To use a direct analogy with Apple's restrictions on users, you're free to modify and flash your car's ECU firmware. In fact, it's quite common.
Really? How have you defined common? Where is that data from? I can't imagine anything more than a tiny fraction of car owners are doing this. Most people are not hacking their cars, building Raspberry Pi controllers for their toilets, or have any desire whatsoever to side load an app on their iPhone. The HN community is not representative of the overall population.
But no one says the car manufacturers are required to make a car where you can flash the ECU. There’s just no reason for them to block it. If someone came up with a way to steal your car by tricking your into running an app that flashed your ECU then you can bet Ford would disable it pretty quickly.
Sure there is… if they are providing warranty on the vehicle then they should definitely block ECU mods, as a customer could flash original firmware back after causing damage.
And I imagine you can easily make an engine over-rev or overheat with a modded ECU, perhaps to the point of causing a fire or other catastrophe.
A phone is not, usually, a dangerous tool. Unless you can make it explode :)
> For most people, iOS limiting the damage when they get compromised is a huge plus.
Then just dont unlock. The unlock would need to be done from inside the OS, by the user, not by external actor.
> Now, consider what that means for something like unlocking the bootloader. Allowing that means undetectable malware, potentially irrecoverable. There's not really a good way around that and even if you try to inform people at the time they enable it that doesn't help if it's done when the device is out of their control (abusive partner, boss, police, etc.)
If you have an abusive partner, boss, etc. you're already at risk because they will keep looking at your phone anyway and you're in no position to refuse. A way better solution is to have a burner phone they don't know about.
Agreed with the police point, but I think after getting your phone from police you could just clean install iOS again to make sure nothing unwanted is there.
P.S. On 2nd hand market, you could just as easily reinstall stock iOS once you buy a new phone to prevent buying 2nd hand unlocked iPhone with malware.
What if _you_ didn’t? I outlined scenarios which are real risks for millions of people and a fair fraction of those either involve no or limited user consent. Maybe it’d be possible to have a secure factory reset – this is harder than it might seem with firmware in so many places – but that only helps if you even know that you need to. Anything which allows undetectable rootkits means that a large number of people will never even realize that because phones are general purpose devices and most people are not security experts. Worse, how many of them are actively being betrayed by trusted experts - abusive partners, unethical technicians, etc. - who will say it’s fine?
For example, if you buy a car there are safety features you cannot turn off without major modifications. Dangerous tools often have safety guards built-in to the design — for example, my blender doesn't say it's my choice whether to keep the spinning blade covered. My bank doesn't say it's my choice whether or not to identify myself when making a withdrawal.
For most people, iOS limiting the damage when they get compromised is a huge plus. Removing that entirely in the absolute position is bringing people back a couple of decades ago only now the malware will have access to their most private moments and data 24x7 rather than just their Geocities browsing history.
Now, consider what that means for something like unlocking the bootloader. Allowing that means undetectable malware, potentially irrecoverable. There's not really a good way around that and even if you try to inform people at the time they enable it that doesn't help if it's done when the device is out of their control (abusive partner, boss, police, etc.), and every on-screen indicator can be faked by the malware vendor. That leaves options like a physical switch in a prominent location which most people aren't going to want to pay for or see, and are more likely to be used by accident than intentionally.