The entire point of the App Store is to have a curated experience to keep malware out. Review is the essential component.

The entire point of the app store is to further concentrate power with Apple.

Whether that is good or bad short term or long term can be debated separately, but it is fundamentally a shift of power away from independent developers towards a giant megacorporation. (I personally think app stores are fine but that the public has an interest in preventing any entity from having too much power, so it should be illegal to prevent sideloading.)

The point of the app store is to have a centralized distribution point for apps of the OS.

I think this statement would be better as;

The point of the app store is to have a centralized AND TRUSTED distribution point for apps of the OS.

People can install non reviewed apps by using non-official app stores. There is good reason most people don't as these are plagued or perceived to be plagued with malware.

> People can install non reviewed apps by using non-official app stores

Not on iOS

You can't expect regular users to jailbreak their iOS devices

Which is one reason a lot of regular phone users are on Android anyway.

As a user and a mobile game developer, please no.

I want the safety and uniformity of knowing that have gone through the review process. If it not mandatory, no one will do it and I will lose the protection I have now.

> I want the safety and uniformity of knowing that have gone through the review process

Like I said you could choose to install only reviewed apps.

90% of the apps I install on macOS are not reviewed by Apple and after 12 years that has never been a problem for me.

> If it not mandatory, no one will do it and I will lose the protection I have now.

If users prefer Apple-approved apps then the dev market would shift towards that.

No because the average user doesn’t know they care. They’ll just blindly install whatever and I lose the protection and safety that Apple provide.

For Android, this is how I would approach it if I had to do it starting now:

Add a checkbox to show apps tjat aren't approved yet.

Make it default off. Turn it off every time you leave the Play store app.

Disable it for people under 18.

If a user still wants to install the app point out the app isn't approved yet and ask for password.

There, problem solved..?

It'll got the same route as grandma installing malware. It doesn't matter if credentials are needed unless it creates a real barrier.

On macOS the vast majority of users still install apps outside the Mac App Store and this hasn't really been a problem.

Yes that is a good idea, at least nice food for thought.

Not sure why you're being downvoted though (judging from the light color of comment) as your comment definitely isn't off topic.

You can upload your app to Fdroid. It (unfortunately for users, fortunately for you) doesn't include a review system.

It does include a different sort of review system though. Every app is built from source by the F-Droid maintainers and has a corresponding source code bundle availabile. This means that if you notice or suspect any shady behavior, you can review the code to find out the exact nature of the shadiness and alert people. Developers can't as easily claim that it was an unintentional bug that happened to accidentally siphon all private data from your device.

I could even distribute the .apk myself but that's not the point.