what you’re seeing in the iPhone sideloading space is a product of a lot of hard work by many different people over many years. AltServer and the like (what I assume you’re referring to) are the best solutions we have, but come with significant downsides - iOS updates breaking the software, limits on how many apps you can install (last time i checked, you could only install 3), time constraints (need to ”re-sign” apps every week), software constraints (still can’t use JIT or other private APIs without Apple’s blessing), and - relative to using the App Store or Android sideloading - the setup procedure is pretty complicated. on both Macs and PCs, AltServer can be kind of difficult to set up.
all of this has prevented a legitimate sideloading scene from truly emerging on the iPhone - which, depending on where you ideologically stand on this, could be considered monopolistic.
i think there’s definitely room to make the process a lot easier - even if it’s just for power users.
When I first looked into this, free Apple developer accounts also could only use limited app entitlements: so no network extensions, VPN profiles, Apple push notifications, or other capabilities. NetworkExtension is basically the only reason I’m interested in iOS development at all, so a paid account was not optional.
all of this has prevented a legitimate sideloading scene from truly emerging on the iPhone - which, depending on where you ideologically stand on this, could be considered monopolistic.
i think there’s definitely room to make the process a lot easier - even if it’s just for power users.