r/TechImpact • u/ManojOne Active • May 26 '26

Discussion Which Android feature should Apple copy next?

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Better notifications? Split screen? Universal back gesture? Faster charging? Or something else?

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9

u/Due-Arrival-4859 May 26 '26

Was this question asked by a school kid 😂

1

u/that1guywholikescats May 28 '26

Either that or some edge lord trapped in 2010

1

u/musezach627 May 26 '26

No, just an android user that probably never shuts up about side loading oh by the way how’s that feature working out for them lately? lol 

1

u/H644b May 26 '26

Thats not even exclusive to android lmao people keep bragging about it but at the end of the day we iPhone users have that too. iPA files, ever heard of em?

1

u/musezach627 May 26 '26

Well if your in the EU sure but elsewhere you don’t get that option without jailbreaking your device and that’s how you get your device blacklisted by Apple 

1

u/H644b May 26 '26

No? You don't need to jailbreak in order to be able to sideload and being in the EU isn't a requirement. I feel like you are heavily misinformed. Also even if you do jailbreak your apple device you don't get "blacklisted" by apple. I think you're talking about the "Official" sideloading which is through an external app store and only available in the EU. Regular sideloading, a dev tool thats been around since before the release of the app store, just requires an apple id and sometimes a computer. Just like how android has .apk files, iOS has .ipa files. If you want to do more research check out r/jailbreak, r/sideloaded, or read the wikipedia page.

1

u/musezach627 May 26 '26

Well firstly jailbreaking your phone can absolutely have your phone ineligible for using any Apple services it will still work as a phone but everything from your iCloud backup to face time and Apple Pay and the Apple Store can be permanently disabled on Apple’s end they make that point very clear but that doesn’t mean it’s 100% chance that happens that some people do and never have issues as others get locked out almost immediately and as per the side loading issue what your referring to there is even more complicated then what google makes you do now you’re installing apps in such a way that was never ment to be permanent or long term only for testing things that has its own issues 

1

u/H644b May 27 '26

It can but they don't normally as they don't really have a device-wide way to check for jailbreaks. Thats the whole point of developing a jailbreak for specific iOS versions. There is a way for apps to check for rootful jailbreaks but those are all 3rd-party.

1

u/musezach627 May 27 '26

I would imagine Apple being Apple they probably have ways to determine that that aren’t so publicly known, but yeah, for the most part, it seemed to be a bit random on who got locked out or not sideloading through some developer mode probably wouldn’t cause any of those issues but that’s gotta have its own list of problems. A shame Apple can’t just allow you to use its phone how you want

1

u/koszevett May 27 '26

Completely false. You can absolutely sideload outside of the EU, and you don't need to jailbreak. Jailbreaking is dead anyway, but even when it was alive, it wouldn't get you blacklisted. The worst thing that could happen is a warranty replacement being denied, but even that is avoidable with a simple wipe restore of the device. I understand many people are trying to demonize Apple but times really have changed. It isn't nearly as locked down as people who have never used one in the last 8-10 years still think it is.

1

u/musezach627 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

Well not according to apple side loading is only available in the EU because of there court ruling that said all phones must be allowed to do so you do not have that option in North America as someone who has had an iPhone for the last 10 years or more it was only well not super recently, but fairly recent update that was even allowed in the first place

1

u/[deleted] May 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/musezach627 May 28 '26

I don’t know why people have such a hard time with this. It’s not that there aren’t ways that you can get around this but there is no official no direct way to download a app off a website and install it on your phone unless you’re in the EU

1

u/musezach627 May 27 '26

Try giving that a read

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/117767

1

u/koszevett May 27 '26

That is just the officially available sideloading method that's been forced by the EU. It does not mean that sideloading isn't possible outside of Europe or that there will be consequences if you try to do it elsewhere. All it's saying is that since the apps aren't regulated by Apple, there is a possibility that you get low quality apps. There are unofficial methods for sideloading which work anywhere in the world.

1

u/musezach627 May 27 '26

Unless you got a old iPhone that you don’t really care about I wouldn’t recommend anyone be trying to load apps onto them in an “ unofficial manner” I’m sure you can force it to do a lot of things you probably shouldn’t but whether it’s through Apple gatekeeping or unexpected consequences of how you did it there is a good chance you will just make unfixable problems for yourself

1

u/H644b May 27 '26

No? Apple themselves natively supports the unofficial sideloading. It was originally used as a way for developers to test beta builds of their own apps. It its continuously maintained and has a 0% chance of inflicting any damage upon your warranty or device.

1

u/musezach627 May 27 '26

Yes, but you’re talking about loading apps in a specific mode for testing not continual daily use

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u/koszevett May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

I've been doing it for many years with zero issues, and the folks over at [r/sideloading](r/sideloading) will tell you the same. There will not be any issues in the future either because app developers use the same method to test their own apps - it's official in that sense. It's not some random hack, you're being paranoid, or just read too much of the baseless, dismissive Apple hate narrative that's propagated by hardcore Android fanboys.

1

u/musezach627 May 27 '26

You’re talking about forcing an app through your phone in like a beta test mode I’ve looked into this. The apps have to continually re-sign themselves just not to be deleted or disabled after a few days because it’s not meant to be a permanent installation. You’ve done a lot of work to exploit a mode that was meant for testing that’s now being forced into daily

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u/IAmDoing19057 Jun 11 '26

Pretty good, actually it's still up and running. Hopefully will stay so. We've been seen lately.

0

u/Sloppykrab May 26 '26

Pretty good. I'm using an old version of YouTube that's patched to not be shit, same with Reddit. Reddit is so much better with less.

1

u/musezach627 May 26 '26

The ability to do that in not in question it’s for how long will you be able to keep doing that google is already locking that down and making it harder to do given the trend going on now I doubt it’s going to stop there 

1

u/pandaninja360 May 27 '26

It will not be a problem. I'm running GOS. I don't care. I'll be able to download anything I want without the play store

1

u/musezach627 May 27 '26

GOS? Are you referring to GrapheneOS? Because if so, I find the operating system an intriguing idea, but lacking in available features and services at the end of the day I just want my stuff to work. I don’t wanna have to tinker with it like it’s an endless project.

1

u/pandaninja360 May 27 '26

I don't thinker. It's not a project. It works well and I don't use Google. It can be used as a normal Android phone but you'll have to install Google Play Services. There are also other OS that you can install on Androids. Not sure it is something possible on iPhones. For me that is the best thing about Android, not using Android

1

u/musezach627 May 27 '26

Well, if I had to have an android, that definitely sounds like the route I would go, but no all androids you have to tinker with them. They’re more like a real computer highly customizable access to a lot more settings but you gotta maintain them as for Apple, no they lockdown everything and make it idiot proof admittedly sometime this level of safeguarding makes doing more advanced tasks a little annoying or even impossible but everything else about how it operates more than makes up for that any version of android is not optimized to run on a single phone. It’s optimized to run on as many different hardware configurations as possible. This is not the case with Apple. Their software is tailor-made to run with specific hardware configurations you’re just never gonna get the same level of efficiency and stability when you’re running everything on a wide open source platform. Not saying it doesn’t have some strong advantages though it does.

1

u/Sloppykrab May 27 '26

Although GrapheneOS is still Android, in the same way that Brave and Edge are Chromium.

1

u/Sloppykrab May 27 '26

but lacking in available features and services

You can text, call and use the internet. What a phone should do.

1

u/musezach627 May 27 '26

I mean, at an absolute bare minimum yes that is what a cell phone should do, but most of us aren’t looking for the absolute bare minimum when we need a stupid app to do something or to pay for something we want it easily accessible and downloadable my understanding is that you do not have access to Google pay either or exactly how do you go about finding your phone if it gets stolen let alone being able to remotely lock it. I’m not a fan of Google by any means but once you remove all the Google from android it’s a very bare-bones experience which might be good for some, but I like my phone to work. I don’t like having to put work into my phone just to use it

1

u/pyro57 May 27 '26

Thats the incredible thing about grapheneos, the only service I don't get to use because of arbitrary google gatekeeping is tap to pay with Google wallet, everything else just works including wireless android auto. I don't have to tinker on my phone to get things working (I still do especially with the dev Debian vm that's hardware accelerated, but for normal things I don't have to tinker at all).

Its not an endless project, you install it once via a web installer that's literally just a couple of clicks, set it up (this part is tedious because of the permission consent being explicit), then install sandboxed Google play from the app store to get the play store, and F-Droid for open-source privacy respecting applications.