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Comment by balls187 | Hacker News Reader

> I'm genuinely interested in hearing from people who believe that Apple

I'm old. I like that I can generally trust installing apps on my phone because Apple vets them. It is one less thing for me to think about.

Likewise, I have young children. I also like that I can generally install an age appropriate app for them, because Apple's vetting process. Again one less thing for me to think about.

On the flip side, I banned the kids youtube app, until Google came down hard and removed ads and started moderating videos aimed at kids. Prior to that, it's algorithm was serving up highly questionable content to kids. Now, I feel more confident letting my kids watch videos on Kids Youtube (though I typically have the sound off...)

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But the question is why you shouldn't be able to sideload an app at all. Having a curated store is pretty cool, and you can have that while also letting users install their own apps manually (even with barriers, making it as hard as they like).

Just refuse to buy an IPhone and buy only android phones. It is not like you don't have an option. But for me and a lot of people, apple's walled garden is a feature, not a bug. I don't see why apple should be forced to change it just because YOU don't like it, when it is not like you're forced to have an iOS device.

Apple's stance was (IIRC from my days as a mobile dev--it may have since changed) was instead of side-loading of apps, that there is the web, and people would be free to utilize webapps.

ios Safari puts in place some limitation (sandboxing, constraint device apis) to guard against malicious actors, but it is not curated the same way ios App Store is.

Developers only put up with the curated app store because it's the only option. If there was an alternative, major companies would mostly choose to bypass the app store, leaving it a barren wasteland like the Mac app store.

If Apple allowed sideloading but went out of their way to make it obnoxious enough that everything which could be would still go through the app store, you'd just have all of the exact same complaints about how Apple is deliberately making things painful for users.

But that's not the case at all with Android and has never been. I don't think any of that would happen, the vast majority seems to stick with the default app store, while the rare technical user who wants to sideload has the freedom to do so, everyone wins.

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