this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
241 points (96.9% liked)
Technology
59605 readers
3403 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
IPAs are the iOS equivalent of APKs. As long as you don't sideload over 3 apps (which is actually 2 if you want to avoid having to connect your device to your computer every week, and even less if you have apps that do things other than being apps), you can sideload IPAs.
Google made GitHub take down all the downloads but not the repositories themselves.
Wait a sec. Apple allows sideloading but only 3 apps, otherwise you need to connect to a PC on a weekly basis? What for?
Apple has always allowed side loading just not as a method of mainstream distribution.
App developers use it all the time and not just on their own devices, it's also used to beta test apps.
There area few different ways it can be done with varying limitations. But in general it is absolutely possible to install apps outside of the App Store. In fact side-loading has been around since before the App Store even existed.
Almost anyone (except Tim Sweeney) can register for a developer account. And in fact you don't even need to, since most people who side-load are testers not developers. Developers can deploy a pre-release build of their app to up to ten thousand regular iPhone owners bypassing the app store entirely.
I have no idea what they're talking about with "only 3 apps". As an iOS developer I've got countless side loaded apps on my iPhone. Some of them are test builds of my own apps, some of them are test builds of other people's apps, some of them are hobby projects where I've slapped together an app in a weekend — not good enough for public distribution but it works for me and I've been using them for years.
The current method for sideloading apps without a developer account seems to be limited to three separate apps at a time.
You need to pay a lot for a dev account
$99/year is a lot of you’re just doing it to side load. If you’re using all the tools available, it’s not that much.
they probably just want to make it as inconvenient as possible
Hobbyist development.
Not sure if this has changed for free due to EU regulation.