gmail/G-Suite apps, and what else? The Google search app? The umpteenth Google instant messenger app? What would Amazon stand to benefit by duplicating their Kindle-oriented third party Android app store on iOS? Offer their Kindle reading app, the Amazon storefront app, and Audible? Does Zuckerberg really want to reenact the Facebook Home fiasco? Most of the time when these giants try to play in the others' home court, they tend to stumble pretty badly.
Gaming companies such as Epic, Valve, EA, UbiSoft, and now Microsoft-Acclaim-Blizzard might have a great chance at fostering third party app stores, given their unique content and gamers being accustomed to having to deal with multiple platforms with exclusive content. And er, a greater willingness to ignore user outcry over closed platform shenanigans.
Let me turn this on its head. If you don't want Facebook, you're free not to download it.
> You live in a world in which large predators want to devour you and small predators want to gnaw on you
Right now Apple is that large predator. They take 30% (wtf!), have to examine all deploys (nevermind your emergency), have arbitrary rules, force unwanted and unfair Apple platform integration, separate you from your customers, etc.
Eventually the web will become the app store and software distribution without shackles will be new again.
Apple's false uni-channel model has been a disease on our industry for far too long. Bits are free to send, download, and run.
…They take 30% (wtf!)…
On 93% of the applications, Apple takes 0%. They vet your app for the users and handle distribution for $0.
They provide the development environment for free (Your developer identity costs you $100/year and is required to release software in the store, but the tools are free and you don't need an identity to use them for yourself.)
Of the remaining 7% of the applications, until you are pulling in $1,000,000/year from the Apple App Store the Apple takes 15% and pays the credit card processing costs out of that. (At the worst end for you, if you sell a $0.99 app or in-app-purchase, your credit card company is going to charge you maybe 12.4%, so you are right back in the same territory. My local deli won't even take a card for less than a $5 purchase.)
Now we come to the whales. Statistically about 0% of the apps, but they bring in the money. These guys are paying 30% and that is some serious coin. They are absolutely subsidizing the development tools and store mechanics. It must gaul them that they are the huge customer and are getting a negative discount.
I wonder how big a whale you have to be to go to a different store and take >70% of your users with you?
…have to examine all deploys (nevermind your emergency)…
People's milage varies here, and no one writes a blog post describing things working normally, but the store review process is so fast these days that I push my release candidate up, refill my "tea", ask the cat how her day is going, and TestFlight download my approved app to one of my untethered test devices to test. It's that fast. In the bad old days that process could have taken days for me, but now it's smooth. I've been releasing this app since there was an App Store and I've never had a release rejected, so maybe I get special treatment. And to be balanced, I know people in industries which have to educate the reviewer on the legality and compliance of their app on every release, so that part of the review process still could use some help. That isn't doing Apple or the app developer any good.
But… even though I agree with many of your points, I want all my apps to come through Apple, and I don't want to have to provide friends-and-family tech support to all my knuckleheads who will cargo cult install some unmonitored store and end up on the bad end of a bad person's scam.
... (but not "...")
>They provide the development environment for free (Your developer identity costs you $100/year and is required to release software in the store, but the tools are free and you don't need an identity to use them for yourself.)
So it's not free at all. It's $100/year. I know--I've tried to do it. frankly, it's in insult that I not only get to develop a free app, I get to pay for it, too!
Things I guarantee you will see because of this: 1. You will have six different app stores on your phone. The Apple one, the Facebook one, the Google one, the Epic one, and at least two more, probably one from Disney and one from Spotify. 2. Those apps will absolutely not follow anything even close to App Store guidelines, and will wholesale be grabbing everything they can and exploiting every available opportunity to at best take your data and at worst add any kind of adware, malware, or anything else they can. 3. You thought payment dark patterns were bad Now? 4. Every goddamn app you want from every goddamn anything will be side-loaded. Some of these will be legit versions of the app you wanted.
You live in a world in which large predators want to devour you and small predators want to gnaw on you. You live in a world in which goddamn websites are running crypto-miners in your browser. You live in a world in which every company out there is aggressively hacking your dopamine circuits to try to get you to use their app more, and every company out there is grabbing every bit of data they can on you so they can sell it to whatever shady asshole’s willing to give them money for it. You live in a world where nation states are actively targeting you and everyone else around you from across the goddamn world. For fuck sake, you live in a world in which every entertainment studio out there is yanking their content from every other channel and demanding a subscription for them alone.
The App Store is an extractive tax on developers. It restricts user freedom. These things are true. But the goddamn naivety it takes to seriously think that the ability to side-load is going to make our actual lived day-to-day lives better instead of just hypercharging this dark forest hellscape we’ve invented for ourselves takes my breath away. Where the Hell have you people been Living for the last decade?