However, with Google, the End User is almost never the customer.

It’s a overly simplified statement and misleads any serious conversation on the related topics!

Thank you

Google isn't different from a TV station. You as a user are a customer and pay Google by consuming the ads they present you in various products.

NPR is mostly not funded (even indirectly) by taxes, and has both actual targeted advertising on their own and platform (for digital properties), and “underwriting spots” from sponsors on its broadcasts, that while regulated more than traditional advertising and are, and have been acknowledged by NPR to be, a form of advertising by the sponsors driven by the same factors and concerns that drive traditional advertising.

Sorry if I sound like a broken record [1]. I don't own an iOS device at the moment. I would love to get an iPad but it kind of sucks that I can't compile and run my own apps.

[1] Previously on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16993157

(S)he implies that your friend’s phone being compromised will leak data about you (email address, physical address, birth date, mails you sent, etc)

I pretty much opertate from the point of view that anything I send in an email or text is public, and temper what I write accordingly.

I've started referring to software developers (like myself) with intentional irony as "mutant lizard people" after hearing one too many times how a particular OS/tool/programming language needs to be designed "for humans" (i.e, n00bs with no prior exposure to it).

I’ve written a couple personal apps that sync with health kit data collected from my Apple Watch and nutrition apps to help me track things in a way that is useful for my fitness goals. In 2016-2017 I used these apps to put on 30 lbs and stay relatively lean but I’ve never wanted to publish them in the app store. I don’t pay for any developer program. Just need to download some (free) developer tools / SDK for XCode, build the source, and put it on my phone. The install is tethered, but afterwards it stays there until I delete it. Restarting the phone doesn’t delete the app either. Only time I needed to re-install was when my 5s crapped out and I had to get a new phone.

Edit: Disregard my comment. I clicked the link and understand the context of your comment now. Still, if you want to code and deploy your own apps you can do it but there are conditions.

You don't need to pay to deploy to your own devices these days.

Would I be happier if I could get a phone with the equivalent of BIOS and nothing else and vet and install my own software? You bet. If nothing else, I'd not have to install all those Play ____ apps I never use. But given the choices available, Apple is a bad one.

You can get a free developer account that lets you develop and run your own programs since a couple of years.

I don’t know what you’re getting on about with ASICS, but I guess you may just need to accept being in a niche market segment.

Almost like Apple has probably evaluated the business case of an open ecosystem low margin low cost phone, and then immediately went back to printing money.

Of course, they're miserable little devices, but they are technically smartphones that technically run android.

I love the phrase "printing money". It's time proven. But it just occurred to me that it doesn't do Apple justice.

Apple's free cash flow for the trailing 12 months was $44.6 Billion. That's 446 million $100 banknotes. How many printing presses does it take to print that many bills? How many sheets of cotton/linen paper?

Apple's financial numbers are astounding.