Everyone likes to say “but would Apple would lose the $100/yr from all those hobbyists.” How many hobbyists do you think are out there right now paying $100/year just to load some apps on their phone? Can’t be more than 1000. Even if it were 10,000 that would represent $1 million/yr in lost revenue for Apple. That’s less than a rounding error on just one quarterly report. They really don’t care about that!
Nah, they're worried someone might sideload a software with payment method that doesn't give them cut
Get real, Apple's target demo is upper-middle class people who want a frictionless computing experience - the kind of people whose response to a massive avoidable security fail would be litigation and political/regulatory action.
Apple wants to fully control the devices they're letting people use. Allowing side loading can only be considered a reduction in control of their devices, thus it's against their main mission.
Apple treats their users like a nursing home treats senile people.
They made a thing, and you bought it.
Why would anyone with a bent on free computing walk into what they know to be a closed ecosystem. Just buy an Android phone. It’s like flying to a foreign country and expecting everyone to English to you imo…
This excuse is exhausting, lacks any principles whatsoever; these are general purpose devices, browsing the web & allowing arbitrary apps to be developed & squeezed into the world, if they pass through the tyrant's gauntlet. That one company offers some modicum of un-tyranny is a poor defense for locking down & excluding general purpose computing, for withdrawing the systems we have in our pockets from our own ownership & ability to control.
Citizens should have some options. The implications that the market is free to do whatever & citizens are free to pick from what's available seems presently somewhat tennable, but if we step back just a little bit here & look at the picture, it's horrifying. The inability to root most Android phones shows that actual freedom, real general purpose computing, is an extremely fine & narrowing little sliver, of the most important & most used general computing world.
Android went dark long ago too. All of the open source apps are abandoned and unmaintained replaced by closed source versions. The Play Store takes a 30% cut of things like Apple. Google decides what kind of apps are available on the app store and it closely matches Apple.
Not arguing but rather expanding: You may be thinking "He just ignored sideloading get real" but tell me, are there any porn apps? No there aren't. They have no distribution channel and are banned on 100% of the computing devices people run their lives with which is their phone. "But porn works just fine in the browser" well so does pretty much anything else even on an iPhone so why are we even chatting in this thread? To end users Android sideloading does not exist.
Apple and Google control what types of software humanity gets to use and there are no viable alternatives. Apple has fully embraced 1984 as these recurring threads keep pointing out but Google follows Apple in lock step on nearly every decision. There is no third choice except the increasingly crippled web.
Good luck.
My phone is an appliance. I need it to provide 2 way communications and access to the information on the internet. Apple will provide security updates for the foreseeable future. That's all I want as I enter curmudgeonly old man age.
But yeah, I know I bought a locked down device and I'm ok with that. BMW is charging a subscription for heated seats. I'm not ok with that, so won't be buying one. Obviously, they expect some people still will. I agree with them.
If you want an adversarial narrative between Apple and the people, you'll find no greater supporter than me. Europe seems to disagree with Apple's philosophy though, so maybe it's time they reassess their opinions.
That's the key point: I bought it. It's mine now and I have the moral the moral right to do anything I please with it that isn't immoral. Granted, there can be laws that trample that moral right or artificial technical barriers that attempt to restrict it, but both are unjust. Attempted word magic spells such as "by using this product that you just bought you agree that you didn't actually buy this product" are ridiculous, dishonest, incoherent, and not morally binding.
And ... you do? Is there some reason you can't do whatever you want with the device? This is like complaining that you can't use your xbox or television as a general purpose computing device.
You can legally hack your own iphone. Go for it. You own the device.
Give it a year of lower than usual profits and some twitter complaints and they will backpedal at mach 10
Oh, wait...
For example, say I run a sketchy reseller operation that buys old or refurbished Apple equipment and load an iOS-ish/macOS-ish custom unix (and then falsely market it as an "Apple product"). For all intents and purposes, it may look exactly like an official Apple OS, but it isn't.
The untrained eye is oblivious to the differences and now, assuming the "sell" was that that person got an Apple device for cheap from some random seller, Apple now has the potential burden of supporting that. Considering their potential market is in the millions who might be duped by this, by allowing this one little change, they just introduced a support burden that nukes their profit.
