I guess giving a way like in Android where you hide the setting behind a flag in settings and explicitly keep warning the user when they install an app from outside is a decent middle ground.
I am not sure of this but I think recent version of either Android/Pixel do a check on apps even installed from outside for malicious activity.
This would not change the situation in HK where China could simply force Apple not to sign the Telegram app and instead sign their fake Telegram app.
Very few people know about this.
An arrangement like this would work fine on iOS too.
There is no technical motive behind Apple's refusal to allow sideloading. It's simply a monopolistic power-play.
It's a genuine questions since it's likely someone in hn can provide some peer reviewed data.
Probably better approach would be to develop better web APIs, so Telegram could be run in a browser with identical experience.
That would enable secret chats on desktop, so I am in.
I don't mind apple providing an official, supported by default, highly curated app store. But that shouldn't be the only way to install software.
On the other hand, there is one ecosystem which i wonder is comparable : the playstation one. Can you release a game on that console without explicit whiteflagging by sony ?
Nope. And the same goes for virtually all of the major video game consoles -- Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo's various consoles are all closed systems, with significantly more stringent rules than anything in the mobile market. In many cases, even starting to develop an application for the console requires the prior approval of the manufacturer.