> If you don't hate Apple, why don't you just buy an Android device
I do use an Android device, and once the Linux community makes a usable option, I'll switch to their phone. There are two sides to this, the developer perspective and the user perspective.
As a user, I already benefit tremendously from the ability to sideload apps on Android, the FDroid store is fantastic and offers much stricter curation than Google Play. My only annoyance is that I feel like I'm captive on Android -- I can't switch away to other ecosystems without giving up my freedom. This means that Android doesn't really have to compete with anyone else to keep me locked into the ecosystem, which is frustrating.
As a developer, I think that Apple engages in anticompetitive behavior that locks users into their ecosystem and that forces developers to agree to arduous terms to publish on their devices.
> and the fact that she can't be phished into side-loading the same.
I apologize, I should have used a word other than 'stupid' when I was describing your position. It was dismissive and rude of me to refer to people who don't have technical training using that kind of language. You're right to call me out on that.
But I do understand the underlying argument -- you think the average consumer (including your grandmother) doesn't have the technical training and inclination to avoid malware or follow security best-practices. I disagree with that argument, but I do understand it.
To address really quickly why I disagree with that:
> As long as side loading is a thing, malicious actors will trick some users into side loading malware.
There's a weird double-standard here where we believe that your grandmother was fully informed enough to opt into a locked-down walled garden of her own volition, but that she isn't fully informed enough to stay in that garden of her own volition.
It is very difficult to protect people against their will. If consumers are informed enough that we assume they know the consequences of tying all of their payment information to Apple, of tying all of their sign-ins to Apple, of opting into this restrictive world, then we should also assume they're informed enough to stay in that world.
I'm not against walled gardens, I'm against walled gardens that lock from the outside. My feeling is that if you're doing a good job of protecting people, and they want you to protect them, then you shouldn't need to force them to accept your protection.
I don't believe it's a difficult challenge to make sideloading obvious and to put obvious warnings in front of it. I've never been worried that one of my parents will accidentally sideload an app on Android. I wouldn't suddenly start worrying about my family members on iPhone just because a new setting appeared somewhere deep in the device. I've already had the conversation with my family members about the dangers of going outside of official software sources.
There are so many strategies we could use to address the problem you have without being anticompetitive. We could set you up as a device administrator and allow you to choose whether or not sideloading is allowed. We could make the UI around sideloading clearer for nontechnical people. We could go the Web route and make sandboxing better. The point is, we have options here. It's not, "everyone downloads malware" or "nobody can install anything that's not Apple-approved." There are ways that we can allow people to own their devices without forcing them to get a security degree to administer them.
> Why are you forcing your desires on us?
I don't think I am. Nobody's talking about forcing anybody to sideload anything. You can choose what store you install software from. To bring up the FDroid example, you could even restrict yourself to a much more heavily curated app store than what Apple is offering. You could have a more limited app store with better security than Apple's official store.
But you don't have to do anything, you could also run stock iOS and never sideload a single app.
I mentioned above that I do understand and sympathize with the people who claim, "that only works because Apple is a monopoly and apps like Facebook have to release on the official store". They're worried that without the monopoly status, Apple won't be able to bully apps like Facebook into being at least mildly private. I disagree with that argument, I don't think it holds up once you dig into it, but it's not an unreasonable point for someone to bring up.
But beyond that, there is no requirement that your grandmother start sideloading apps. I'm not trying to force your grandmother to do anything.
> You can already side load on Android yet Epic is suing Google right alongside Apple.
Eh... I think you're misinformed here. Epic is suing Google for entirely separate reasons -- they're suing Google because Google threatened manufacturers who were going to include an Epic store. Apple/Google are different cases with different grievances, and people shouldn't compare them.
> Remember when you stopped trusting that a product on amazon.com was actually sold by Amazon?
But the web payments API wasn't the reason that happened. The existence of Stripe or Ebay did not make Amazon worse. Amazon's refusal to clearly label products and curate their own store made Amazon worse. In the same way, FDroid isn't the reason why the Google Play store is filled with malware. Google Play moderation has nothing to do with sideloading.
If we want to talk about Amazon in the context of locked-down devices and ecosystems, remember when their restrictions around DRM on their storefronts allowed them to bully the entire publishing industry into submission on prices and neuter both the ebook market and the audiobook market?
> they want you to pay for someone else's code through Epic's store without paying a cut to Apple. That's it.
I don't see a realistic outcome where Epic is allowed to distribute its own store on iOS and nobody else is. I don't think the world you're concerned about there exists. Having multiple storefronts is effectively the same thing as allowing sideloading; other 3rd-party storefronts by companies other than Epic will pop up over time.