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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: November 9th, 2023

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  • 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.



  • 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.