As a user of both iOS and Android, I don’t think this is a bad choice.
Sideloading doesn’t mean everyone is gonna download .ipa from sketchy websites and then causing the phone to go nuts or something like that. I think for the majority of iOS users won’t even care about this feature at all. One benefit I can think of is that you don’t have to switch or create a new account to download apps from other regions such as gamers who want to play games from Japan or Korea or China. Another that I can think is to rollback the update of apps in case the newer version got bugged or have issue with it.
Even for Android users, like me, most of us didn’t blindly download apps whether from Play Store or sideloading it. It’s only a fringe case and most of the “malware” apps that were on Play store, historically, are utilities apps like gallery, pic editing, note and stuff that most already have included in nearly every the brands from stock android like google to bloated like MIUI. So calling Android as “malware-ridden” is very much like calling iOS as “OS for brain dead people”. It doesn’t have to always be like that.
I think even the majority of Android users don’t agree with this EU regulation. As I said, it’s already a fringe case for people to sideload the apps despite Android already having like 5-6 trustworthy app stores. So I don’t see this as an issue at all as it’s a choice for people to sideload.
And I think BOTH Android & iOS have already implemented some systems to make sure you know what you’re doing before sideloading apps. It’s basically the same as how iOS did when asking for permission to access this and that.
Ps. For me, I’m just curious how they’re going to implement this when both aren’t using the same coding language to write the apps (Kotlin on Android vs Swift/Obj-C on iOS).
*homing briefcase
Ftfy.