If you want to work on your ultimate phone environment as a hobby, there is Android. If you want things to work just the way they are with the fewest surprises and least amount of finagling use Apple.

I use macOS instead of Linux for this reason: last time I tried updating the production packages on a Linux box it took me hours to clean up the mess that X11 left behind.

Don’t criticise my walled garden just because you want to experiment with weed salad in your community garden.

Whether a system "just works" or it requires finagling is or should be an orthogonal discussion to whether it respects you as a user.

Its reasonable to ask for both.

My walled garden respects me as a user, but I am the kind of user the walled garden is maintained for.

Whether you take out your own garbage or Apple does it it’s still garbage for you to clean up. Some people want to throw money at Apple to take care of the garbage for them.

If you give apps the right not to do things like AppleID they’ll take it and the App Store would be a highly inconsistent experience for people who want to do no thinking about how their device works. There ought to be some middle ground but consumers are the ones who will have their boundaries encroached unless an entity ruthlessly minds the border...

For the degree of opening you leave companies will extract that much concession from your users.

Rest assured that despite the somehow surprisingly recent blind support for Apple here, there are people too that want to own our devices.

I can just hope that the EU is successful in stopping all of Apple's trickeries ranging from 2.5mm headset jacks, ports, OS slow downs, mysterious battery underperformance, app store, the list just goes on.

> headset jacks

You want the EU to regulate whether a company wants to put a headphone jack in their devices?

> OS slow downs

iOS has gotten faster over time [1].

> mysterious battery underperformance

It's common knowledge that this was an honest engineering mistake because as a phone ages, the battery cannot support the max voltage of the processor. Apple now lets you enable full performance with the understanding that your phone might shut down on you when you need it most.

> app store

Which we've determined not to be a monopoly as Apple is a minority player in the mobile device space.

> the list just goes on.

So you've suggested 4 things, 3 of which don't apply and 1 of which (headphone jacks) would be gross governmental overreach.

It seems to me that you just want the company to burn and you want the EU to regulate the hell out of everything in your life.

For example, deciding whether I want to put a headphone jack on my next device is my choice, not the EU's choice, and it would be tyrannical and innovation-stifling to let them have a say over something like that.

It is very reasonable for you to just buy something else if you don't like an Apple device, since Apple is not a monopoly in the mobile space. However, neither you nor the government should have the right to force Apple to develop a product you like. Apple does not exist to satisfy your whims.

[1]: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/09/ios-13-the-ars-techn...

The problem with the battery thing is then Apple can give the appearance that their phones have some speed profile when in reality it’s more complicated, even if the complications are in their sum a calculated benefit to the consumer.

However, I’m not really sure that other companies are contextually more honest to consumers in their advertising, or that such standards in communication even exist for the American marketplace. It’s hard to criticize Apple for the details when the bigger story is their great relationship with customers.

> Apple does not exist to satisfy your whims.

I never said so. In any case, I don't need you to tell me what to do.

I vote with my wallet and I don't buy Apple products anymore.

The government does not need to regulate it, the market itself will do it just like it did with Microsoft. On the meantime, I'll let you keep finding excuses for Apple's shady practices.

> You want the EU to regulate whether a company wants to put a headphone jack in their devices?

> So you've suggested 4 things, 3 of which don't apply and 1 of which (headphone jacks) would be gross governmental overreach.

There is precedence for the EU mandating Apple change their hardware practices:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidphelan/2020/02/11/apple-ch...

> So you've suggested 4 things, 3 of which don't apply and 1 of which (headphone jacks) would be gross governmental overreach.

Here's a 5th one:

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/29/tile-writes-to-eu-accus...

In your first source: letting the EU regulate the charging cable would have been provably dumb and absurd. Lightning was years ahead of Micro-USB when it was released and served as inspiration for USB-C. Just another example of how government overregulation would harm innovation and industries.

The second source is Tile complaining about the privacy warnings in iOS 13. It’s laughable. Customers are turning off abusive always-on surveillance thanks to iOS 13 notifications and this is hurting Tile. Working as intended.

Regardless of the prudence of the EU regulating the cable, the very fact that they have weighed in on the subject shows that hardware decisions are within the court's purview, and so would headphone jacks, presumably. One's opinion of said prudence is up for debate, certainly.

The Tile situation is TBD, pending Apple's release of AirTags. Will iOS user location notifications pop up as frequently in Apple's first party Find My app as it does in Tile's app? Stay tuned!

Also, the letter mentions the matter of Apple removing their previous Tile store presence (presumably in favor of AirTags), which is within their power but brings up the matter of Sherlocking. Sure, Sherlocking is legal- but is it ethical? Is it right when Facebook scouts other apps to duplicate it in their app? Is it right when Apple does the same to preexisting apps in its App Store? At the very least, these legal cases- whether you think them prudent or not- bring them before the public for examination and discussion.

> I can just hope that the EU is successful in stopping all of Apple's trickeries ranging from 2.5mm headset jacks, ports, OS slow downs, mysterious battery underperformance

Entirely unrelated, and it's 3.5 mm by the way.

2.5mm jacks exist but iOS devices have never used them. I think some feature phones did that back in the day.

Personally I've only encountered them on a pair of headphones where they're a step up from a soldered on cable, but more annoying than a standard jack would be. It's also recessed really far in with a very narrow twist-lock connector, so isn't compatible with any cables except the special one it comes with.