There's also the OS and other aspects of the walled garden that you must choose between an iPhone and some other flagship. I personally select for some perceived optimization of attributes such as "has Android" and "has good value for price" among other things. If Apple made a phone like that I might buy one. Unfortunately, all of their phones have iOS.
The wall is pretty low, when you download an apk and open it, it asks you if you want to unlock the gate. In earlier builds of Android, you had to find the setting yourself, which was at least a little harder.
I have no stats. Only my own annecdotal experience.
On Android 2.x, I remember apk download installs just failing, until you changed the settings; but everything else has been pretty easy. A Samsung KitKat phone I was using recently was even nice enough to have a 'allow just this app, or let it be wide open' checkbox.
About the only thing I sideload that's not on the play store is rooting toolkits, but sometimes it's convenient to get the APK another way (Google Play requires logging in to Google, which is hard to undo, for example)
This is cool, and much better than the impression I had from reading comments here.
I have frequently read that sideloading is impractical as a way to sidestep the store on Android when delivering software to consumers, but that sounds like it’s just wrong.
I don't think it's impractical, but it is more difficult.
Some users will be scared away by the warning text, and it's hard to prepare them with example dialogs, because there's such variation.
You'll need to build your own auto-update service, which (probably?) can't do delta updates like Play can. If you have a lot of users, and you can't dither the downloads[1], you may have a huge download peak.
If you have native libraries, off store downloads need to contain all the versions, but on store only downloads the arch appropriate ones.
If you make apks for download, people will archive them and make them available to others, even after they're obsolete. This happens with play store too, of course.
People who download your apk directly are also likely not to have play libraries or access to google etc. If your app depends on those things anyway, you're going to be missing functionality, or have to implement fallbacks for say, maps and push, etc.
People are still going to look for your app in the play store, so you probably want it there too; at least if it's not something that Google will disallow.
[1] Android really likes grouping background timers, so you will probably experience peaks at local X:00 for all of your users. And local X:00:08 for your users on networks with slightly off clocks
Nearly 100%, but you're comparing against the wrong devices. When I run a Linux router, I am not choosing at random from all the vendors. It's the same for my phone. I choose which one to use on purpose. Not only can I install my own apps, but I can install my own system as well. This lets me run devices from 2013 on the latest version of Android.
Answers below until I am no longer rate limited:
> Sure but almost nobody can do that because they didn’t make the same careful choice as you did.
What does that have to do with anything? Just because all iOS devices are bad and many Android devices are bad doesn't mean all devices are bad. I choose from the good devices.
> Also, you routinely make unsupported claims
Show me one unsupported claim I have made.
> you are going to say nearly 100%, you’ll need to show a source.
I have literally never seen an Android phone that does not allow sideloading. I have heard of many that do not allow unlocking the bootloader, but sideloading is standard. I can't provide a source because the idea that an Android phone would not allow sideloading is so absurd that nobody would bother explaining why it doesn't exist.
> it contradicts what others say when I suggest Android is an open alternative to iOS.
What have others said?
Edit 2 for the second post:
> Usually when I bring up sideloading as a reason why people should choose Android if they don’t like the restrictions of iOS, people claim that it is too hard for regular users to do because of the configuration required.
The OS takes the user to the settings checkbox to check. This has been true for as long as I can remember.
Sure but almost nobody can do that because they didn’t make the same careful choice as you did.
Also, you routinely make unsupported claims, so if you are going to say nearly 100%, you’ll need to show a source.
I’m happy to accept this as true by the way - I would like Android to have this level of openness, but it contradicts what others say when I suggest Android is an open alternative to iOS.
I’m not going to respond in general to your edited comment, since it is not what I replied to originally.
Editing a comment to get round a rate limit creates a misrepresentation of the thread your interlocutor was responding to.
I don’t mind waiting for you to be allowed to respond in the normal way.
Nobody is talking about Android phones ‘not allowing sideloading’.
The question is only about what percentage of phones allow a sideloaded app to be installed from the web just by responding to a dialog, rather than changing a configuration.
Usually when I bring up sideloading as a reason why people should choose Android if they don’t like the restrictions of iOS, people claim that it is too hard for regular users to do because of the configuration required.
I was responding to a comment which said this had changed and now it is much easier.
I don’t believe nearly 100% of users have this experience yet, but I am curious to know what the number actually is, because it matters for developers.
> people claim that it is too hard for regular users to do because of the configuration required.
Who are these people? The error message has always linked to the settings checkbox to allow installing the app. The only thing that has changed is which checkbox it links to because the settings for installing apps from unknown sources have changed. Here is a video of the way it used to be. I know that you're going to say that you don't believe video proof, but this is all I have for you.
I don’t need video proof for this. Other people are confirming it.
‘These people’ are generally replying to the suggestion that if people don’t like iOS because it it doesn’t allow sideloading, then why not buy Android?
From what you and others are saying, sideloading may not even be an appropriate term - you make it sound like you can just install software from the web on Android directly.
> Sideloading doesn’t refer to installing apps you have developed yourself.
If you can do one, you can trivially do the other. It's effectively the same feature to the end user. I develop my own apps and upload them to cloud storage to install them on all my devices.
> You can install your own app on your own iOS device without using the store, but you cannot distribute to end users.
My own devices and the devices of my friends and family are end users. I do not have to connect the devices to my computer. On iOS, you cannot do this without paying Apple yearly unless you want to deal with reinstalling every week.
> The two things are not one and the same.
They are enabled by the same mechanism. If you have one, you automatically have the other.
This is called “moving the goalposts”. It’s a kind of fallacy.
You said: “Hundreds. I develop apps for my own devices. This is supposed to be a forum for technologists.”
I said: Sideloading doesn’t refer to installing apps you have developed yourself.
You said: If you can do one, you can trivially do the other.
This is clearly not true. You can install apps you have developed yourself on your own iOS devices for free, but you cannot distribute them. They do expire, but you can certainly install and use them on your own devices.
So then you changed the goalposts to “My own devices and the devices of my friends and family are end users”.
Which is not what you originally said. You originally said “for my own devices”.
We agree that sideloading is about distributing software to end users. Not just your own devices.
The two are not one and the same mechanism. The fact that you had to change your qualifier shows this.
