On your PC, installing software means downloading it from wherever you want.
That could mean a developer's website, GitHub, an actual app store, or a
sketchy forum at 2:00 a.m. For better or worse. But with our phones, we're used
to a different workflow. If you want to put an app on your phone outside of the
official app store, you need to do something called side-loading.
Traditionally on Android, that hasn't been too difficult, but Google recently
made it a lot harder. Meanwhile, it's always been nearly impossible to
side-load on iPhone, but that seems to be changing, too.
And for the better? I feel like I've taken crazy pills. What is side-loading?
Why are Google and Apple so terrified of it? And is the fear even legitimate? Or
are these tech giants just trying to keep us in their ecosystems? All right.
Let's slow down. At its simplest, side-loading just means installing apps
manually outside of an official app store. On Android, that's APK files. On
iPhones, IPA files. Both are just how their respective systems package apps.
This isn't really some fringe work-around. On computers, side-loading
is just called installing stuff. App stores came later and just kind of took
over, like an HOA that moved into a neighborhood where everyone was already
just doing fine. So, what kinds of reasons do people have for side-loading
apps? Lots, actually. Access to beta software, region-locked apps, or
utilities that app stores won't approve of, like emulators, adult content, or
tools that don't play by the gatekeeper's rules. Or maybe the app
publisher doesn't want to surrender a huge chunk of its revenues to the
platform. Or you're using alternative operating system that requires
side-loading in order to increase user privacy. Or maybe the company that makes
your phone was sanctioned from Google services altogether. Convenience,
privacy, survival. Three different reasons, but they all point to the same
conclusion. The official app store isn't always the answer. Android has always
technically allowed side-loading. Hell, I've done it. But allowed doesn't mean
encouraged. The toggle is buried behind warnings, and Google Play Protect flags
side-loaded apps aggressively. Still, once you flipped that switch, you were
in. It was like an open door, but one that made you feel nervous walking
through it. Like those big revolving doors at the airport. Apple took the
opposite approach. iOS flat-out banned side-loading, and Steve Jobs made it
personal, famously telling a critic that the iPhone offered freedom from porn,
and that anyone who disagreed could go buy an Android. The message was clear.
If an app isn't in the app store, it probably doesn't need to exist, which is
wild logic because Macs have been installing random software from the web
for decades. Up until the recent changes, getting an app onto an iPhone
from outside the app store meant jumping through hoops that would make a circus
dog quit. To explain the process, here is alternative app store developer Riley
Testut. So, before we had an official app store, we had AltStore Classic, and
the process was you would download a program on your computer, Mac or PC, and
then you would open up the program, and then you would >> [music] >> type in your little Apple ID and
password, and just normal account information, you
would send that to us, and then we would sign in on your behalf with Apple,
pretend you're a developer, and then we would like basically install apps as if
it was your own app that you had developed yourself, because Apple allows
like developers to test out their own apps on their phone. And so, we had this
whole system that required you to plug in your phone to a computer to install it, and apps expired every 7 days, so
you had to refresh your apps like once a week. And and you could only install
three. It was like all the restrictions you could think of,
and yet people did it. That friction was
not accidental. Companies have their own business reasons for gatekeeping what
gets put on their platform. Take Amazon's Fire tablets. They're sold at a
discount because Amazon expects to make that money back through their own app
store ecosystem. They don't ship with the Google Play Store. So, if you want
standard apps like YouTube or Gmail, you're forced to side-load, and millions
of people do it, even if it's really onerous to do, because we want to use
our devices the way we want to use them, damn it.
>> [laughter] >> But are we taking on more risk when we side-load compared to using the official
app store? Like it's like I can't say there can't be an app that could be malicious and could appear, but that's
also true of the app store. Like that does happen. There are apps that like
are tricked app review and they turn out to be something else in the app store. And so, I think it's kind of just like
an inherent risk of if you're installing software
on a device. But I think the key distinction that people do leave out a
lot is the iPhone is not like the Mac, because the iPhone has sandboxing and
entitlements and a whole bunch of security measures that just are not
existing on the desktop. And those things really do so much to prevent a
lot of things that could go wrong. Like your photos just can't be accessed in
the background by a random app. Like you have to give permission to that. And I think it's good to say that that's why
I'm such a proponent of side-loading. That's the critical distinction. What
matters isn't where an app comes from. It's how much damage it can actually do
once it's installed. And notably, the most headline-grabbing Android banking
Trojans in recent years, like Anatsa, which hit over 150,000 devices across
Europe, spread primarily through Google Play itself, not through side-loading.
So, the app store isn't bulletproof, and side-loading isn't the wild west the
tech giants try to make it out to be. But here's where things get interesting,
because both platforms are changing the rules right now, and they're going in
completely opposite directions. We'll get you up to speed right after this
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Both Android and iOS are changing their approach to side-loading. Let's start
with Android. Android 16 already blocks
you from enabling side-loading while you're on a phone call, specifically to
stop voice phishing scams where attackers walk your grandmother through
installing malware step by step. But the real shift is the upcoming advanced flow
rolling out globally through 2026. If a developer isn't verified by Google, you
can't just hit install on their app. You now have to enter a 24-hour protective
waiting period. You have to restart your phone, which kills any active screen
sharing or scam calls, and then wait a full day before the install button even
becomes clickable. Google says this breaks the spell that scammers cast on
victims. But for developers, it's a massive barrier. No impulse buyers. To
be clear, power users can still bypass
this by, well, waiting. But the message is clear.
Android's open door is officially getting a bouncer. Meanwhile, on iPhone,
regulators, first in the EU and as of iOS 26.2 in Japan,
have forced Apple to allow apps from outside the app store. Luckily for
Apple, they already knew how to accommodate side-loading whilst
maintaining a certain standard of security, because they already solved
this problem on the Mac back in 2019.
It's called notarization. On macOS, you can download any app from the web, and
Apple still performs a basic security check to make sure the code isn't signed
by a known bad actor and doesn't contain obvious malware. It doesn't require the
app store. It doesn't take a 30% cut. It
just works. And now Apple has brought this system to the iPhone. They're still
scanning apps for malware and sketchy behavior. They're just letting you
install them from outside the app store. Beyond those select regions, though,
>> [music] >> it's business as usual. Apple protecting your proprietary while collecting the
toll. If you want to see just how far the side-loading rabbit hole goes, our video
on running Windows on your iPhone shows exactly what becomes possible when you
push past Apple's limits, and how much control you actually have over the
device in your pocket. So, check it out.