Could you elaborate? What specifically would you do? Because I'm finding it hard to imagine what I'd do with an "open" iPhone that I can't do now, but it's extremely easy to imagine all the horrific security risks that would emerge in what today is most people's primary computing device, storing data about literally their entire lives.
If you're finding it hard to imagine what you can do with a device that _does not_ restrict what you can do with it, then you're likely fine in the Apple ecosystem, that's fair and okay. Some people aren't, you'll just have to take my word for it, I don't wanna write an essay here and you're probably not interesting in reading all that.
Security risk is a common one that comes up. Google used that to justify locking down sideloading recently. Let me take the risk. I bought this device, I should be allowed to make adult decisions right? I'm not downloading stuff off Limewire or a shady website. I'm downloading stuff off of Linux distro repos or F-Droid.
There's a lot more to be said about all this. Including the amount of e-waste created because a device is too old to be supported by manufacturers, yet people run decade(s) old laptops/desktops using free OSs because they can.
Just my 1AM rambling thoughts. Hope some of it makes some sense.
Go on, give some examples.
* Use (true) Firefox w/ extensions or other browsers
* Sideload apps that aren't available in the store (this is increasingly common with open source projects that don't want the headache of dealing with app stores)
* Install my own apps (which I increasingly vibe-code since I'm the only user) and not have to deal with paying Apple or reinstalling every few days or week or whatever
* Write bash and ruby scripts to automate things on my device which often require interacting with system APIs (tmux is my platform for this on Android currently)
* Pin versions of apps that have enshittified or sold to gross companies that harvest data or switch to subscriptions models by copying the APK and re-installing it on new devices
* Install alternate/experimental graphical shells that are frequently innovative and interesting (though rarely useful in the long-term, but it's still fun)
* Option to use other ROMs such as Graphene OS
* Capture packets and proxy traffic to see what my device is doing (this has gotten pretty hard on Android now, but still something I want to do)
* Have an on-device fine-grained firewall to tightly control which apps are allowed network access
There are definitely other things I can't think of at the moment, but I'm not sure why you're being so hostile to GP. Saying that iOS devices are locked down and can't do a lot of stuff doesn't seem like a very controversial opinion, especially on HN.
They want a cyber deck, except good and useful and apple hardware.
I often find myself wondering why these people aren’t happily using some Android rom and are instead using an iPhone.
On a unrestricted OS, I can just switch to a different desktop environment.
If you read the rest of this thread, instead of asking, you'll find plenty examples. But hey, if you like MacOS, great, anyone else's opinions don't matter.
And I do all of that on my Mac. My 4090 rig is strictly for gaming with my son and my Proxmox Linux retired thin client rigs are for running my household on HA.
Please tell me what I'm missing out on by using a Mac OS device as my daily driver.
If you read the rest of this thread you'll see specific examples others point out.
(which would mitigate a lot of security risks by itself. I also note that people seem to do fine with desktop OSes, despite their outdated security models)
Also, a working foss ecosystem.
All kinds of shit.
I'd make locking the phone while the flashlight is operating require pressing the lock button again to wake the screen with no exceptions, so the screen no longer shines in my eyes reducing the effectiveness of the flashlight, and stay palm input stops opening the camera.
I'd hook screen time management of my children's devices—which I perform on my own device—into FaceID instead of requiring a stupid passcode.
You don't have to go far to find areas where iOS could use some customization. But if it's Apple's code, the most useful adjustments are off limits.
Jailbroken iOS was a fantastic platform for the first 9 major releases or so because it had that kind of stuff in it. Now it's "throw a suggestion in the box on our website and we'll ignore it in the order it was received."
