> 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.
> 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.
This is called “moving the goalposts”. It’s a kind of fallacy.
You said: “Hundreds. I develop apps for my own devices. This is supposed to be a forum for technologists.”
I said: Sideloading doesn’t refer to installing apps you have developed yourself.
You said: If you can do one, you can trivially do the other.
This is clearly not true. You can install apps you have developed yourself on your own iOS devices for free, but you cannot distribute them. They do expire, but you can certainly install and use them on your own devices.
So then you changed the goalposts to “My own devices and the devices of my friends and family are end users”.
Which is not what you originally said. You originally said “for my own devices”.
We agree that sideloading is about distributing software to end users. Not just your own devices.
The two are not one and the same mechanism. The fact that you had to change your qualifier shows this.
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.