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Comment by Wowfunhappy | Hacker News Reader

I don’t understand why Epic isn’t releasing unsigned builds for Mac. Allowing an app through Gatekeeper is not any more difficult than sideloading an APK, and Epic seems perfectly happy to guide users through the latter.

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Epic admitted that their side-loading on Android didn't work for their customers when Epic put Fortnite on the Google Play Store. They tried to make it as easy as possible and still couldn't get enough users to do it.

Yes, but they’re still doing it now that Google kicked them off the play store. Why not follow the same strategy on Mac?

It could hardly be easier to do, just click the apk link and agree to the dialog box. The problem seems to be just that noone is looking for an app outside of the app stores.

One minor counter-example: to enable third-party apps on my Android-supporting Chromebook, I had to go through considerable contortions (1). It was not as easy as it is on typical Android devices.

1: Install Linux sub-system, install android-tools, wget the apk, and adb install it on the same host. Now I get a warning on the login page about 'unapproved apps'. It is not great.

Wait, WTF? You have to install the entire Linux subsystem to sideload APKs on a Chromebook that officially supports Android apps?

This is horrible!

I have a very clear line in the sand for this stuff. I don't mind Gatekeeper and SIP because if you know what you're doing, disabling them is painless, and you aren't punished for doing it. Disabling SIP doesn't add a constant watermark to the desktop, and the setting doesn't expire after a set amount of time or after updating. The OS says "okay, cool, you clearly know what you're doing so we'll get out of your way now," and I don't have to think about it again until I buy a new computer.

It was pretty bad - the Android sub-system does not seem to be available to external adb instances afaict. Also, this was a recent 'improvement': previous versions of ChromeOS required putting the device in dev mode to allow external apk installs.

Marketing strategy, same reason Epic had an ad campaign already ready.

i think epic is going to demonstrate a "real damage" taken from apple to them, thats why they are dealing with these limits and also do refund their players on iOS/macOS

On the other hand, Apple has a real unclean hands argument. Yeah, Apple is clearly harming Epic, but Epic willfully broke the terms of their contract, and Apple is allowed to walk away from the contract for any reason (or no reason), taking all of Epic's code signing permissions with them.

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