[darknessmonk]

> Apple competing with third party app stores on iOS is going to be amazing. No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other stores from competing.

The walled garden is a selling point, a feature - I don't care about sideloading at all. You want to sideload? Grab and Android.

[mhh__]

Today you don't care. You might never do.

Some people do at the moment, but that's not completely the point.

This legislation should be about tail risk - protecting the people who increasingly only have an iPhone or iPad as their main computer from either forced obsolescence or restrictions on their behaviours.

[zepto]

Forcing people to use stores they don’t want to is the exact opposite of ‘protection’.

[mywittyname]

If you don't care about sideloading? Don't sideload, just use the Apple Store.

Users like you have zero skin in the game. Nothing in your workflow will change, other than you might get cheaper applications.

[darknessmonk]

Nope. Hurts overall experience. Not only the App's won't be curated the same as the other ones, but now I would have to maybe reach to some webside to download a .ipa file or to download a secondary App store to get a apps that otherwise would be available on App Store.

[chungus_khan]

Then keep using the curated store? It only hurts if Apple's store can't compete with alternative ones. There's no such problem on Android because developers and users are fine with the Play Store.

Epic even tried doing a sideloaded Fortnite for Android and people didn't download it, so they came back.

[zepto]

This keeps getting repeated but is false.

New stores will pay for exclusives rights to popular apps just as video streaming platforms do for video.

Users will have no choice but to use a jumble of different stores.

[chungus_khan]

Then why hasn't it happened? Android has always had sideloading and this is not the case. Just asserting it to be false isn't convincing.

[zepto]

Why doesn’t Epic have an Android App Store?

If they want an independent store, there is no reason for them not to create one for Android.

If Android was a model for what Epic wants, they would have built a store there.

It’s pretty obvious that this is just about them going where the money is.

[dieortin]

Until you’re forced to download the FB App Store for Facebook apps, the Epic Games store for theirs, the Google App Store for Google applications...

It’s not true users who don’t want to side load have zero skin in the game. The entire ecosystem would suffer.

[chungus_khan]

Why hasn't it on Android then?

[kingsleyopara]

Supposedly (if you buy into Epics recent lawsuit against Google) because Google have abused their power to prevent it...

[bezout]

Maybe the majority of users doesn’t care and uses the Play Store. They probably don’t know about F-droid and co.

[pentae]

How about don't tell me what device I can or can't use? I want to sideload on my iPhone.

[zepto]

Nobody is telling you what device you can use.

Why would you buy a device that doesn’t do what you want?

[infinityplus1]

Why do people move to America when there is crime happening there? Maybe there are good things in America as well. You appreciate the good things and then try to fix the bad things.

[zepto]

This is a false analogy.

All countries have crime, and the switching cost is immense. However some countries are much worse than others which makes it worth it.

Phones are at parity in terms of features, and the switching cost is trivial.

[Strom]

You have a point when looking at Zimbabwe or something. However people move from Canada to USA too - or from Northern Ireland to Ireland.

[zepto]

Right but it’s still not comparable.

Moving even between counties is not comparable to just spending a few hundred dollars on a phone.