The App Store is our one saving grace from the festering nightmare that is literally every other app store in existence. It's one of the primary reasons I stick with iOS. Their curation process, for better or worse, is one of the last remaining good faith pro-consumer efforts I can even think of from a large corp.
Surely there is a middle ground where its at least possible to install apps that apple haven't approved[1]? I also like the idea of the _higher_ bar that the app store is supposed to have (not that this bar is always met), but the lack of any alternative is really crappy.
Steam's "app" store seems pretty good to me. Not to mention other app stores for game consoles such as Xbox, PS, and Nintendo as well as the Meta Quest.
If the Play store is bad it's because Android is bad, not because the store is bad in and of itself.
I had decent experiences with the app store back in my Salesforce days, as much as that seems a different life.
The App Store is our one saving grace from the festering nightmare that is literally every other app store in existence. It's one of the primary reasons I stick with iOS. Their curation process, for better or worse, is one of the last remaining good faith pro-consumer efforts I can even think of from a large corp.