[Melkman]

Being able to sideload is a double edged sword. Yes, it would be a barrier for Apple to go to far overboard on monetizing the ecosystem. It would also give companies like Microsoft a means of ONLY distributing their applications via their own app store forcing you to side load this app store with less oversight. Maybe they add a forced installer to push their apps ? It's not that I trust Apple that much. It's that I trust other companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon less.

[mannerheim]

This doesn't happen on Android, so why would it happen on iOS?

[jdminhbg]

As long as the iOS model exists, the sideload store model is only viable on Android, and vendors are forced to support the first-party store model anyway. If both ecosystems allow sideloading, you could easily imagine Microsoft or Epic switching to sideload-only and branding their own stores across Android and iOS. As it is now, if you can get something first-party on iOS but are forced to sideload on Android, it just makes the Android experience for Fortnite (or whatever) seem janky.

[babypuncher]

Google's privacy requirements on the Play Store are a lot less developer-hostile than Apple's. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that Android and the Play Store are owned by one of the data-harvesting tech giants that Apple's rules just so happen to impact.

[cbdumas]

If both iOS and Android allowed sideloading this would be a much more attractive option. As it stands something like that isn't really worth while because most high-value consumers of mobile apps use iOS.

[etchalon]

iOS and Android are fundamentally different markets.

[yreg]

The likes of Facebook would certainly like not having to submit to Apple's rules.

[heavyset_go]

There seems to be a thread of argument where the merits of Apple's App Store model aren't actually discussed or substantiated, but instead what is trotted out is the big scare tactic of "But Facebook!"

[kaba0]

Apple is big enough to have network effect to effectively mandate even facebook et alia to play by its rules.

Put it behind 10 hidden menus inside settings and facebook will not be able to explain to your average user that they have to enable this shady looking setting to download facebook. They can of course choose to ignore half of the US market, but that’s hardly a sane decision.

[smoldesu]

I fail to see how that's an issue when other developers can make third-party clients if there's a significant demand for it. If Twitter/Facebook start forcing people to install their third-party store to access their app, then there's a massive opportunity to make a better app that's distributed through the App Store.

[ccouzens]

Apps can't redirect Twitter/Facebook links without Twitter/Facebook's co-operation.

This is a key feature stopping 3rd party apps being competitive.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/allowing-app...

[codetrotter]

> If Twitter/Facebook start forcing people to install their third-party store to access their app, then there's a massive opportunity to make a better app that's distributed through the App Store.

Wouldn’t Twitter, Facebook etc in turn demand that those third-party apps be taken down from the App Store?

And even if they didn’t, how is any third party going to keep up with Twitter/Facebook/etc API changes.

And what about push notifications? Those would not work with a third-party app installed via the App Store unless Twitter/Facebook/etc explicitly made it so that they supported that on their end.

For example, here’s a blog post from 2016 about how the Riot app for iOS is able to get push notifications when you self-host a Matrix server. https://thomask.sdf.org/blog/2016/12/11/riots-magical-push-n...

[ThatPlayer]

And you can always use Apple's favorite excuse of them not being a monopoly: Safari browser.

[tacitusarc]

This is exactly my feeling.

Apple has no incentive to let other companies get away with bad behavior. And so far, their own bad behavior has been much better than other companies.

[danShumway]

This argument comes up a lot, and while I ultimately don't agree with it, I still am sympathetic to it and I do think it has a grain of truth embedded in it.

Here's a question though: isn't that also a reason for Apple to hobble web browsers? Everything you're saying about app security and developers refusing to follow Apples rules also applies to progressive web apps unless Apple commits to making its browser meaningfully less powerful than native apps, and (importantly) meaningfully less powerful in ways that Microsoft/Amazon/Facebook actually care about.

That means you've kind of got to commit to the idea that web apps on iOS never get notification support, they never get intent support with other apps or the ability to handle opening resources, they never get support for good background audio or timers/alarms, they never get reliable clientside storage for offline usage without accounts. It's not just that you can't do low-level complicated sensor/GPU stuff, Apple has to hobble browser capabilities that make it good for reading news or setting timers.

Is that a world you're comfortable with? I know a reasonable number of people on HN are comfortable with that idea, just because they don't want the web to have application capabilities in the first place. But a lot of other people bring up the web as an alternative to the app store (Apple itself is fond of making that argument), and it makes me think -- if the web ever is a viable alternative for good apps on iOS, then the situation you're worried about already exists, doesn't it? Instead of the NYT distributing a native app that you subscribe to with Apple's system that gives you easy cancellation, instead you would get a PWA reader app that you pin to your homescreen and you subscribe through their web interface. The only way that doesn't work is if the experience of reading the NYT and getting notifications about new articles and saving your account details is a worse experience inside of a browser.

If what you're describing about companies removing user choice or forcing users to accept worse alternatives -- if what you're describing is an inevitable result of any serious, alternative user-facing app platform on iOS, then the only way Apple avoids that situation with the web is if it consciously commits to Safari being perpetually behind on standards and perpetually systemically and deliberately made worse as an app platform. That could either be through making sure the browser always lacks features or it could be achieved through other UX designs like blocking PWAs from showing up in app lists, making them unreliable to install, blocking their installation entirely in some cases, etc...

Is that an outcome that Apple users are comfortable with?

[scarface74]

Every single web page without fail that’s wants to send push notifications wants to spam me.