About to consider iPhone for the first time. Looks like I'm sticking with Android.
Apple is doing what we call "Kicking and screaming like a child".
Eventually they'll have to open up everywhere, but for now they're only doing it where legally required.
Luckily the first year or so won't be useful, just interesting. Eventually someone is going to find a way to make money in this space and the countries listed will have the appropriate politicians bribed and it will open up. Sadly that's probably another 2-5 years away.
You still can’t sideload apps? (Signed, an EU citizen)
I can, cause I don't have an iPhone
For context (I had to google this myself,) sideloading is installing an app not from the app store.
It's kind of crazy to me that we've gotten to the point where people don't understand that things can be installed on computers from places other than the "official app store".
Like, if you use Windows, you are "sideloading" all the time. Anytime you install something that didn't come from the Microsoft store, which is a fair amount of popular software.
Because that's how this shit is supposed to work. You have a computer, that you own, and the ultimate authority over what goes on that computer lies with you, the owner, and no one else. If it can run on the computer, you run it, and no one can tell you no.
But these tech companies have so thoroughly trained so many tech illiterate people and an entire generation of young users into accepting the locks and restrictions all around them as the norm. They'll punish you for even attempting to break those locks and use the computer you paid for the way you fucking want. It's really fucking sad there isn't more hard pushback on this.
I often forget that the Windows store exists.
