I'll believe it when I see it. I recently got an iPad, and sideloading apps is a ridiculous endeavor that involves a server app (that depends on iTunes and thus only works on macOS and Windows) that has to re-sign your sideloaded apps once every 7 days.
And regarding Microsoft, while I certainly embrace them being more open than before, VS Code still has proprietary bits, and you'll need to run your own extension store if you don't want to use those (which the VSCodium project does, I think). Of course, that's not even mentioning the forced telemetry in Windows...
If you look at tablet OS reviews online, a recurring theme is that the app ecosystem is more developed on iPadOS, with reviewers lamenting the Android tablet app ecosystem. I also thought that iPadOS might be a bit better privacy-wise.
As it turns out, doing things in the browser is more convenient than apps anyway (given that it's a tablet), and I underestimated the restrictiveness of the OS, but those are the things that are hard to glean from reviews. It's my first tablet in a decade, so you'll have to forgive me for not having any prior knowledge on these things.
I chose a product to the best of my abilities, and it turns out that it may not have been a right fit. Next time I will try another product. I don't see why that warrants such a confrontational tone and/or downvotes; nobody's perfect.
Hacker News users tend to take device choices pretty personally, unfortunately. It seems like the level to which they defend corporations is directly proportional to the amount of money they have sunk into their purchases. If you're looking for sympathy towards how truly reprehensible modern iOS/iPadOS is, you're not going to find it here. The majority will just tell you to get rid of it, since criticism is verboten wherever trillion-dollar companies are concerned.
You are one of many people who go to great pains to inform people on HN about how ‘truly reprehensible’ modern iOS/iPadOS is. Had they listened to you, they might have been saved from their mistake.
What surprises me is that a regular visitor to HN has not seen this opinion expressed. It also seems weird that they wouldn’t know that sideloading was a problem given how many front page stories have either attacked Apple over this policy or defended it.
I have sympathy for anyone who buys something they don’t end up liking. I’m just very surprised that this particular fact was somehow not known to an HN commenter.
> I’m just very surprised that this particular fact was somehow not known to an HN commenter.
Perhaps we misunderstand each other. Of course I have read that sideloading specifically is more difficult on iPadOS; this was not an unknown fact to me. However, that wasn't the sole factor in my choice of device (and if openness was my #1 priority, I could've just asked for (it was a gift) a PineTab).
The usability of the device for day-to-day tasks is the most important, and since I use a lot of apps on my phone, I mistakenly thought that this would also be an important factor w.r.t. usability when it comes to tablets. Therefore, when I read in reviews that the app ecosystem was much worse on other tablet OSes, that pushed me towards iPadOS. Again, privacy was also a factor (when compared to Android).
In 2021, any OS choice is ultimately a balance between usability, privacy and openness. If your last experience with a device class was a decade ago, it can be difficult to balance those factors.
(Now, if the mobile landscape resembled the PC landscape a bit more, trying different OSes wouldn't be so cumbersome. But that's a whole other can of worms...)
> VS Code still has proprietary bits, and you'll need to run your own extension store if you don't want to use those (which the VSCodium project does, I think). Of course, that's not even mentioning the forced telemetry in Windows...
VSCodium has just disabled that Microsoft store by default. You can enable it and use all the extensions normally, without proprietary bits.
Since apple stuff is expensive anyway, you can just consider the developer program a 99$/year sideloading feature unlock.
I use TestFlight to push some private apps to my own and friends devices and find it quite convenient. It even updates in the background for them. 90 days is still kind of a chore but doable.
There are only 1-2 apps I want that are locked out of the App Store due to Apple's policies, so at that point it's cheaper to subscribe to the developer's Patreon to get access to their private beta TestFlight (which I might do, it's not expensive).
And regarding Microsoft, while I certainly embrace them being more open than before, VS Code still has proprietary bits, and you'll need to run your own extension store if you don't want to use those (which the VSCodium project does, I think). Of course, that's not even mentioning the forced telemetry in Windows...