Your point being is?

“Will someone think of a children?!”

My point being, that some companies will try to convince you to enable side loading and Epic is an example. They do it on Android now.

I don't mind having a hackable system, I think it should just be a little more complex than a hidden setting that Epic will try and get you to switch.

Perhaps a ROM which you have to download and wipe/reload your phone with, maybe it also removes the App Store so that it's obvious that you are moving to an unsupported model. I'm not sure, but just having a side loading toggle will lead to Epic abusing the matter.

If Epic wants to sell you a piece of software to run on your computer, and in order to do so you need to perform special actions (special with regards to all the other software you use on that computer), and you decide that the software is worth it so you perform those special actions, this is somehow a worse scenario than if nothing else changes but you're not able to perform those special actions because the computer doesn't allow you? How is Epic a bad actor? They're selling you a piece of software that (presumably) performs as advertised. If there's a bad actor, I'd think it's the manufacturer of the computer that doesn't let you use it however you prefer.

The point is that my parents have an iPhone because they are idiot proof.

Yes, they had the tool bars in Internet Explorer. Yes they had viruses.

I do not want a situation where I now have to support their phone because they followed some instructions to unlock side loading and installed Bonzai Buddy.

I suggested an alternative, something that would be just a bit too technical for idiots. A switch in iOS will generate support requests to Apple as the average user is an idiot.

> I'd think it's the manufacturer of the computer that doesn't let you use it however you prefer.

Are you this vocal on Sony for not letting you install your own homebrew on a Playstation or Nintendo on the Switch?

I don't use consoles, partly because I can't use them however I like. So, yes.

I still don't see the problem. So you enable side loading, install the apps you want, and then what's the problem? It's not like other apps will start installing themselves now. I think some people are working under the mistaken belief that a side loaded APK can bypass the OS permissions system, which is not true. Enabling sideloading is a far cry from rooting or a custom ROM

It’s that some companies will force most people into enabling sideloading to turn the phone into something useful, until the field is level again - effectively getting rid of the walled garden.

If every app you need requires sideloading; you’re going to enable it or be left in the dark.

And yet we don't see that happening on Android at all, where companies have literally all incentive to convince people to sideload their apps instead of getting them from the Play store. And yet....it just doesn't happen. There is literally zero reason to believe that this would happen on iOS either. Epic might want to try it with Fortnite because of its popularity, but anything else? No, far too much hassle and you know 99% of users wouldn't bother.

Google is more permissive in their app store (e.g. with tracking users or accepting out of band payments), Google developer accounts are a one time payment, etc., etc. Overall there's less incentive to push a separate app store on Android than there is on iOS.

There is the only incentive that matters - google, just like apple, takes 30% cut off every transaction in your app. Everything else is secondary. And yet even though pushing custom APKs would get you your 30% back, companies aren't doing this(with the exception of Epic). So no, it's not about permissions or tracking users. Even Amazon had to stop offering sales for their digital content in the app because Google is actually and in fact strict about this.

And also - as a simple matter of fact, alternative app stores do exist and they haven't caused the collapse of the ecosystem. You can still stay in your walled garden if you wish.

  So no, it's not about permissions or tracking users

Based on what?

  And also - as a simple matter of fact, alternative app stores do exist
  and they haven't caused the collapse of the ecosystem. 

Sure, because the Play Store is already a colossal mess. Not even two weeks ago there was another high profile malware incident (SpinOk) with something like 30 million installs. I begrudgingly use an iPhone but I don't want the Google experience in any way shape or form.

> ...there was another high profile malware incident (SpinOk)...

Based on what I'm reading, this "high profile malware":

* Requests permissions to access a ton of information on your phone

* Uses those permissions to read and transmit the ton of information that you granted it permission to access

"This software did what I permitted it to do, but I'm not happy about what it did." is a complaint that's pretty solidly platform-independent.

>>Based on what?

Based on the simple fact that nearly all companies care about the money first and foremost. 30% of your sales is a larger motivator than being or not being able to track your users(and I'm not even sure that argument even holds with Android 12 and beyond, it's been really reined in). Or would you disagree?

>>Sure, because the Play Store is already a colossal mess.

I'm not sure I understand how that's related to what I said. Again, corporation like Amazon has all the incentive to push you towards their own app store, yet it just simply doesn't happen at all. If they don't do it, why would smaller companies do it?

>>I begrudgingly use an iPhone but I don't want the Google experience in any way shape or form.

I get the impression reading these comments that people seem to think that if you are on android you just randomly go on the Play Store and install stuff almost without thinking? Yes it's a problem that malware sometimes slips through. But 30 million installs is nothing compared to the userbase. And most people just get a phone, download the regular set of apps they use every day, and then they never ever open the play store again - why would they? The existence(or lack of) of 3rd party stores doesn't matter to majority of people on the platform, because they just never install any extra apps at all.

And yet Epic was exactly my example.

I went to the Google play store and couldn't find Fortnight.

Yes, fortnite is the only exception of a major product. Amazon was forced by Google to halt the sales of any and all digital products through Android apps because they didn't want to give Google their 30% cut and I'm yet to see any push from them to install Kindle or Prime apps through a direct APK.

Because Google kicked Fortnite out of play store, not because they’re paragons of sideloading.

It seems to me that it can't both be true that (a) the appeal of the walled garden is wide and (b) sideloading or other uncurated channels are an irresistible force that will inevitably obliterate the walled garden. If people find value in it, they will not migrate to uncurated channels, so there will remain a population that's only reachable via the garden, so developers will have an incentive to continue to sell there.

And as far as I can tell, this is what's borne out by observable results in places where there are options. macOS has preferences which let you choose between (a) app store only and (b) app store + signed apps from other channels -- and lets you override both choices if you really really want (as well as having a unix command line from which you can run arbitrary things and the ability to acquire dev tools by which you can build and run untrusted source). Some people take safety into their own hands and use those things. Some people don't. This hasn't eliminated the Mac App Store as an option for people who want to rely on Apple's curation. It exists side-by-side with independent but still signed/trusted distribution, and both exist side-by-side with free-for-all. You can walk freely between the well-patrolled walls of the fortified city, the ring of civilization just outside it, and the wild west outside that. None of them stops the other from existing.

Are there any platforms where that's happened? If macOS isn't a place where that's happened, why would it happen to iOS?

Do they really do that on Android that much though?

Of course the App Store seems to have significantly more stringent reviews and requirements than Google's store there might be more incentives.

OTH Apple can bundle some inherent limitations to side-loaded apps (just like Google did) to limit this.

I don’t want Apple to allow sideloading, that would be harmful to all the kids and grandmas. But allow booting another OS, there’s no way kids or grandma will want to flash Linux into their iPhone. I guess they just don’t want competition, maybe because some gaming company will make a gaming-OS for them.

> No matter how deep the option is buried, they will try to get people to enable it so they can install their games without going through the app store.

So you think the bad part is people being able to control their devices if they want to?

Oh no, it'd be awful if I could buy a device and use it for what I want to.

I fail to see the problem.