> As for the running apps, you don't even need to hack or reverse engineer anything. You can compile, sign, load and run any code you want on even the most walled iDevice, iPhone.

That's simply not true. For example, you're not allowed to install a different OS on an iPhone. You're always restricted to using the APIs that apple exposes to developers.

You are allowed to do whatever you want. Apple not providing the tools to do it is not the same as forbidding it.

BTW, without taking the reverse engineering path, you can install any software on iOS by getting a developer account. The code signing happens locally, Apple wouldn't know if you are installing a torrent client or anything else. Yes it's paid if you like having the app all the time, but the phone itself is also paid. Simply incorporate that into the cost of ownership price, if it's too expensive then don't use it. There are plenty of alternatives out there.

Installing software blessed by the father, the son, and the holy ad-hoc signing key of a dev account is not equivalent to installing an alternative OS on your iDevice. Especially if the key can be revoked at any time. The local(over-usb) signing key has a O(week) limit before it expires and can also be revoked at any time.

The boat-loader is locked down, without an exploit, you can't unlock it. No legitimate reverse engineering is going to grant you access to a low level signing key.

That is a restriction on "whatever I want" and quite a few other things.

> Installing software blessed by the father, the son, and the holy ad-hoc signing key of a dev account is not equivalent to installing an alternative OS on your iDevice.

Then do that. I don’t see why Apple should be obligated to help with that though.

If this doesn’t work for you, simply buy something else.

The baseband is locked?

Lets pretend an oracle handed me a fully functioning version of Android 5.1 (the best looking version of Android) for the iPhone $whateverIsCurrent. Installation is fully automated and works 100% of the time. All I have to do is plug-in my iphone to a Mac, paste in the signing key, and hit okay.

I am no closer then to installing an altOS then I am now. I can't install it without getting my hands on the signing key. Which means, hacking or corporate espionage. One is probably illegal in some countries and the other is definitely illegal in most country.

For the record, I don't care if I run iOS or anything else. A phone is a phone is a phone. But a few comments up, the claim was made that Apple isn't stopping owner's from doing anything and that simply isn't true. It is using software to place the weight of the law against the user.

You can always find a way around. The point is, you can do whatever you want with the device you purchased. That being hard doesn’t mean anything.

Maybe it doesn't mean anything in the sense of what you're allowed to do _legally_, but what you're allowed to do _practically_ is ultimately what the end user actually cares about.

I was thinking along the lines of some people like libre software, some people like FOSS software, some people want to be able to use different app stores and still others want to be able to install different browser engines. I was loosely referring to those things as "freedoms" that you lose in the Apple ecosystem. Obviously a lot of people don't care as much about these things, or they care more about convenience and simplicity, or they care more about something else entirely - whatever it is Apple is fulfilling their needs better than Apple's competitors.

But you can install whatever FOSS you want, as long as you can figure it out or find it on App Store. Not providing easy way to do it outside of their platform is not the same as not allowing it.

People are framing the argument against App Store as if they are blocking people from installing software into the devices they bought. Probably this attracts more sympathy but the reality is different, what Apple restricts is the access to its software distribution platform. That's why it's not the users that are pissed off but the developers.

Apple is not selling the right to install software to your iDevice, that's the developers who sell the right to install the software they created. Apple sells the right to distribute software to the devices they make, it's called Apple Developer Program and that's the one that costs money and has restrictions.