Bro I hope Apple is paying you for all the white knighting you’re doing for them. To side load on Apple, you have to create a developer account and treat it as if you’re developing an app. That is borderline exploiting it and definitely not intended to be used for regular consumer applications. For all intents and purposes, you can’t side load on Apple because this is not intended nor recommended for anyone, and is easily blocked by Apple if they ever choose to do so.
You’re being blatantly bad faith to compare that to Android where you can simply download an apk, open it, and press install. It’s entirely supported and intended by Android’s design. Android goes so far to support seamless updates for third party app stores, and extends their app malware scanner to side loaded apks as well.
If you consider those two to be the same, then you’re just in bad faith and not worth taking seriously, and are looking to argue for the sake of arguing. Apple is not your friend. They do not want you side loading, and you know this.
You’ve replied to like 5 other of my comments the exact same thing at this point. Like I replied to the other guy, my comment is not saying you can’t set up a VPN without an app, even though that’s a very rare method of doing so regardless. Apple is literally a closed garden, that does not change anything lol.
Also no, like I said in my other comment, you can’t side load. What you think is a “gotcha” is that there’s a work around where you register a developer account and load an unofficial application that way. You know very well yourself that Apple does not want you sideloading, and this is not meant for consumer applications, and that it is easily blockable at any point by Apple. That is why the EU is constantly hitting Apple with anti-trust and anti-competition lawsuits. This has literally been proven in court, it is not an opinion. You are being incredibly bad faith for no reason. Apple does not want you sideloading, Android does.
Also AOSP is not Google. Though in reality, Google phones tend to support alternative operating systems the best. Even if that stopped being the case and they went locked down suddenly, there are still tons of other Android manufacturers out there that can have their bootloader unlocked and run their entirely own degoogled ecosystems. So you should probably know what you’re talking about, but you think this is a brand vs brand debate or something. It’s not, Android is simply designed around side-loading, is officially supported, and intended by consumers. iOS is not. It’s not complicated.