What about before app stores were a thing?
Comment on oh and it's also a crime
Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 day agoBefore phones that was the only way to install apps though.
Maybe we should have a term for the inverse, like ‘wallgardening’, or ‘bootlocking’, or ‘corputing’, or ‘inshilling’? 🤔
ITGuyLevi@programming.dev 1 day ago
Saapas@piefed.zip 1 day ago
But the discussion is specifically about phones..? I’ve never heard anyone use sideloading in a different context
grandma@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Phones are just computers except they fit in your pocket and have a cellular connection. Distinction without a difference
Saapas@piefed.zip 1 day ago
Phones are a specific type of computer. I wonder if some madlad hates the term “smart phone” so much that they’re out there calling them computers and confusing everyone.
HexaBack@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
smart phone literally means phone with computer or computer-like abilities, contrary to popular belief, smartphones existed before the iPhone and in fact didn’t have to be a locked down slab of glass
Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Yeah, it’s about phones because they changed established practice, but then why use a new word for what was established practice and not the ’new’, phone-specific, practice of limiting app availability?
Saapas@piefed.zip 1 day ago
Sideloading is a more specific term than just “installing”, it’s more about where you got the software, the process of installing it. So people started using a more specific term to distinguish it from other types of installing.
Why people choose to adopt one word or another, I dunno. We just started calling it sideloading and that’s been the term for as long as I remember (though very early on I didn’t read or write much in English)