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I mean, I don't know if I'd call it "hysteria", but people have been sideloading alternative app stores on the iPhone for about as long as the iPhone has been a

I mean, I don't know if I'd call it "hysteria", but people have been sideloading alternative app stores on the iPhone for about as long as the iPhone has been around haven't they? I remember when I first got an iPod Touch in 2009, the first thing I did was jailbreak it and install Cydia so I could get emulators working on there. Now I have always been a pretty geeky person, so I'm not claiming that I'm the "norm", but I would argue that there's always been some demand for alternative app stores. There are plenty of apps that people want to install the Apple clutches their pearls at (e.g. nearly anything with adult content). As I've said in other threads, it's not as horrible as Microsoft in the 90s, because it's not difficult to buy an Android phone, your life won't really be made worse by buying a decent Android phone, but I would still argue that Apple's actions are anti-competitive.

NoPicklez 3y ago
I agree, I had also jailbroken my iPhone back in 2010 with Cydia. However I used that to unlock the springboard and change app icons etc, for me it was a bit of a gimmick with a fair amount of risk involved. I would say if you looked at it percentage wise, it would be an incredibly small number of iPhone owners that jailbroke their devices to sideload apps. I think you can argue that there might always be some demand, but that doesn't mean it needs to happen. My point is back when the app store was released developers went wild that there was this publishing place they could put their apps. The iPhone in 2010 was responsible for 99.4% of all mobile app downloads. And by 2010 there were around 30,000 apps & games in the app store. Going back and reading articles about the app store between 2009 and 2012, there isn't negative discussion around the fees associated with the app store or anti-competitive behavior. There wasn't outrage over only being able to download apps through the iPhone store. There was discussion however about companies building their own Android based app stores, but those failed shortly after.

NoPicklez 3y ago

I agree, I had also jailbroken my iPhone back in 2010 with Cydia. However I used that to unlock the springboard and change app icons etc, for me it was a bit of a gimmick with a fair amount of risk involved. I would say if you looked at it percentage wise, it would be an incredibly small number of iPhone owners that jailbroke their devices to sideload apps. I think you can argue that there might always be some demand, but that doesn't mean it needs to happen. My point is back when the app store was released developers went wild that there was this publishing place they could put their apps. The iPhone in 2010 was responsible for 99.4% of all mobile app downloads. And by 2010 there were around 30,000 apps & games in the app store. Going back and reading articles about the app store between 2009 and 2012, there isn't negative discussion around the fees associated with the app store or anti-competitive behavior. There wasn't outrage over only being able to download apps through the iPhone store. There was discussion however about companies building their own Android based app stores, but those failed shortly after.