Sideloading would enable bad actors to evade Apple’s privacy and security protections by distributing apps without critical privacy and security checks. These provisions would allow malware, scams and data-exploitation to proliferate.
As if malware, scams, and data-exploitation apps don’t already exist in the App Store. I would argue the opposite of what Apple is claiming, in fact. If some scammer was tricking people into installing a sideloaded app that stole all your data, word would get around, and the traffic pointing to that app would eventually die off. Instead, what we have are lots of crummy apps in the App Store, doing specious things, with Apple’s implicit blessing, with an overwhelmingly-spammed review score. And these things are stubborn.
This guy has made waves pointing out how widespread the problem is.
Apple’s recalcitrance around their walled garden smells funny to me. I get it. I mean, when there is literally no other option for people, you get to act as a middleman on every transaction. But how much money is enough for a company which vies to be the world largest market cap from month to month? Whatever that figure might be, they surely flew past it a long time ago.