iOS and the third-party app store court battles makes it clear to me that Apple is actively hostile here.
It would have taken less work for apple to implement the EU "third-party app store" regulation as "anyone can install a 3rd party app store if they jump through enough hoops". They instead require that you live in the EU, as verified through many factors. They break it if you take too long of a vacation, they make using your new right to install a 3rd party app store as difficult as they can.
Apple clearly does not value user freedom nor users abilities to install their own software on their own devices. Apple would rather old iPhones and iPods become useless e-waste bricks than release an EoL update to unlock the bootloader and let you install linux to turn that old iPod touch into a garage remote, or photo-frame, or whatever.
Your comments about iPads/iPhones may well be true but not relevant to my point. See also the comment from user Kina upthread.
Asahi linux would have been "a company that's extremely hostile to this effort."
They instead said "a company that's extremely hostile to this _kind of_ effort", which turns it into a broader category, which I believe quite reasonably includes their hostility to general "using their devices outside of the apple walled garden".
If you're going to be pedantic, please at least be correct, but "this kind of" clearly makes it more broad than just asahi linux itself.
