> Moreover, do you want all supporters of so-called "sideloading" among iPhone developers and users to also ditch their iPhones and switch to Android, leaving only the lockdown adherents in the Apple ecosystem?

The lack of sideloading on iOS has been a consistent policy since the launch of the App Store in 2008. There’s been ample time for those opposed to it to move to another platform. I suspect that for the vast majority of users it isn’t a dealbreaker.

> "If you want sideloading, then you can just buy an Android phone."

I don't currently have any sideloaded apps on my Android phone, but this is the reason I have it. I can reasonably say it's mine and not Apple's.

[The other reason is that I get better sound quality than without an external DAC. Apple's audio quality has been falling since the iPod before Touch.]

I didn't know that. I remember the iPod Shuffle had an exceptional DAC for its time. What a shame.

     How do you explain the phenomenon, the very
     existence of iPhone users who want sideloading?

Some people just enjoy complaining about stuff?

You'd think that an article with that many words about how important sideloading is would have at least one "I wanted to do X but wasn't allowed" story.

> Do you want me, a longtime software developer in the Apple ecosystem, to discontinue my iOS and Mac apps, pack up, and switch to different operating systems?

There are 2 million or more developers many of them are highly competitive and extremely skilled. Apple won’t miss you if you decide to leave - there will be 3 other developers that will just take your place and make tons of money. Good luck with whatever you want to do next.

Obviously, Apple is not a saintly company but I feel the side loading issue is just useless noise and it drowns out many other legitimate Apple issues that don’t get enough coverage and are more important to improving user experiences.

> I feel the side loading issue is just useless noise

EU legislators just agreed to implement regulation that will enforce the ability to sideload.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/apple-would-be-forced-...

I finally want an equivalent to f-droid for the iphone. Other people don't have to activate it on their phones.

We as a society don't have an obligation to design the world in a way that allows corporations to extract maximum value from us.

> EU legislators just agreed to implement regulation that will enforce the ability to sideload.

So is Russia and this is just politics and they have no public interest in mind - especially safety and reducing complexity. American companies are raking in obscene amounts of money everywhere and are leaving the local competition with no path to creating a business. When they cannot compete,they legislate.

Two options:

    A) Apple will comply
    B) Apple will leave the EU market

What will happen?

I think it is exactly sideloading that is the key issue.

Because Apple still pretends it's a tiny company, it has little obsessions that it pursues, it will ship a feature, and then leave it to rot with few to no improvements for years.

In order to convince Apple to improve user experiences across the OS, and not just whatever tickles its fancy in CURRENT_YEAR, it needs to actually compete. I lost count of all the apps that came out in the first half of iOS's life that opened Apple's eyes and moved them to include things in iOS, or open up permissions/entitlements for other apps.

What is your baseline? Android or the windows ecosystem? The latter is stable but has accumulated so much cruft over 3+ decades that it is very bloated to the point of being unusable. I especially hate the apple iOS keyboard. However, the competition between Android and iOS is insane and real and if that won’t get apple to innovate and improve quality, it is either impossible to achieve or the economics are not viable - even for 3T company.

I think what most drives the issue for side-loading is that Apple has claimed that now allowing side-load helps for security, but Apple's claims on security are not as bullet proof as they allude to. I'd much rather them say, no side loading because we want out 30% cut and that actually be true than to say, no side loading because of security risks when nothing really proves their stance has improved security.

> Apple won't miss you if you decide to leave

Hmm, maybe. I'm not so sure that's always true, though. Individual withdrawals can turn into group retreats, which can build into an exodus.

The potential for developer wealth on the platform may be well-publicized, but the financial returns received by typical developers themselves may be less rewarding.

In general, you are right. According to some online state, the Apo store grew from 500 apps in 2008 to around 2M currently. The number of iOS developer are over 400k, coming in second to Android at 800k. I think developer write apps for economic and financial reasons in addition to their innate passion - not for pure ideological reasons. So u less apple does something extremely stupid like 50% cut, this won’t change.

I just want to be able to download apps from the app store without an apple ID. Privacy reasons.