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Furthermore, any big vendor (e.g. Facebook) with its own vast audience and ecosystem would immediately launch its own app store, with its own payment model and revenue cut, its own exclusive titles, developer relationships, and (one assumes) its own vastly more liberal policy with respect to privacy-exploitative dark-pattern apps (notwithstanding that Apple's app store certainly doesn't restrict all such things). The sideloaded Facebook "app" would not simply be Facebook, but the Facebook App Store.

And where does that end? Google's got a bunch of apps like Gmail and Google Drive, so the Google Play Store for iOS would probably enter the ring too.

The point is more that if the App Store is to be the only App Store on iOS, and Apple wants to maintain its rules on privacy and other systems and not become Android, sideloading logically cannot be permitted.

> Furthermore, any big vendor (e.g. Facebook) with its own vast audience and ecosystem would immediately launch its own app store

And yet there is no precedent for this happening, because this didn't happen on Android, Windows or macOS. The Play Store shows the same scary privacy warnings the App Store does for Facebook, and there still isn't a Facebook app store that some people like to fearmonger about.

The Play Store cannot be compared to the iOS App Store, the Windows Store, or the macOS App Store because the iOS App Store is substantially more stringent than the Play Store in what apps are even allowed to request permission for, their sandboxing restrictions, and their privacy requirements. For example, Google gets more than 10X the data from their Android app than they get from their iOS app according to estimates. Also, Google Play only shows a request for Permissions, while iOS shows the entire list of what data is collected that is linked to you, and the data that is collected that is not linked to you, which means that the "scary privacy warnings" are substantially scarier on iOS and don't bear the comparison to the permissions-only Play Store.

If they can’t make a Facebook App Store in Android with its more open platform, how much more for iOS?

Steam?

I think the best example is... Epic Store itself. It is full of overpaid-for exclusives and has a huge feature disparity with Steam

Steam is older, so it's had time to grow the feature set that it needs, but it's not fundamentally different. Valve Software was a company that released games, before branching out into the much more profitable business of intermediating.

I'd argue that Epic has the opportunity see what features are out there, what is possible and what users want and could imitate Steam much quicker than it would've taken Steam to build the functionality originally.

Afterall, it was released in 2018.

What... the Epic store is the BIGGEST example of this. It is a shoddy game store compared to Steam and GOG. Epic paid for massive exclusives to make inroads into the PC gaming space and their product is full of dark patterns.

Others have mentioned Steam, and the lack of an equivalent to Apple’s latest tracking restrictions on Android.

But at the risk of pointing out the obvious: on Windows and macOS, there is no Facebook app at all. There’s a website, because somehow websites have become the standard for desktop applications, even as they’re simultaneously seen as unacceptable on mobile. And Facebook has full control over their website.

Of companies that do make native desktop apps, the big ones almost all eschew the Mac App Store.

Sounds like a proper marketplace.

Not really—with a marketplace, you can choose to buy a product from Store X, or from Store Y. In this future, you'll still have no choice which store you're buying a product from. Apps like Facebook aren't fungible. And if you want Facebook, you'll have to buy it from the Facebook Store, whether you want to or not.

…for publishers. Stores have to compete for software to publish but users don’t get any additional choice when Facebook is only available on the Facebook App Marketplace.

This is a little like exclusives at physical stores but customers have a much less involved relationship in that case.

> if they allowed sideloading, all of the big tech companies that compete with Apple would happily, immediately, force users to sideload their app.

Google allows sideloading on Android. Neither Facebook nor any other similarly-popular app that I can think of forces users to sideload there. Why would it be different on iOS?

> Why would it be different on iOS?

Facebook hasn't taken out any full page ads in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and probably others about Google Android not allowing them to track you without asking first. Clearly the circumstances are different.

Does Google currently provide the same abilities to block tracking as Apple?

Why does that matter? Why would Apple's technical features to block tracking suddenly stop working just because an app was sideloaded?

Comparing Facebook's decision to not side load on Android is not a comparable situation if the incentives to side load are not the same.

If an app finds a way around Apple's user privacy wall, in the App Store it can be pulled.

Not all of the tracking-blocking is technical, and those parts can't be technical, either.

Google play store is less restrictive than Apple’s.

With that said, I find the argument weak - it’s hard for me to believe that sideloading will be a big share of the market, as it hasn’t caught on in areas where a google is restrictive (e.g. adult content).

Not sure if that would be a panacea for Facebook in this case. Aren't the privacy controls built into the OS?

Not everything. The transparency prompt would still appear, but Facebook wouldn't need to show users that Privacy Label in the App Store. They could also access restricted iOS Entitlements that the App Store would not permit. These entitlements can do things such as "read data from other apps" or "see what apps are installed in the system" or other functionality that the App Store doesn't allow under almost any circumstances.

If sideloading was enabled, Facebook could claim use of those entitlements. iOS could potentially show a prompt forcing users to OK their use, but Facebook would obviously hope most people just tap the button without thinking.

further toward the ideal consumer outcome, the apple app store would be compelled to compete with any other ios app store (e.g., cydia) but apple would be allowed to be as stringent about security and privacy of the device as they’d like (promoting competition in the mobile phone market, in addition to the apps/app store market). then, facebook couldn’t circumvent the protections that consumers want in their mobile devices by hopping to another app store.

That's exactly right. Apple is the users' union that protects them from developers.

That's a great way to put it. Absent government bans on a bunch of the bad behavior Apple outlaws in its store, I'd really rather keep the choice of selecting Apple's "users' union".

When spying on users and hoarding the resulting data is illegal, and anti-fraud laws and truth-in-advertising laws and laws mandating a standard interface for subscription management exist or are much better-enforced, then, sure, let's grab the torches and pitchforks and burn down the App Store. Meanwhile, I'm paying Apple to be my private regulation agency, backed by their sheer size (as a company, and of their market) to prevent companies and developers from simply refusing to do business with them (and so, not forcing, but strongly encouraging them to provide me with regulation-compliant products and services).

This seems only partially accurate, in that the users have no say in their representation, unlike a union.

I honestly don’t get it. I thought that sideloading just concerns installation of the app, not accessing private APIs.

There is one thing I would like to expand upon in what you said:

> Apple is afraid of giving users the choice, as much as that large apps that people use will force users to make the choice for them.

That assumes that users have no choice but keep using the side loaded software. But that's not true. People could just stop using Facebook entirely.

I guess the majority wouldn't, but the choice is there at least.

In regards to privacy, I agree with Apple's stance. But what about other areas? I don't want one single company dictating what I can or can't use on my device.

"People could just stop using Facebook entirely."

If people are still using Facebook, today, knowing all that has happened, the odds are most people will continue using it though one can dream. I would honestly expect 90%+ of Facebook users to sideload if Facebook required it.

"But what about other areas? I don't want one single company dictating what I can or can't use on my device."

If you told this to an Apple Engineer, he'd look at you in the eye and tell you that the iPhone isn't for you and to buy an Android. You have that choice. The iPhone doesn't fit your use case and Apple isn't interested in making it fit your use case.

> If you told this to an Apple Engineer, he'd look at you in the eye and tell you that the iPhone isn't for you and to buy an Android.

Easy solution for Apple then: stop selling things labelled as "pro". I was already burned when I bought the 16 inch Macbook Pro, which was a shockingly incapable and undocumented device. Lenovo provides better documentation on their entry level laptops than Apple provides for their Pros, despite the order of magnitude difference in price between both devices. So to the "Apple Engineer" out there, I'd encourage you give people the choice anyways.

In other words, North Korea doesn't justify their atrocities by telling the rest of the world that their culture "isn't for them". Apple is no less accountable for their own product line, particularly when they're some of the most profitable electronic hardware being manufactured right now.

Comparing North Korea, a government, with a public company in a free society makes no sense and disrespects the real atrocities the North Korean people are experiencing, because you are comparing their suffering to problems you have with your laptop, which is appalling.

As for the term "pro" - nobody agrees what "pro" means. An art designer might do professional work on a MacBook Air, even though you wouldn't call that a "pro" machine. Although you might not like the terminology, you should have been able to research and know what you were getting, and it still absolutely does not bear the comparison to North Korea. First world problems compared to third world tyranny.

You just compared a company that sells a product to an autocratic regime…

That’s, a bit of a stretch.

> Easy solution for Apple then: stop selling things labelled as "pro".

Easy solution for you: Accept that its not for you, even if you think you're "pro". Its just a word for marketing. You're the one with a problem in search of solution, apple is not.

> If people are still using Facebook, today, knowing all that has happened, the odds are most people will continue using it though one can dream. I would honestly expect 90%+ of Facebook users to sideload if Facebook required it.

Why sideload when you can simply open it up in any mobile browser?

> If you told this to an Apple Engineer, he'd look at you in the eye and tell you that the iPhone isn't for you and to buy an Android. You have that choice. The iPhone doesn't fit your use case and Apple isn't interested in making it fit your use case.

See top comment

Right now: I can (I don't, but I could) use Facebook on iOS devices without giving them access to a bunch of stuff they'd love to have access to, or letting them do things I'd rather they not. Or I can choose not to use it.

Your vision: I can choose not to use Facebook on my iOS devices, or else use it but let FB have access to and/or do a bunch of stuff I don't want them to.

How's the latter something I'd prefer to the former? All it gives me is a worse version of the same to choices from the first one.

This isn't the case though. Anyone can install Facebook, or Apple music, Netflix, any of the Microsoft or Amazon apps on Android through the play store, without needing to sideload.

there is zero evidence this is true. none of those companies are asking users to sideload on Android.

Actually, there is much evidence. The Google Play Store is significantly less stringent on Android than iOS. For example, Google is estimated to get less than 1/10th the data from an iOS user as an Android user. The Play Store also, currently, doesn't effectively enforce the use of Google In-App-Purchase.

Because of that, there are less reasons to sideload away from the Play Store (from a company's perspective) as there are on iOS.

> The Play Store also, currently, doesn't effectively enforce the use of Google In-App-Purchase.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/28/google-to-enforce-30percent-...

Starting from September 30, that's no longer the case.