6 ms·

That's an alternative market, not sideloading.

Gigachad 2y ago
Side loading already exists. You can do it yourself in any country right now, it’s just restricted to packages you signed yourself, and they have to be resigned every few days. Implementing this should just be turning off those two restrictions.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Those restrictions are pretty horrible though. Especially the every few days thing. They're not useful for practical use. I used to have iOS and I was even a developer but I left when jailbreaking became more and more difficult. But with the EU thing apple also introduced a tax on app publishers, even FOSS ones. I imagine they'll want to do the same in Brazil.
  - Gigachad 2y ago
    What I’m saying is that this isn’t some huge engineering effort required in 90 days, the core functionality already exists but with artificial limitations. Complying with the law would just be removing the limits rather than having to build something.
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      Ah but that was my original point as well. Though the developer functionality is not something really similar to what they need to offer here. It's more similar to what they do in the EU. You can't expect every user to mess around with xcode to sign their sideloaded apps. Many won't even have a mac.
- xethos 2y ago
  So I can build, sign, and install an app on iOS without paying Apple $100 every year for the privilege of running my own code? Can I install my own app from a country that's under sanctions, and will not allow VISA payments to be made to Apple? Because that's the requirement here. I'm not after "Here's the paid workaround", I'm asking about building and running my own software, without a fee, like one can do on Android, Linux (or Linux Mobile), MacOS, Windows, or (IIRC), Windows fucking Mobile. You can't say "Sideloading is available (for a small ongoing fee)", because that's not what anyone asking about sideloading is talking about
  - piperswe 2y ago
    You don't have to pay to run your own apps on your own devices, as long as you're OK with re-installing them weekly
    - xethos 2y ago
      That feels to me like Spotify saying you don't own the music, you paid for a license to listen to the music; to verify the license is still valid, you must connect to the internet periodically. In this case, you do not own, or even control, the software you wrote or the device it's running on, and you must re-install it weekly. In my opinion, sideloading should completely bypass thr manufacturer. I do not need to email Linus to ask if I may run software on my Linux Mobile device, or Cook to run software on a Mac. To call Apple's allowances sideloading feels disingenuous to me, because of how many asterisks there are attached to it. And I'm not even touching on the requirement that one support Apple's hardware business, either by directly buying from Apple, or keeping second-hand devices valuable and in-demand due to the development environment running exclusively on MacOS.
      - musicale 2y ago
        > I do not need to email Linus to ask if I may run software on my Linux Mobile device, or Cook to run software on a Mac. iOS follows the game console model (even though the iPhone is a "smartphone" with additional non-game features). Games are responsible for something like 70% of iOS app store revenue, which Apple taxes via its platform fees, which are comparable to game console platform fees. Unlicensed games are, of course, the killer app for sideloading on game consoles. IIRC free developer provisioning used to last up to a year or so (?), but Apple reduced it to a week after someone created a competing app store or web site that distributed unlicensed commercial games (as well as other software) by leveraging developer provisioning. (IIRC Sony analogously killed off Linux for PS3 once someone figured out how to leverage it to run unlicensed commercial games.) If you pay $100/year for an official Apple Dev account I think you can still get one year provisioning. This probably won't make you or anyone on HN happy, but it does exist.
- ycombinatrix 2y ago
  You need to pay for a developer license, and you can have at most 3 temporary apps at a time. That's not sideloading.

Side loading already exists. You can do it yourself in any country right now, it’s just restricted to packages you signed yourself, and they have to be resigned every few days. Implementing this should just be turning off those two restrictions.

wkat4242 2y ago
Those restrictions are pretty horrible though. Especially the every few days thing. They're not useful for practical use. I used to have iOS and I was even a developer but I left when jailbreaking became more and more difficult. But with the EU thing apple also introduced a tax on app publishers, even FOSS ones. I imagine they'll want to do the same in Brazil.
- Gigachad 2y ago
  What I’m saying is that this isn’t some huge engineering effort required in 90 days, the core functionality already exists but with artificial limitations. Complying with the law would just be removing the limits rather than having to build something.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Ah but that was my original point as well. Though the developer functionality is not something really similar to what they need to offer here. It's more similar to what they do in the EU. You can't expect every user to mess around with xcode to sign their sideloaded apps. Many won't even have a mac.
xethos 2y ago
So I can build, sign, and install an app on iOS without paying Apple $100 every year for the privilege of running my own code? Can I install my own app from a country that's under sanctions, and will not allow VISA payments to be made to Apple? Because that's the requirement here. I'm not after "Here's the paid workaround", I'm asking about building and running my own software, without a fee, like one can do on Android, Linux (or Linux Mobile), MacOS, Windows, or (IIRC), Windows fucking Mobile. You can't say "Sideloading is available (for a small ongoing fee)", because that's not what anyone asking about sideloading is talking about
- piperswe 2y ago
  You don't have to pay to run your own apps on your own devices, as long as you're OK with re-installing them weekly
  - xethos 2y ago
    That feels to me like Spotify saying you don't own the music, you paid for a license to listen to the music; to verify the license is still valid, you must connect to the internet periodically. In this case, you do not own, or even control, the software you wrote or the device it's running on, and you must re-install it weekly. In my opinion, sideloading should completely bypass thr manufacturer. I do not need to email Linus to ask if I may run software on my Linux Mobile device, or Cook to run software on a Mac. To call Apple's allowances sideloading feels disingenuous to me, because of how many asterisks there are attached to it. And I'm not even touching on the requirement that one support Apple's hardware business, either by directly buying from Apple, or keeping second-hand devices valuable and in-demand due to the development environment running exclusively on MacOS.
    - musicale 2y ago
      > I do not need to email Linus to ask if I may run software on my Linux Mobile device, or Cook to run software on a Mac. iOS follows the game console model (even though the iPhone is a "smartphone" with additional non-game features). Games are responsible for something like 70% of iOS app store revenue, which Apple taxes via its platform fees, which are comparable to game console platform fees. Unlicensed games are, of course, the killer app for sideloading on game consoles. IIRC free developer provisioning used to last up to a year or so (?), but Apple reduced it to a week after someone created a competing app store or web site that distributed unlicensed commercial games (as well as other software) by leveraging developer provisioning. (IIRC Sony analogously killed off Linux for PS3 once someone figured out how to leverage it to run unlicensed commercial games.) If you pay $100/year for an official Apple Dev account I think you can still get one year provisioning. This probably won't make you or anyone on HN happy, but it does exist.
ycombinatrix 2y ago
You need to pay for a developer license, and you can have at most 3 temporary apps at a time. That's not sideloading.