I see that one of the bigger reasons why people want sideloading so bad is to pirate apps they don’t want to buy.
I can assure that a developer would likely take the 30% cut from the App Store versus trying your luck on other stores like Play Store, Galaxy Store, with the added risk of someone pirating your app and missing out on potential revenue.
Unpopular opinion but iOS doesn’t need sideloading. What does need sideloading is the goddamn iPad. It’s the most neglected product by Apple and giving it sideloading capabilities allows devs to make the most out of the M1/M2 chip.
Only reason that you don’t want side loading is if you support Apple’s unethical business practices. Nobody is forcing you to sideload apps. I’m thrilled to be able to sideload
How is it unethical? It’s Apple’s business. If you don’t like Whopper Whopper Whopper then get a Big Mac. Free Market? Hello?
what exactly is there to do on the iPad that you cannot do right now without sideloading?
the only thing I can think of is Apple’s $99 annual fee to develop for their platforms.
You cannot use an iPad as a developer platform. There’s no Xcode or Compiler, providing one is against the App Store policy so those apps just don’t exist in a meaningful manner.
Emulators. Or literally any app on Mac that is not available for iPad.
I just want emulation and Fortnite, that’s all. I’m excited for side loading.
I sideload because I fucking hate ads on YouTube, and it’s literally impossible to use the official app without losing brain cells from the endless ads. I also like being able to have emulators on my phone, which is something I’ve been doing since around 2013.
I’ll use it to get around geo locked apps. For example, the PlayStation app is not available in my country which is very annoying. Same for PayPal and some others.
When I was an android user, I would sideload every now and then. Not one did I pirate. On iOS FOSS apps pretty much don’t exist or are buried among forks that add mountains of ads and garbage.
On the App Store, they restrict away the kinds of apps that have a ton of value. For example, Microsoft can’t release their cloud gaming platform as an app, instead we have to use a neutered pwa.
Just give me freedom and don’t treat me like a criminal or child because I want to use apps that mommy Apple doesn’t approve of.
Any nice apps made by single devs that don’t want to pay the apple tax will become available to everyone and be much more common. But yeah that’s a niche use case.
If apps are offered on both App Store and 3rd party app store, I see no problem.
It’s only when developers start pulling their apps out of the App Store and exclusively into their own app stores that it begins to crack. Hear me out.
Sideloading is a niche setting for the technologically literate. The average consumer downloads apps from either the App Store or the Play Store, because this is the most convenient and easiest to understand.
We don’t have a Meta Store on Android because there’s no incentive for Zuck to build one. Why? Because only Android allows sideloading, they have to go through the App Store on iOS. It will be a terrible user experience on Android if they pull their apps from the Play Store and onto the Meta Store exclusively, and probably push some people to buy iPhones instead.
But if we start allowing 3rd party app stores on iPhone, there’s now a huge incentive. They can make a Meta Store and put FB, Insta, WhatsApp, Oculus app, etc. on it, and pull it out of both App Store and Play Store.
Now, Meta can say, whichever phone you buy, you’ll still need to download the Meta Store.
Technically, they could do that now already. It would just be a single “Meta app” available in all stores, which has in-app purchases for extra features, such as FB, Insta, WhatsApp, Oculus, etc.
They didn’t do it in the last 5 years, so there isn’t really a reason to think that sidloading is the one thing that is preventing them from doing it now.
The way you explained it sounds like you open the “Meta app” and inside, you have tabs for each service? And then these services open within the same app? I might be wrong but doesn’t this violate App Guidelines?
Even the Microsoft 365 app shows you Outlook or Teams in the “Apps” section, but launching them from there still opens the individual apps for Outlook or Teams.
Oh god, i would hate that.
Except every single phone from a major manufacturer comes bundled with Facebook, Instagram and Messenger pre-installed.
They will absolutely never trade that for making their own store.
Except every single phone from a major manufacturer comes bundled with Facebook, Instagram and Messenger pre-installed.
Literally not what happened in my Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme, Pixel, Asus and Vivo. (yes I have phones from all of those vendors lol).
exactly this. To all the folks saying “tHen jUsT dOn’T SiDELoAd” the whole point is that it’s not just allowing the users who want to sideload today, it’s opening the door for side loading to become THE way that major companies push folks to access their apps.
Regardless of what OS team you’re on, the “freedom” of the android and side loading is that it also requires a much higher degree of knowledge, decision making, and active self protection by the users - that inherently means more security/malware/support issues.
If you want or need all that, you’re probably gonna fucking hate a lot of things about iOS across the entire experience anyway, so you go Android. If you have zero understanding or desire to add that level of responsibility to your digital life, then maybe you aren’t married to Android and the iPhone simplifies this for you.
I think it’s a dumb pointless move to force side loading on iOS.
TL;DR Some people want to drive stick shift, others want an automatic, others want all electric - this like saying all car models need to legally be made in all three versions or it can’t be made at all.
How about just having lower fees on the app store and its in app purchases to not incentivize people to flee from it like it’s the plague? That’s what itch.io and Valve are doing and it sure seems to be working fine.
I’m honestly baffled by this community and it makes me feel like if the MS IE antitrust case happened today, most of this thread’s commenters would side with Microsoft or just be paid to say so.
this like saying all car models need to legally be made in all three versions or it can’t be made at all.
Yes, that is the point, software switches are easily added whereas transmission systems less so. The EU is forcing more social and commercial innovation into Apple than the whole 3 past years’ worth of work from their own departmens.
yeah lower fees would also 100% be a simple solution here too. When it was innovative and the only legit app store on the market, site maybe it was easier to get away with, but nowadays that lead has closed so it’s pretty wild they still take 30%
I agree. I think what most people don’t realize is that it’s very likely that the first adopters would be companies who can actually afford to do their own hosting, marketing, and distribution. No indie developer will decide to make their first app as an app store for the app they’re really trying to build.
Take Adobe, for example. They have 28 apps on the App Store right now. Assume I’m a person whose workflow relies critically on Adobe Acrobat Sign, and at the same time I’m the person who keeps getting told “then don’t sideload if you don’t want to.”
Adobe then decides to put all their apps on the Adobe App Store exclusively. Well, might as well throw that “Allow sideloading” toggle out the window because I don’t have a choice but to turn it on so I can continue to use Adobe Acrobat Sign, or leave it off and settle with a crappy experience in a browser or wherever.
But still, the keyword here is “exclusively”. If they make 3rd party app store apps equally available on the App Store, then we’re going to be okay, and I can leave my “Allow sideloading” toggle off.
For now.
This might be the first legitimate reason I’ve heard to be against side loading. Something like this seems incredibly plausible.
I still don’t see how Apple won’t force a smaller fee through 3rd party app stores, as they did in [the Belgium ruling] (https://9to5mac.com/2022/02/04/apple-will-charge-27-commission-for-purchases-made-using-alternative-payment-systems-in-the-netherlands/) where 3rd party apps using their own payment processor had to pay Apple 27% fee.
Why is iPhone the only OS that’s so insecure that it can’t let users install apps the usual way?
It isn’t. People in these comments have zero clue as to what they’re talking about. Sideloading is no worse than downloading a program on your computer. If you use your brain, you won’t get a virus. What a surprise!
Unwillingly agreed.
I dont really understand why people want it. Many of us got this out of our system in our youth on Androids. The shit apps you have to sideload are 99.9% of the time shit apps. And thats best case scenario.
Because some people refuse to pay for YouTube Premium just to be able to watch videos or listen to music on YouTube. Some people want to download emulators. Others might want to be able to save videos and stories from apps like Tiktok or Instagram. Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean there’s no reason.
Why sideload? It’s safer with apple gate keeping all the nasty shit and malpractices.
What if I buy a subscription outside of the app store like on a windows laptop from apps website or something will they still charge me more if I the download the app on an iPhone and sign into my account?
I’ll be honest, as much as I agree with the freedom of choice on that matter. He is not wrong to say that if you can only download apps from the App Store, that closes a massive security hole. I’m not looking forward to having to troubleshoot grandmas iPhone because she downloaded the wrong thing looking for a recipe but it’ll be nice to not be confined to the rules of the corporate overlords. Pros and cons.
It’s not like an everyday user tires to sidoade apps. It’s 0.1% of the population.
Exactly, and now 99.9% of us will have to deal with the decreased security just because those 0.1% couldn’t just go buy a fucking Android
But this is a tad ridiculous. Sideloading on Android has always been a thing, the average user has no idea what it is or how to do it.
Yes, it’s safer within the app store. No, granny won’t accidentally install something, you need to allow installs from the source, accept permissions, clear the “are you sure” security screen, then finally choose between install and cancel, before getting one last security screen, “app was downloaded from the internet”.
The concept of security is correct, your anecdote is a false example of it.
No, granny won’t accidentally install something,
Maybe not, but hackers can install apps that aren’t signed by Apple and now they’ll run
Just makes me think of my coworker whose samsung phone had so much random crap on it that every other tap on the screen would trigger a 30 second ad, sometimes followed by a second or third ad. Took forever just to get to the Settings app. Ended up having to boot into safe mode and removing a good chunk of apps for him.
Legit question, is side loading not already offered in some way? I thought sideloading is when you can download an app straight off a web browser. I’ve done that before multiple times for work apps.
Or is it specific to purchases for paid apps?
Just dont be srupid and you will be fine. And sideloading actually requires turning it on for each app in the settings so you cant do it by accident
No matter how you do it, opening another channel of app installation will always make a device „less secure“. It’s in the very nature. Users have to be more careful with sideloaded apps and the OS has to tighten security.
I‘m not worried though, mostly because of one thing: Even on Android I hardly know anybody who actually sideloaded apps. And I guess iOS will do more than its fair share of warning users not to do it.
I mostly look forward to it for Fortnite and some emulators.
You’re missing the actual problem, though. Right now the OS is written in such a way that it rejects running any apps not signed by Apple, always.
In the future it won’t.
This is my concern too. We already have quite sophisticated scams guiding people to install TeamViewer, AnyDesk, etc on PC’s; you can bet they’ll adapt their techniques to work on iPhones too, guiding grandpa through side loading malicious software.
Hopefully iOS will make a distinction between side loaded and AppStore loaded apps and adjust permissions accordingly (via a VM, container, or some other mechanism).
Obviously not perfect, but security is a never ending game of cat and mouse.
If your gradma knows how to sideload apps you have bigger security concerns than that.
“If you know where you’re downloading apps from” a lot of people don’t, and still do it.
Yeah yeah… we know, you’ll louse profit…
Everyone: we want choice!
Apple: that’s the great misunderstanding. If you can’t choose us, you have no choice.
Wut…
Of course this is the angle they take, because they know they’re going to be forced to actually have to compete.
Compete against what lol. Apps? They have their native apps and you can opt for third party developer apps in the app store. You can even delete most of the native apps. The thing with opinion is people can talk shit for free, not even using a valid argument.
Are you stupid? The EU courts are forcing Apple to allow third party app storrs specifically because of competition.
Then don’t do it. Oh wait.
This is exciting news, I can’t wait to be able to sideloads the apps I want without using the Apple one. Having this on my Pixel (for YEARS AND YEARS) has been amazing.
It’s my phone, I bought it with my own money.
Still don’t understand with those mentality that hates anything that against Apple’s decision. Like, what’s wrong with having more option? Mac already has this for decades and is that becomes a disaster I don’t think so?
“BuT hoW aBouT tHoSe tEcH iLLiTeRaTe pEoPLe” you, as someone who understands tech, should teach them, to not install anything outside App Store. It ain’t that hard. It’s not my fault if you’re too lazy to do that.
And finally, this side loading can gives me much more positive impact. First, no more Safari-based 3rd part browser. I can finally install a real Chrome that based on Blink, or a real Firefox that based on Gecko. Second, I can install some older games/apps that’s no longer available on App Store (literally also some advantage of having a Windows device/Android, you can run old apps on it). And last, emulators, baby! Can wait to use my iPad Mini as some Switch or PS3 emulator. Don’t forget about FOSS too, but I won’t mention it here.
What are you waiting for? Piracy? Hahaha but no, that’s not the main reason why we loves side loading.
Are there any browsers like this already for those that do sideload or are these just examples?
Nope. Sticking with Apple Store for apps. I have never had a break-in on my iPhone and I plan to keep it that way.
Just dont be stupid while side loading. Unless you are so incompetent that you would click on the first free money app there is almost 0 chance of malware
You won’t get that even if you sideload, lol. Have fun paying a monthly fee to be able to watch YouTube videos without being bombarded by cancerous ads, though! I’m enjoying the ad-free experience with my sideloaded YouTube app, all the while being “break-in”-free since the day I first downloaded an emulator.