I disagree. Allow side loading of apps that still meet a threshold for safety, privacy, etc (determined through a program like you refer to), but eliminate the App Store cut of sales.
Who does the checking and verification that the apps are compliant with the “threshold for safety, privacy, etc”?
Apple do this now, using the Apps that pay the 30% on digital purchases to fund everyone. If they no longer make a fee from those to cover every app (including all the free ones), who pays to validate the apps?
And what about the plenty of policies Apple has that I don't agree with and they've declared not their problem?
* their developer policies (as in my own apps, think business apps, playing around, ... and no the little play education app is not enough)
* file synchronization apps (syncing books, development/source code, apps, photos and music on my webserver, ios, android, and laptops through syncthing)
* emulation (in both directions). Both emulating other systems on the iPhone and emulating the iPhone/ios elsewhere (strange how they have always allowed and even facilitated this for macos, but on either iphone or ipad ...)
* their policy about 30% cut on anything sold through apps. Sorry, but that's just going too far
* their charging policies (meaning what their devices allow for charging and how fast. And frankly 90% of the problem I have with their policy on charging is how complicated it is. If they merely instituted a rule "if it's apple equipment, it just works as fast as possible", that'd already be a big improvement)
At this point I'm very inclined to say, not getting the 30% cut and still having to check ... is Apple's problem, not mine. How about we treat it the way apple treats their customers' problems? At this point I don't care about whatever problems being reasonable presents for Apple.
What I got from the comment was that the overall intention and push behind sideloading, both by the community and what the EU mandates, is to not be bound by Apple's policies for appmaking, not just to use your own distribution infrastructure.
As far as I can tell the main use case for side loading that people are making inevitably boils down to piracy. Emulators, torrents, cracked software. 95% of the talk about “freedom” on Android revolves around Vanced and other kinds of piracy.
I’m glad to see people talking about alternative browsers for PWAs (yuck) and open source projects but I am thoroughly cynical about the motivations of the vast majority of people advocating for side loading on iOS. I worry that this ability to pirate like you can on Android will result in degradation in app quality in the App Store.
> I worry that this ability to pirate like you can on Android will result in degradation in app quality in the App Store.
Is it possible for quality on the App Store to get any lower?
80% of App Store revenue comes from Pay to Win games (according to the Epic trial). Most of the other apps monetize through subscriptions for things like streaming services or don’t charge money at all.
That brings me to another thing I'd like to add. Over the years I've paid for quite a few apps on the app store that PREDATED most of the "monetization" of the app store. And the social shit and the login and account and ... shit that games have now.
Essentially all of these have disappeared from "my apps" and I can't install them anymore. I want them back.
And now this emulator comes out with the super monkey ball that my dad bought for me on my initial ipod (not ipad, pod). I want that game back on my current ios devices, and that one, with essentially no interruptions to the gameplay, not the current shittified version.
I disagree. Allow side loading of apps that still meet a threshold for safety, privacy, etc (determined through a program like you refer to), but eliminate the App Store cut of sales.