The consumer just wants perfectly consistently browned toast, while not dying from electrical shock or setting her house on fire. She’s not really buying a toaster, she’s buying no-hassle toast.
If you allow that’s what an iPhone is, rather than a general personal computing device, Apple’s stance makes more sense.
> If you allow that’s what an iPhone is, rather than a general personal computing device, Apple’s stance makes more sense.
But the iPhone is _not_ a toaster. To characterize the consumer wants around an iPhone and its variable uses as akin to the near uniform customer expectation to have a toaster that doesn't burn their house down while doing its job is hard for me to accept.
If a customer is really seeking "no hassle toast" when buying a toaster, what is the customer buying in an iPhone? No-hassle phone?
If so, are we construing "giving the consumer the option of installing software on their own device" as a hassle? With something like a phone, I believe users have come to expect the ability to install software of their choosing on the device, which is very different from expectations of software installation for something like a toaster.
I have a mid 90s uneducated great grandmother who grew up and still is in a rural village in a poor country able to contact all of her great grandchildren and video chat with them for the past 7 years.
Well, yes, that is the battlefield here: should the market in software, services, and media exist, or should consumers have to pick which vertical silo to use and then be unable to switch without prohibitive re-purchasing and setup costs?