Sideloading with iOS 17.4: any use cases?
It’s been a few weeks now since the release of iOS 17.4, which
[…] provides new options for app marketplaces, web browsers and payments for residents of the European Union. […]
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a firm believer in the underlying regulation to it, and have been ever since the possibility of this becoming a reality was in the Brussels air. But so far, I haven’t really been able to come up with a truly practical use case.
Furthermore, I haven’t seen any marketing for an Epic Store, Meta Store, or similar “app marketplaces”, but this may be attributed to the still rather… wobbly legal situation surrounding, notably, still having to direct payments to Apple while not using their store for app distribution. I don’t think there has been any follow-up from Apple (or the EU) that retracts these conditions.
So: Have any fellow EU resident ~tech’ies done anything fun or interesting with this new freedom yet?
To those not affected by this regulation, what would you like to “sideload”, or are perhaps already sideloading on Android?
Do any of you think big companies will move their entire palette onto an alternative store anytime soon, e.g. Facebook and sister products? To be honest, I doubt this will happen, otherwise it would’ve long occurred on the Google Play Store as well.
My ideas were:
- I’ve thought about trying to install Minecraft (the full version, probably using Pojav), or a game of similar caliber, on my phone just for fun and to see how well the iPhone GPU really fares against a “real” game, but didn’t find the time yet for looking into it.
- Also personally, I’d love to see a real “root-capable” shell on iOS, but I don’t think that will ever be a thing irrespective of how much sideloading Apple is forced to allow into their OS.
I sideload a version of Twitter app with the BHTwitter tweak to remove ads and bots, and the bird icon still there. And versions of YouTube and Discord with tweaks. Plus an old app that allows me to erase the cache of various apps.
Recently I got into Altstore sideloading to be able to play Balatro on my iPad before the official port is done.
https://github.com/blake502/balatro-mobile-maker
As far as other stuff in AltStore, Pojavlauncher is also available as well as UTM, which is a fullblown virtual machine for iOS, which is probably about as close to a shell as you're going to get on this device.
https://getutm.app/
There's also the Emulator aspect, Dolphin might be a little too new of a console to be considered retro, but it also would require JIT compiling to be useful on iOS so its only on sidestores. Anything that would require that level of metal processing, or would "replicate Apple functionality" or if someone wanted to set up the equivalent of F-Droid, you would need to go outside the App Store.