That's fair, but it would seem that the entire set of problems related to Boot Camp have since gone away over time, and Apple's brand has been no worse for wear

That's fair, but it would seem that the entire set of problems related to Boot Camp have since gone away over time, and Apple's brand has been no worse for wear. (Though I'm not even sure how widespread Windows on Mac use is these days, and the Apple Silicon licensing issues would seem to pose a threat to that continued use. Yet I haven't seen any urgent fears about that lack of support.) At some point you're just going to have to expect users to grow and learn alongside the platform. Edit: I should also note that Apple is perfectly fine with taking credit, as product vendor, for content that they are hosting on one of their apps, but not actually producing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30191126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30191126 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apple-podcasts/id525463029 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/apple-podcasts/id525463029 2nd Edit: > No amount of disclaimers, not taking responsibility or sign tapping I've also wondered about that. Apple is a master of UX patterns. The whole green vs. blue message bubbles alone has become a social/cultural signifier. Let's say the UX was similarly tweaked if a user had sideloading enabled, maybe an unsightly header. If there were similar color filters or distinguishing UI that specified installed apps as not from the App Store. Wouldn't that be enough to create user behavior to distinguish between "official" App Store apps and sideloaded ones? Emergent behavior will arise from simple prodding. The green/blue division is real.