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I don't understand how a social stigma would work for sideloading apps. It works for iMessage because it's a social product. But how would anyone else even know

I don't understand how a social stigma would work for sideloading apps. It works for iMessage because it's a social product. But how would anyone else even know if the apps on your phone were sideloaded or not?

Apocryphon 5y ago
Apple could easily put in UX to identify the apps as not from the App Store, similar to how green text bubbles signify non-iMessage messages. The very fact that the color differentiation exists has led to a bifurcation in texting, which has been discussed elsewhere, as in here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/ugh-green-bubbles-apples-imessage-makes-switching-to-android-hard-1539867600 https://www.wsj.com/articles/ugh-green-bubbles-apples-imessa... Apple is good at social psychology through product design, and it's not hard to imagine them employing similar methods to single out non-App Store apps on the phone to make them seem suspect for being less official. Less technically-savvy users will shy away from third party apps and sideloading if Apple's UI makes those apps seem scary. Thus, this can be a means for Apple to allow additional freedom while deterring most users from pursuing it, minimizing their potential exposure to third party insecurity.
- oarsinsync 5y ago
  The bifurcation isn’t caused by the colour of the bubbles. The colour doesn’t cause the stigma. The colours are simply used as a simple headline to represent all the differences and improvements that iMessage brings compared to traditional SMS/MMS. The costs of someone not participating in the “blue bubble ecosystem” are borne by all of the people trying to participate in the conversation. Unless the cost of my friend side loading an app is felt by me, the same stigma approach is unlikely to occur. Ironically, Game Center could have been that exact thing for gaming on iOS, if only they hadn’t mostly killed it off already.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    The colors are an important signifier of the second-class status of non-iMessage texts, though. So if there were similar UX around non-sideloaded apps, whether differently-formatted text or warning labels, they could also shape user attitudes towards those apps. To some extent you can already see this on desktop, when MacOS warns you about programs from unidentified developers and so forth.

Apocryphon 5y ago

Apple could easily put in UX to identify the apps as not from the App Store, similar to how green text bubbles signify non-iMessage messages. The very fact that the color differentiation exists has led to a bifurcation in texting, which has been discussed elsewhere, as in here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/ugh-green-bubbles-apples-imessage-makes-switching-to-android-hard-1539867600 https://www.wsj.com/articles/ugh-green-bubbles-apples-imessa... Apple is good at social psychology through product design, and it's not hard to imagine them employing similar methods to single out non-App Store apps on the phone to make them seem suspect for being less official. Less technically-savvy users will shy away from third party apps and sideloading if Apple's UI makes those apps seem scary. Thus, this can be a means for Apple to allow additional freedom while deterring most users from pursuing it, minimizing their potential exposure to third party insecurity.

oarsinsync 5y ago
The bifurcation isn’t caused by the colour of the bubbles. The colour doesn’t cause the stigma. The colours are simply used as a simple headline to represent all the differences and improvements that iMessage brings compared to traditional SMS/MMS. The costs of someone not participating in the “blue bubble ecosystem” are borne by all of the people trying to participate in the conversation. Unless the cost of my friend side loading an app is felt by me, the same stigma approach is unlikely to occur. Ironically, Game Center could have been that exact thing for gaming on iOS, if only they hadn’t mostly killed it off already.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  The colors are an important signifier of the second-class status of non-iMessage texts, though. So if there were similar UX around non-sideloaded apps, whether differently-formatted text or warning labels, they could also shape user attitudes towards those apps. To some extent you can already see this on desktop, when MacOS warns you about programs from unidentified developers and so forth.