For everyone complaining about the security issues, there is nothing that stops Apple from throwing up a ton of warnings for apps that didn't come from their App Store.
"This app came from a third party, it can download all your private information and has not been reviewed by Apple".
Pop a warning every single time it accesses contacts or location, don't allow third party apps outside the App Store to be granted ongoing permissions to anything, etc.
They can still do a lot to make the third party App Store experience much less appealing to developers than the App Store path and still be within the letter of the law. And I'm sure they will.
(amusing side note, every time I write App Store autocorrect keeps capitalizing it for me)
"This app came from a third party, it can download all your private information and has not been reviewed by Apple".
Pop a warning every single time it accesses contacts or location, don't allow third party apps outside the App Store to be granted ongoing permissions to anything, etc.
They can still do a lot to make the third party App Store experience much less appealing to developers than the App Store path and still be within the letter of the law. And I'm sure they will.
(amusing side note, every time I write App Store autocorrect keeps capitalizing it for me)