this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
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If apps are offered on both App Store and 3rd party app store, I see no problem.
It’s only when developers start pulling their apps out of the App Store and exclusively into their own app stores that it begins to crack. Hear me out.
Sideloading is a niche setting for the technologically literate. The average consumer downloads apps from either the App Store or the Play Store, because this is the most convenient and easiest to understand.
We don’t have a Meta Store on Android because there’s no incentive for Zuck to build one. Why? Because only Android allows sideloading, they have to go through the App Store on iOS. It will be a terrible user experience on Android if they pull their apps from the Play Store and onto the Meta Store exclusively, and probably push some people to buy iPhones instead.
But if we start allowing 3rd party app stores on iPhone, there’s now a huge incentive. They can make a Meta Store and put FB, Insta, WhatsApp, Oculus app, etc. on it, and pull it out of both App Store and Play Store.
Now, Meta can say, whichever phone you buy, you’ll still need to download the Meta Store.
Technically, they could do that now already. It would just be a single "Meta app" available in all stores, which has in-app purchases for extra features, such as FB, Insta, WhatsApp, Oculus, etc.
They didn't do it in the last 5 years, so there isn't really a reason to think that sidloading is the one thing that is preventing them from doing it now.
The way you explained it sounds like you open the “Meta app” and inside, you have tabs for each service? And then these services open within the same app? I might be wrong but doesn’t this violate App Guidelines?
Even the Microsoft 365 app shows you Outlook or Teams in the “Apps” section, but launching them from there still opens the individual apps for Outlook or Teams.