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>But I can’t help but view this as double-speak for: “we at Apple enjoy our App Store profits and don’t want to see those reduced, user-be-damned.”

I miss the days of Steve Jobs Apple.

Yes. The thing I dont understand is why they didn't break out Gaming into Game Store. And let App Store operate on 10% commission. Where the App Store only operate on automated security checks.( I dont even know how they curate gaming. When most of the freemium Games are 2 min Game play with 1 min Ads)

The vast majority ( 80%+ ) of App Store revenue are Gaming. That one single step would have protected Apple's bottom line.

But this stuff is a direction continuation of his policies. Tim Cook was clearly picked to be a safe pair of hands - Jobs would have been making the exact same arguments in the exact same way.

It was certainly the right policy in Steve Jobs era. But is it the right policy now? As a matter of fact Jobs fought internally for side loading. Even Phil Schiller argued they should run it a lower commission once they reach critical mass. And Tim Cook is looking at it as a lost of revenue only. This was also apparent when Tim Cook decide to start a whole 5+ years operation to undermine Qualcomm ( and later IMG and Dialog), something that Steve Jobs thought was worth it.

Jobs would have listened and rethink. Jobs is great for changing his mind. Tim Cook is taking a few of Steve Jobs last policy as gospel and counting pennies. ( Which is a good thing as a COO, not so much as an CEO ) In many ways Tim Cook feels more like John Sculley.

Sideloading is always panned under the guise of security. It's all bs.

* If the devices were secure enough, we could run untrusted code with no consequences. Like practically every website on the planet

* If side loading was so dangerous every windows and Linux machine would be filled with viruses.

* Apple and Google claim their app stores are "safe" from malicious apps. This is clearly not the case.

The app has to declare permissions before it's launched their 'nutrition' label could be shown based on that. The only, debatably, valid part of this argument is those apps can't be vetted by apple for user safety before installation the same way apps on the app store are.

> I’m not familiar with side loading on Android, so I don’t know how much that has affected its ecosystem and security. I installed F-Driod yesterday on a new Nokia Android Phone. It requires you to confirm that you are happy to run the untrusted app, and away you go.

I guess a non-technical person could be tricked into performing the steps over the phone by a scam-artist...which is always the danger with these things.

The App Store profits and user privacy are two different issues. It's not all doublespeak:

Since an i-device is restricted to Apple's app store it's Apple who can make the call what kind of app behaviour is permitted. They communicate this very clearly and sell devices where the user can expect apps don't try to deceive them. (yes, this is fallible, but the App store is curated and offenders can be and are removed).

Allowing sideloaded apps will make it very easy to break these promises since users don't read the small print and will install whatever social app their friends are using. Already Facebook has expressed disagreement about the new app privacy labels, so I fully expect them to jump to sideloading as soon as Apple allows this (or is forced to allow this).

Consequence is users have no choice then to install Facebook apps from a non-privacy respecting source since there will be no messaging apps with privacy guarantees on the app store. At the least Facebook will have more leverage to press for less user protection. I see this as a loss for users (like myself). I like having at least a bit of privacy protection and until there are other ways to guarantee this I will accept the App store model as the lesser evil.

The iPad will never be a true “pro” device until any arbitrary code can be run on it without paying $99 per year to Apple for the privilege (Apple Developer Program).

I highly doubt any issues with security of the Android ecosystem in general have anything to do with side loading.