The age of alternative App Stores is coming
That is, if this U.S. bill gets signed (the Senate Judiciary Committee just approved it.)
This would force Apple and Google to allow many things. Sideloading is one of them:
It would enable sideloading, a process by which iPhone and iPad users would be able to use alternate app stores or other means to install apps on their devices outside of the App Store.
Is the age of alternative App Stores coming? Will this create an opportunity-of-a-lifetime for indie hackers with marketplace experience?
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I doubt it. 99% of users will still be perfectly content using the App Store and can't be bothered with alternatives.
As an analogy, PWAs have been available on Android for years, and people have tried to make PWA app stores and marketplaces, and none of those have taken off.
That said, I do think it's a good thing to provide alternatives for users, and I'm glad this legislation seems to be happening.
I sure hope that more are coming - as convenient as it is having everything in the one place I understand that a lot of developers are losing out on a lot of upside purely because of the platform dynamics at play with the App Store and Google Play. Will be interesting to see if that mostly happens in the current mobile setting (as the bill proposes) or if we have to wait for wider adoption of new tech (like the Ethereum 'app store' for web3) for this to be stamped out at the beginning.
App stores like ApkMirror, ApkPure and many more available for Android But it doesn't affect popularity of Play Store.
People likes to install apps from official marketplace because of security issues in 3rd party stores.
That would be awesome, I am sick of all the monopoly and control these companies are doing to users .. I am using F-Droid for android
Are there any 'alternative' app stores for Apple already?
I know that Cydia has an app store if you jailbreak your iPhone.