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Comment by zaksoup | Hacker News Reader

How come the argument "you can just buy an android phone" doesn't apply to iOS users in the same way "you can just sideload an APK" does to Google play store users? This isn't a rhetorical question, I'm genuinely curious about how people think of these distinctions.

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Personally, it's a bit like if I purchased a Mercedes but found that I could only drive it on certain pre-approved roads, subject to varying partnerships and licensing agreements. Someone telling me, "you can just buy a scooter" seems predicated on the assertion that they both belong in the same category of "means of transportation," but ignores the fact that they operate very differently in several ways. It also ignores the fact that I've paid for the Mercedes (and possibly invested time and money into skills and tools to repair it), and can't necessarily recoup those costs.

Fundamentally, it ignores whether freedom of movement should be infringed in such a way. One can currently sideload an APK on Android, but what's stopping Google from taking the same hard line as Apple?

Note: I am using the hyperbolic analogy above for rhetorical reasons; I don't think Android phones are perfectly analogous to a scooter. We use Android at work precisely because of Apple's lockdowns, and while I actually like the OS well enough I think I would find it frustrating on a personal phone.

The message you're replying to argues that a car that refuses to go on certain roads is exactly equivalent to a car that does, because its owners are free to buy the other car. This is a complete non-sequitur, and I am surprised someone is debating it seriously.

Cars have less built in switching costs than phones. You can only have one phone at a time and there is an entire ecosystem of services and apps are carried forward when you buy a new one.

A better metaphor might be renting a home. Imagine if you could only fill it with furniture and appliances that have been approved, and you can only park certain types of cars in the garage. You could always move, but then you have to buy new everything.

Because the former requires replacing everthing else on the phone and the phone itself, whereas the latter, as far as I can tell, has no negative effects beyond the sideloaded APK possibly being malicious, ie no negative effects artificially imposed by the phone maker.

For one thing, buying a new phone, buying all your apps again for a different app store, and transferring all your data isn't a trivial task.

Sideloading is free.

You don't have to "jailbreak" your Android because it wasnt in jail to begin with. Sideloading works straight out of the box.

You do need to turn off signature checking in the security settings, so not completely out of the box.

Given that the application store can be changed to blacklist a certain app, it is not unlikely that the next step is similar changes to the apk installer.

It should also be noted that there are no guarantees that signature checking is optional in all future builds of Android. While there are differences between the iPhone and Android business models, they should also not be overstated. My personal guess is that they will drift closer over time rather than farther apart.

sunk cost fallacy. If you have an iPhone you're probably deep into the Apple ecosystem and migrating to another platform is painful.

Money spent on apps you don't use anymore may be "sunk costs". Likewise, money spent on apps with an equivalent, free alternative on Android.

Resistance due to money (and effort) that would need to be spent to migrate to Android is not the sunk cost fallacy.

Uh? I'm not sure I understand your question. The argument doesn't apply because we're talking about the quality of the phone, not the generic freedom of its users. Of course the users are free to use a different phone. Actually, they might be forced to because the phone they bought will refuse to do what they ask it to. Which sucks.

Technically, you can on an iPhone too, just not for free and not anywhere near as conveniently. There were various tools in circulation while there were no decent Jailbreaks. One that springs to mind was iReSign - according to its github page it's for re-signing app bundles with enterprise keys, but that's not what it was used for back then. People captured the .ipa files and signed them with developer keys and all sorts of unfortunate things happened after that.

TL;DR: "sideloading" for iOS = Free: no. Convenient: no. Possible: yes. Out of reach of most people: absolutely yes.

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