Actually was coming here to say something about this! While tumblr was removed from the Google Play store at the same time as Apple's App Store, installing an APK is quite simple, and I often get APKs from places other than Google Play simply because I have an older phone, and Google Play only hosts the newest versions of things. It's quite frustrating. One time I looked at an app and went to download it a day later and it was inaccessible because they'd released an update that didn't support my phone, while the version I had looked at like literally the day before had! Wonderful!
I've also pirated things I would have been fine paying for, for that exact support reason. For whatever it's worth, if you do want to make the app paid rather than free but not host it with Google, you could put it on Gumroad or something probably. (Gumroad doesn't allow NSFW, but an APK isn't NSFW, so...I'm not sure how that works exactly? Like I buy photoshop brushes there and who's gonna know if I draw porn with them?)
I wouldn't describe jailbreaking as doing "horrible things" to an iOS device, though. More like UNdoing horrible things. I rooted my Android devices with a quickness. I did once brick an iPod Touch trying to install greyd00r on it, but I honestly consider that one a mercy kill. It died fighting and that's what matters. (And for whatever it's worth, what I did should have worked perfectly and it did for the first hour? I might have gotten some malware off Cydia.)
Whether you have the resources or desire to build an app is your call. I'm not invested in an app myself, I don't see a tiny screen and slow processor and no keyboard as much of an upgrade over my laptop. But certainly, a determined user can install just about anything on anything. If you code it, someone will install it, I'm sure of that.
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I've also pirated things I would have been fine paying for, for that exact support reason. For whatever it's worth, if you do want to make the app paid rather than free but not host it with Google, you could put it on Gumroad or something probably. (Gumroad doesn't allow NSFW, but an APK isn't NSFW, so...I'm not sure how that works exactly? Like I buy photoshop brushes there and who's gonna know if I draw porn with them?)
I wouldn't describe jailbreaking as doing "horrible things" to an iOS device, though. More like UNdoing horrible things. I rooted my Android devices with a quickness. I did once brick an iPod Touch trying to install greyd00r on it, but I honestly consider that one a mercy kill. It died fighting and that's what matters. (And for whatever it's worth, what I did should have worked perfectly and it did for the first hour? I might have gotten some malware off Cydia.)
Whether you have the resources or desire to build an app is your call. I'm not invested in an app myself, I don't see a tiny screen and slow processor and no keyboard as much of an upgrade over my laptop. But certainly, a determined user can install just about anything on anything. If you code it, someone will install it, I'm sure of that.