The distinction you’re trying to make between an iPhone and a game console isn’t very clear.

Developers have been conditioned to know they cannot develop games for consoles without the manufacturer's permission, but we expect to be able to develop applications for general-purpose computers freely. And the iPhone is clearly in the latter category regardless of what Apple calls it, because of the range of things it can do.

Agreed; all of them should be general-purpose computers, neither should be subsidized by software sales and neither should be locked down.

> Because iPhones are general-purpose computers, not video game consoles.

You just pulled that of a thin air. I mean, a latest Samsung fridge is a general-purpose computer as well, so...

> And they are the property of their owners, not of Apple. You know what you're buying, so just stop buying it. Pinephone ships in April.

A Samsung fridge ought to be user-programmable too. And I do plan to buy an unencumbered phone when one of them becomes stable enough for daily use.

Iphones try very hard to look like general purpose computers; that's why everyone was so pissed when they pushed that U2 album, it pierced the veil.

Apple explicitly markets that the iPhone is locked down.

How is that ‘trying hard’ to look like a general purpose computer?

Broadly speaking, a general purpose computer is one that can do anything (like an Apple IIe) and the opposite is one that is constrained to do a few specific things (like an ATM). Whether an iphone (or a wintel computer with UEFI, or an Android phone locked by the hardware manufacturer, or etc etc) qualifies is a matter of semantics, and not interesting to argue about; I elided this distinction because (I imagined) the kind of people posting here would be familiar with it and know what I meant.

A more nitpick-proof way to phrase my point would be that an iphone is a general purpose computer controlled by Apple, and it tries very hard to look like a general purpose computer controlled by the person that bought it. The customers want to have their cake and eat it too; they want the power of a general purpose computer, and the security of a locked-down appliance. You can't have both, but Apple's size and popularity is a testament to how close they have managed to get.

In my opinion they're not trying very hard. It's called "phone", not "computer" to start with.