How exactly would allowing a third party operating system on the device negatively impact your user experience?
Can you explain why you believe that allowing access to the hardware, only after explicitly and deliberately enabling access via some sort of hardware switch or whatnot, in a way that does not alter the default experience in any measurable way, conflicts with your preferences?
I can understand liking the software that it comes with by default, I just don't understand how allowing a different OS to be installed, if you choose to install it, conflicts with anything.
> How exactly would allowing a third party operating system on the device negatively impact your user experience?
I'm all for Apple allowing third party operating systems. If some world government wants to force Apple to allow users to install Debian, Android or whatever onto their iPhone hardware, that's great. No downsides. Write the referendum and I'll vote in favour.
As for the more common refrain that developers should be allowed to distribute apps outside Apple's walled garden, that does negatively affect me in three ways:
1. Unless Apple is allowed to make side-loading at least as unfriendly as it is on Android, many apps I use today will stop being distributed through the App Store. Want the Gmail app? Download Play Store for iOS. Want Lightroom? Download Creative Cloud Store for iOS. And suddenly all of these apps are no longer subject to Apple's strict privacy/tracking policies. That sucks.
2. I provide tech help to a dozen family members. I can't control what they do. I've had enough of dealing with Windows XP machines with Comet Cursor and a dozen other bits of malware on them. These days I've moved the worst offenders to iPads and providing them with tech support is no longer a source of tension headaches. No fucking way I'm supporting anything that has even the slightest chance of kinking that armour. It doesn't matter what I say. These people will follow any instruction provided by Google or Epic to install whatever app they've heard about.
3. Maybe I want to develop my own device and I want to write libraries for others to write apps for the device. Why should I support governments forcing device makers to give those libraries away to others and not respect license terms? I'm all for people hacking into devices they own, but if I distribute something with a license, I want my license terms to be respected - just as someone releasing under AGPL wants that license respected.
> 1. Unless Apple is allowed to make side-loading at least as unfriendly as it is on Android, many apps I use today will stop being distributed through the App Store. Want the Gmail app? Download Play Store for iOS. Want Lightroom? Download Creative Cloud Store for iOS. And suddenly all of these apps are no longer subject to Apple's strict privacy/tracking policies. That sucks.
That’s a lot of speculation without any data behind it.
We have the biggest OS in history of the world and what you’re describing is absolutely not the case there.
One of the biggest game developers with arguably the most popular game at the time tried to push for it and eventually returned back with tail between its legs.
Epic had their tail between their legs because the law wasn't on their side. The whole point is that if the law is modified, and these aspects of Apple's operating systems are designed by legislation, Epic would prevail in court. And there's no reason to think Apple could make side-loading onerous, because Epic will complain to the courts about anything that stands in the way of a seamless install of the Epic Games Store on an iPhone.
That's not equivalent to the status quo on Android.
1. You are right that it probably won't happen if Apple is only required to make side-loading technically possible but not seamless. But somehow I doubt that if Governments force Apple to permit side-loading by law, entities like Epic won't repeatedly abuse the courts to ensure Apple makes side-loading as seamless as possible. This is OS design by legislation and court order. Therefore the analogy to Android is obviously absurd and irrelevant.
2. Your lack of empathy is noted. But thanks for acknowledging that what I described is a real problem.
3. There are government regulations, therefore there should be more government regulations. Is that an argument?
I never said that. But if we are already discussing this. How do you know that opening the hardware doesn’t mean significantly dropping iPhone security stance? I don’t know, I’m asking. I’m fine to be convinced it’s possible but that would require a real technical analysis how such hardware switch can be implemented, without words like “maybe” or “possibly”.
Because through experiance I've never heard of anyone or been myself ever hacked by a third party through the internet using an Android phone over my entire tech career. I've been using Android since 1.0.
But I have personally hacked Android phones before by exploiting a zero day on an early firmware of my device that has since been patched and it was a huge pain requiring physical access to the device and a computer with a USB cable.
And I know that iPhones still have the exact same flaw because Cydia still exists.
So why do you believe you are secure if someone comes into physical posession of your phone?
Cydia mostly only exists for devices before the iPhone X that are susceptible to the Checkra1n USB exploit. Past that, jailbreaks are few and far between, with the latest A12+ jailbreak being Dopamine for iOS 15 - 15.4.1, and that was only released in May of this year. There is no iOS 16 jailbreak except for on those iPhone X or earlier devices.
Can you explain why you believe that allowing access to the hardware, only after explicitly and deliberately enabling access via some sort of hardware switch or whatnot, in a way that does not alter the default experience in any measurable way, conflicts with your preferences?
I can understand liking the software that it comes with by default, I just don't understand how allowing a different OS to be installed, if you choose to install it, conflicts with anything.