Because you think of it as a computer? Where as most of their think of it as a smartphone and don't give a thought to a root user or wonder why they need it. Eliminating a huge security risk that has been a bane for general computers for all time.

Because you're not their target market. Their target market don't want to know about the technical details. They're not nerds like us.

People on this site are not in general nerds. The explosion in developers around the late 00s meant that the average coder is no longer a typical 'news for nerds stuff that matters' person.

Maybe in the Bay. But in the rest of the world, the average suit still considers developers to be nerds, only good for pushing the nerd-buttons.

I'm actually their target market, I use an iphone as my main phone because two reasons, first they have a great hardware, and second, they support their devices much longer than any other manufacturer. An iphone 7 is 4 years from their release still a very capable phone and receives security updates and new os versions, there is no other manufactured that does that. You could say that they finance that with the app store, but their devices are actually quite priced and what the app store gives to apple is way more money that what they need.

You can however not invest very much on the apple ecosystem and subscribe to most services outside the app store mode, which is what I do myself, but I'm a minority.

Probably because you're not the target audience. That is perfectly fine as well. I imagine most of the HN audience would be able to avoid bricking their devices if they all came with root access.

But I buy Apple. For myself, my parents, and I recommend to relatives etc. The tight leash is a feature not a limitation. I know if I set up an iPhone or iPad for my mum the apps aren't going to try charging her credit card or installing bloatware and so on.

The tight integration between all the services is a plus as well - something I just don't trust on other devices. Using the parent example again, my mum doesn't need to understand iCloud syncing, she just knows that all her photos are safe on the device and will show up on the computer.

Also, what happened to PWA’s? That would be a great way to open up the ecosystem

Apple decides to fxxk them up. It don't even has notification that chrome/firefox on android implemented years ago. Not to mention damn much annoying safari bugs.

The desktop is incredibly outdated, and it's painfully visible. Any desktop application you install isn't sandboxed at all and has full access to all your files and peripherals (including camera and microphone). The only way to describe this is 'insane'.

That is only a problem when you run untrusted software. Doing that is insane.

No, you shouldn't need to trust software in the first place. Why should my email client be allowed to access my camera, whether I trust it or not?

At some point, you have to trust some software. Even if it's just the sandbox maker.

We can go two ways with this:

1. We teach users how to use computers so they don't hurt themselves. Some still will, because they don't get it.

2. We clamp down on all uses of computers so that they're safe for uneducated users to use. Only authorised corporate programmers are allowed to create applications. Users are "safe", but treated badly by their corporate overlords.

I want scenario 1 (with no sandbox and the freedom to install whatever I like). Scenario 2 is where Apple is headed.

Because sandboxing harms the user experience.