Android Sideloading Freedom

Android does not prevent you from side-loading applications from other stores either.

Google doesn't have complete control. A significant number of Android devices ship without their store, and anyway, you can install apks with a checkbox in settings. Worst case, you ship to play store without this feature and mention in the support faq that you have to install the apk from a website download to have it.Apple has slowly started to make things like that closer to being possible, but there are a lot more hoops, so it might be reasonable for a very niche app, buy anything yo

You can sideload apks on Android and have alternate app stores too. I don't think the situations are in anyway similar or comparable.

Android already has alternative app stores.

Unless there's a different app store doing the same thing. (Such as Amazon app store for Android or F-Droid)

You don't have to use Google Play Store. You can sideload .apk's or use alternative platforms. There's nothing like that on iOS.

The play store is not the sole way to distribute apps. You can download the .apk files, or get them by mail, or use another play store that has the same apps. The play store is just a repository of some apps.

Android lets you easily side-load apps. You are not required to get your apps from Google.

It's true that Google is unpredictable but as it stands Android still allows me to install apps outside of the approved store.

As you mention two companies I can only assume the other is Google and android. Which I find odd as I have multiple other appstores and repositories on my phone and every other android device I have owned. My phones and tablets usually come with not just the Google Play Store, but also the manufacturers app store, and I install fdroid on all my android devices, and have in the past installed the Amazon app store on my phones back when Amazon and Google were having a spat over audible book sales