[idle_zealot]

Some might try this move, but my guess is that sideloading will involve enough friction that user retention will drop and developers will be heavily disincentivized from relying on it for distribution. In particular I expect that every update will require user action to re-install the new version of every sideloaded app, which is the reason most developers don't go that route on Android today.

[kmeisthax]

Funnily enough that's exactly the reason why Epic sued Google - having to confirm every update and install through a scary dialog box was too anti-competitive for them.

Google responded by... actually, adding entirely new APIs in Android for sideloaded app stores to be able to update already-approved applications without extra permissions or approval. In fact, they even distinguish between "sideloaded app" and "installed app from a sideloaded app store" for security-sensitive things like custom accessibility handlers.

This still doesn't moot all of Epic's case, though. They want you to be able to download Epic Games Store from Google Play - i.e. no scary warnings or anything, just Google giving Epic a blanket sign-off on everything they sign off on. I'm not sure how I feel about this - it reminds me of the total and utter mess that was and is selling SSL certs to competing certificate authorities.

[threeseed]

Epic is such a slimy company. They have no interest in users or making the ecosystem better.

They just want to be the gatekeeper so they can endlessly profit from their ridiculous Fornite metaverse concept.

[kmeisthax]

I absolutely agree, and I don't even fault Apple for trying to stop their shenanigans. I just want Apple to lose for entirely unrelated reasons from Epic's own nonsense.

Related note: Facebook's platform fees in their little VR chat thing[0] are actually way worse than Apple's.

As far as I can tell or care, most tech companies that have anything resembling a platform inevitably try to suck the life out of it and kill it. Apple is unique in that they've carefully calculated and balanced how much money they can extract out of developers, but they're still playing the same digital warlord game that I would much rather do without.

[0] Horizon Worlds, I think? IDK it sounds like the sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn

[theshrike79]

Epic, the company that keeps 95% of profits made by Fortnite creators: https://daringfireball.net/linked/2022/06/27/epic-95-split

Epic, the company that complained about Apple's 30% cut :)

[idle_zealot]

> adding entirely new APIs in Android for sideloaded app stores to be able to update already-approved applications without extra permissions or approval

Wow, that sounds great! Does F-Droid make use of those yet? Having to manually install every app update gets tiresome.