[Valkhyr]

I don't mind that personally. They can default to their own stores and advertise them, as long as I can sideload anything I want.

On Android I do use sideloading for niche applications and for FOSS applications available outside the Play Store (F-Droid).

If iOS allowed the same ability to sideload that Android does, that would be a huge step forward for "power"users, irrespective of whether the majority of the population stays with the Apple default.

[btown]

For what it's worth, https://altstore.io/ is a relatively-new sideloading system that "just works" for iOS without jailbreaks - you can download .ipa packages however you want, and as long as you're on the same WiFi as a computer running the server, it will re-sign them with a personal key every 7 days. Outside of emulators, though, there's just not much of an ecosystem of high-quality apps for iOS that aren't built to be Apple-approved. But hey - you can bring back Flappy Bird!

[runawaybottle]

I’m not sure who lobbied for this legislation, but I have a gut feeling a company like Facebook is behind some of the money. What a Trojan horse, a government legislated third party Facebook App Store on your IPhone/Android that incentivizes developers to build apps that plug into the FB ecosystem. Lower percentage cut taken by Facebook, with the ultimate caveat - no privacy, all your user data is ours, oh and ads, lots of them.

Cheers. Shit, FB didn’t even have to develop their own phone. What a win.

[drenvuk]

At this point the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Let's see if whoever is doing the arm twisting can force Apple onto a path where they don't get to do every single little thing that they want.

[nemothekid]

That's interesting because I have the opposite view - I prefer Apple maintains control so that Facebook doesn't get to do every single thing they want. Facebook is strictly worse and I bemoan a future where FB is given even more data to sell on hundreds of millions of Americans.

[tremon]

How about (gasp) the government maintains control so that non-democratic bodies don't get to do every single thing they want?

[baridbelmedar]

What government are you referring to?

I suspect that not all countries (even western) would love the idea that the US government had that type of control ;)

[Valkhyr]

How about designing devices and services such that they are open and cross-compatible and the user is ultimately in control?

[Valkhyr]

Yeah, I had heard of that.

Personally, I don't really like the idea of depending on re-signing every 7 days to prevent apps from breaking. In practice it would be fine nearly 100% of the time, it's just not something I like from a point of view of principles. It feels like an immense contortion to make just to install a binary on a device I own :-(

[pzo]

Last time I checked you also had install some their plugin for mail.app that is setup with Apple ID account - that was deal breaker for me.

[arrosenberg]

It should really work the same way you select a default browser during setup. Even if you can sideload a different option, setting a default to their own property is a classic example of bundling, which is an anticompetitive act.

[noobermin]

Right, it would have a huge impact on iOS devices and for their users.