[glowingly]

I agree. We only have to look 3 years ago to see exactly what happens when those same companies get sideload access. Facebook did something very similar, using their Apple App Store Developer certificate to enroll users as "employees," allowing them to defacto sideload their market research application.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19033451

I also fully expect the last browser holding against Google's browser monoculture - Safari - to die soon after.

I hate this state of affairs, where Apple's sheer greed is the main force stablizing this fragile environment.

[Apocryphon]

Those instances show that Facebook is willing to do that to small incentivized groups of users- in that case, volunteers offered monetary benefit via gift cards, but difficult to say such a model is accomplishable on a wide scale. This is a situation where the users were self-selecting.

Certainly, companies will misuse and abuse the freedoms associated with sideloading, but I disagree that it’s as an easy task as people think. First they actually have to build competing app stores that are compelling enough for users to overcome the friction of switching. I don’t think these companies, other than game platforms like Epic, and perhaps tech companies in politically sensitive markets such as China or Russia, have it in them:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808926

[trurl]

I don't understand why you think building alternative app stores is somehow a limiting factor. If you want to use some software, and the company wants to bypass Apple's protections, they'll just put a download link on their website. Why go through the hassle of registering with any "app store" at all?

[Apocryphon]

Because Apple still wields control over iOS, which means they can also curate how the sideloading experience. I don't believe that even if legislation and regulator action forces iOS to permit sideloading, that it necessitates sideloading to be done in as casual a process as it is to download and install software on macOS, Windows, or desktops in general. Apple will still be able to determine how sideloading is done. And they can make the process very guarded, with multiple disclaimer screens and agreement menus that the user must assent to before they are allowed to sideload. Even on Android today, enabling sideloading is a multiple step process:

https://techcult.com/sideload-apps-on-android/

Furthermore, I believe that Apple can choose to shape the experience even after sideloading is enabled. They can add badge icons that single out sideloaded apps. They can force sideloaded apps to be on specifically marked pages on the springboard. They can add alerts and popovers galore that ask the user "Do you really want to do that?" wrt the sideloaded apps. Apple is a master of UX and branding - if they can influence millions of users via the blue iMessage bubble vs. the green SMS chat bubble dichotomy, they can find a way to subtly single out sideloaded apps as worthy of concern. Emergent user behavior then follows.

Finally, as I have mentioned in the previous link, Apple still controls the operating system that all apps, whether sideloaded or not, exist on. If they wanted to harden its security and strengthen entitlements in such a way that even sideloaded apps cannot bypass certain privacy or security safeguards, they can probably find a way. At they very least, they can introduce a similar notarization process that they already do on macOS on non-Mac App Store apps.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/notarizin...

[trurl]

Yeah, I figured someone might try this argument.

Everyone seems to keep forgetting, there is already an option on iOS for developers not wanting to go through the App Store: web apps. I believe WASM can even be used these days. Except that Safari doesn't offer developers some privacy sensitive APIs other browsers do. The current side loading pressure has very little to do avoiding Apple's cut and everything to do with bypassing Apple's restrictions.

So I expect should Apple introduce a heavily sandboxed side-loading experience, we'd be seeing developers complain they are not adhering to the spirit or the law or lawsuit.

[Apocryphon]

PWAs have long failed to reach adoption on mobile- not just iOS, but also on Android- because of technical limitations that they have compared to native. And perhaps, lack of sufficient interest both from independent developers and from larger tech corporations. That interest is probably orthogonal to the sideloading battle.

Seeing as how Epic was the first company to launch a lawsuit against Apple's control of the App Store, and they certainly care more about avoiding Apple's cut, and little about privacy restrictions, that would seem to contradict your point. We haven't exactly seen Meta or Google throw in with Sweeney's crusade. Instead, the companies who have publicly supported the suit have all been companies that want to bypass the 30% cut, such as Spotify or Tinder.

Finally, if Apple introduces a heavily sandboxed sideloading experience (hopefully they will also introduce more privacy sensitive APIs to Safari as well!), then perhaps the courts will recognize that as a reasonable action and beneficial to consumers and the public interest, and will not press the matter further. There's only so much back and forth this sort of thing can wage on in the public, anyway. Lawsuits are costly in time, in attention, and in fees. If Apple does something in good faith, unlike what they've been doing in response to Dutch legislation (0), then presumably our systems of democracy will appreciate it.

(0) https://twitter.com/marcoarment/status/1489595417117483010

[Nextgrid]

If side-loading or alternate app stores are allowed I fully expect a "Facebook Store" to appear which includes (and mandates) Facebook malware in every app and most mainstream apps eventually moving over to it.

[Apocryphon]

I think if this was a decade ago, when Facebook was younger (newly post-IPO!), hungrier, and had a better reputation with the public, that might have happened.

But nowadays Meta is older and much more disreputable, many of their new products seem to be clones of other things that exist, from Clubhouse to HQ Trivia, and users are far more jaded towards the company.

Not to mention, mobile and tech in general has matured to a state that a brand new app store, at least from a tech giant everyone knows about, coming to iOS isn't as exciting as it used to be. What does another mobile app store offer the average consumer? They barely download as many new apps from the actual official App Store. Having to deal with another platform account, even if expedited through Facebook login would be another friction point for users, another set of confusing permissions to juggle, another payment system to hook up to, another downloads history to keep track. Users are already getting burned out by having to deal with so many video streaming platforms that piracy is making a comeback, why would they be willing to put up with a Facebook Store just to get Instagram? At least signing up for Paramount+ lets you watch the Halo television show, what does signing up to the Facebook Store do besides let you use Facebook- which you already can?

No, I believe that even if Meta really does launch such a store, they would not be willing to pull their official apps away from the actual App Store. They will hedge their bets because it is unlikely that all, or maybe even most, Facebook users will switch to their app store. If forced to have to use a whole new store for no good reason, many consumers will just stop using Facebook, and find substitutes to Instagram instead.

[Nextgrid]

> What does another mobile app store offer the average consumer?

The fact that most of the apps they use moved over to it because it doesn't have the pro-privacy restrictions that the official App Store has.

[Apocryphon]

Yes, and they would be angry at the people who make their apps for doing that for no apparent reason, the users who are more tech savvy will recognize that this is a ploy to harvest their data by forcing migration to platforms with fewer privacy restrictions, there will be big public backlashes on social media, people will boycott these new app stores simply because of the hassle, the companies will be forced to reverse their decision and put their apps back onto the App Store, and it would be an expensive waste of time.

One can even imagine that if the app getting moved is sufficiently widely used and utility-like, such as WhatsApp or Messenger, or even Facebook itself, the courts might start antitrust investigation into Meta, and that company would face pressure to keep those apps available on both their own Facebook Store and on the official App Store (where the majority of users are). After all, antitrust provisions apply not only to Apple, but to all companies.

[trurl]

I agree that having to rely on Apple here is not great, but no other ecosystem is even trying.