[DangitBobby]

There's also the OS and other aspects of the walled garden that you must choose between an iPhone and some other flagship. I personally select for some perceived optimization of attributes such as "has Android" and "has good value for price" among other things. If Apple made a phone like that I might buy one. Unfortunately, all of their phones have iOS.

[zepto]

How many apps have you sideloaded?

[toast0]

Google curates the play store with a much lighter touch than Apple curates its store. Possibly because they don't want to drive people to sideloading.

[zepto]

It’s still a walled garden.

[toast0]

The wall is pretty low, when you download an apk and open it, it asks you if you want to unlock the gate. In earlier builds of Android, you had to find the setting yourself, which was at least a little harder.

[zepto]

What percentage of users actually have a version of Android where that’s all it takes to install a downloaded apk?

[toast0]

I have no stats. Only my own annecdotal experience.

On Android 2.x, I remember apk download installs just failing, until you changed the settings; but everything else has been pretty easy. A Samsung KitKat phone I was using recently was even nice enough to have a 'allow just this app, or let it be wide open' checkbox.

About the only thing I sideload that's not on the play store is rooting toolkits, but sometimes it's convenient to get the APK another way (Google Play requires logging in to Google, which is hard to undo, for example)

[lern_too_spel]

Nearly 100%, but you're comparing against the wrong devices. When I run a Linux router, I am not choosing at random from all the vendors. It's the same for my phone. I choose which one to use on purpose. Not only can I install my own apps, but I can install my own system as well. This lets me run devices from 2013 on the latest version of Android.

Answers below until I am no longer rate limited:

> Sure but almost nobody can do that because they didn’t make the same careful choice as you did.

What does that have to do with anything? Just because all iOS devices are bad and many Android devices are bad doesn't mean all devices are bad. I choose from the good devices.

> Also, you routinely make unsupported claims

Show me one unsupported claim I have made.

> you are going to say nearly 100%, you’ll need to show a source.

I have literally never seen an Android phone that does not allow sideloading. I have heard of many that do not allow unlocking the bootloader, but sideloading is standard. I can't provide a source because the idea that an Android phone would not allow sideloading is so absurd that nobody would bother explaining why it doesn't exist.

> it contradicts what others say when I suggest Android is an open alternative to iOS.

What have others said?

Edit 2 for the second post:

> Usually when I bring up sideloading as a reason why people should choose Android if they don’t like the restrictions of iOS, people claim that it is too hard for regular users to do because of the configuration required.

The OS takes the user to the settings checkbox to check. This has been true for as long as I can remember.

[free2OSS]

Don't call it a garden. That's just propaganda from the dictators.

[DangitBobby]

IDK, a handful. The point I was trying to make is less about the selection of apps and more about the actual operating system.

[lern_too_spel]

Hundreds. I develop apps for my own devices. This is supposed to be a forum for technologists.

[zepto]

“Hundreds. I develop apps for my own devices. This is supposed to be a forum for technologists.”

Sideloading doesn’t refer to installing apps you have developed yourself.

It’s about distributing software outside of app stores.

[lern_too_spel]

> Sideloading doesn’t refer to installing apps you have developed yourself.

If you can do one, you can trivially do the other. It's effectively the same feature to the end user. I develop my own apps and upload them to cloud storage to install them on all my devices.

[zepto]

This is not correct.

You can install your own app on your own iOS device without using the store, but you cannot distribute to end users.

That’s why we say Android supports side loading but iOS does not.

The two things are not one and the same.

[lern_too_spel]

> You can install your own app on your own iOS device without using the store, but you cannot distribute to end users.

My own devices and the devices of my friends and family are end users. I do not have to connect the devices to my computer. On iOS, you cannot do this without paying Apple yearly unless you want to deal with reinstalling every week.

> The two things are not one and the same.

They are enabled by the same mechanism. If you have one, you automatically have the other.