Since this is really intended to make developing iOS apps more accessible, it requires resigning or rebuilding apps. Since iDOS is open source, that should be no problem here - you can compile and install your own copy, likely just by loading the upstream project in Xcode and deploying it your iDevice like app developers do. A usability problem is that apps installed this way are only runnable for a week [0], at which point the signature must be refreshed or iOS will refuse to open the app.
AltStore [1] is a project that streamlines this ordeal as much as possible. It’s an alternate app store that allows you to install a bunch of open source apps not allowed in the app store (e.g. apps using permissions that would be rejected, or game console emulators). It also comes with a server component that uses Apple’s frameworks on Mac/Windows to refresh those apps’ validity on iDevices on the same network. If you regularly connect your iDevice to a network with an AltServer of your own, the apps should continue to work.
It’s certainly not pretty, and very far removed from fare more open Android devices, but workarounds to run your own software on iDevices do exist. There’s an entire subreddit, r/sideloaded, dedicated to this apparently mostly for piracy purposes.
[0]: Unless you pay for the Apple Developer Program, which has much longer limits. This limit is for free accounts.
[1]: https://altstore.io/
Lately Apple started mandating that apps like telegram or discord must make it impossible for iPhone users to see nsfw content, which has tipped the balance towards android for me. For the first time in many years I'm using an Android phone. But as I said, one of all the factors to consider.
[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apollo-for-reddit/id979274575
The largest loophole still is probably Enterprise Distribution, which allows high-limits (long time, many devices) signing associated with an Enterprise account.
Some of them are children. Some need or prefer Apple's locked in stuff (iMessage.) Not to mention Android is a slow burning trash fire.
I've seen so many ignorant comments like this about iOS lately I'm on the fence about deleting my HN account. I think I'd be happier, and all the people here who keep defending Apple's abuse would be happier.
There are also people offering to sign you app with an enterprise certificate for a fee in the more dodgy corners of the internet but Apple is known to crack down on those once in a while as this obviously goes outside their ToS.
If the app isn't open-source, you don't have any great options. Hypothetically, compiled apps from other developers can be re-signed just like apps you build yourself (see AltStore [1], which uses this technique), but those apps are still time-bombed and have to be periodically refreshed. The barrier to entry means you don't see a ton of apps around that do this; if something can't be compliant with App Store rules, it generally doesn't get made on iOS.
(There's also jailbreaking, and there used to be a decently-large community of developers building applications and tweaks for jailbroken iOS devices. That's gotten smaller both as Apple's made jailbreaking more difficult to maintain, and as new features in iOS have made much of the functionality people used to jailbreak for redundant.)
All of the "alternative" stores and distribution methods work with this mechanism, there is no better way and it is completely at Apple's whims.
Really, most interested users probably gave up at this point, looking at the decaying Jailbreak ecosystem.
IMO this shouldn't be legal.
Even just for coding, that sounds awful to me. iOS users bought a mobile device, and particularly if they're on an iPad Pro, a mobile device with a really good processor. For me, part of that would be being able to treat it like a mobile device, that it should keep working if I drive through a tunnel, that I should be able to use it on the go.
Hard for me to wrap my head around people being satisfied with "ignore that you have a well-built device with interesting sensors in front of you, and instead just use it as a thin client to another functioning computer."
There are cheaper thin clients out there than an iOS device if someone is OK ignoring their native hardware, doing all of their programming through a terminal, and having functionality break if their device goes offline.
Sent from my iPhone
I got an iPhone because it does what it does well, and doesn't do other things at all.
iPhones are slick, costly and secure, at the cost of not being malleable.
It's a trade-off I made at purchase time and I know most users of both iPhone and Android never considered that tradeoff.
Where is the next generation of developers going to come from, if they grow up on iPads?
But I feel the same towards Apples stance on server hardware, which they discontinued over a decade ago: Even if servers don't make a sizeable profit on their own, they help ensure that developers can build large scale stuff inside the apple ecosystem.
Yet, that hasn't really been the hindrance I feel it ought to have been.
It's only shortsighted because they lock it down. It's got the same M1 hardware (if slightly less powerfull IIRC), and you can get an official keyboard+trackpad (and many third party ones), so the only thing that really keeps it from being a PC is their software installation policy that locks what can be run.[1]
1: Well, and also their policy of only allowing iOS to run on the hardware. This would be less of an issue if you could throw Linux, or even just Android on them. I'm sure Microsoft would be happy to ship an M1 ARM version of windows if they had hardware that would allow it to run.
Users that want the choice can choose. Devs that want the choice can choose. You can stay in your walled garden. And considering the uptake of alternate app stores on Android this seems like FUD to me.
If they had the option of going to a less restrictive store, they probably would, and they would do things I am not happy with there. That would be a loss for me.
I think you’re underestimating the power of defaults. App developers know that the vast majority of users will not install an alternative app store, even if the platform allows them to. For proof, see the Android app ecosystem. There has been no migration from Google’s Play Store. There isn’t even a hint of store fragmentation. What you see is: 1) some OEMs run their own stores, which mostly rehost apps from Google’s store. These stores are not meant to be installed by arbitrary Android devices, so there is no chance that a user might feel compelled to install the store on their device. 2) F-Droid exists to host FOSS apps, some of which violate some asinine Google policy and as such are exclusive, but most of which are also available on the Play Store.
Basically, we have strong real-world evidence that allowing sideloading does not create app store fragmentation. If you want to argue against sideloading from a security standpoint, you’d be better served with the “sideloading allows an abusive spouse to install a keylogger/tracker on their partner’s phone” narrative.
My windows phone would get unplugged at 9am, and I’d party until the sun came up. Pretty much everything was disabled by then (by the battery saver), but I could still call a cab. Everyone’s iPhone was an expensive paperweight until someone located a charger.
I do agree with your statement today. iPhones have gotten markedly better at being a phone first and computing device second. It’s still got a ways to go, but my phone isn’t dead at 2am with battery saver on.