Also, the installed OS continues to work, the device is not bricked. What happens is the number of apps you can’t install because they require more recent APIs keeps growing until you can’t really install anything new. Everything else works mostly the same. I can still open apps on my 2007 iPod touch…
It really only takes ~15 minutes to jailbreak and most of that spent waiting for the device to reboot.
1. You can get older versions of Android ROMs from literally thousands of places. If Apple stops providing a version of iOS and you don't have one otherwise, and your device is borked, you're screwed.
2. Stock Android may not have been released by the manufacturer for your device, but that doesn't mean you can't get those new APIs from a different ROM available via the community.
3. Android doesn't prevent you from installing from anywhere NOT the official Google Play store by default. You can disable this without violating whatever internal security measures exist within Android just to get your own freedom back. Not so with iOS. You have no idea how jailbreaking that device will hinder security going forward.
4. Jailbreaking shouldn't be necessary in the first place. There is NO good reason for Apple to keep users away from installing whatever the hell hey want. IT'S THEIR DEVICE, THEY BOUGHT THE DAMN THING. They? Wait, I mean, I. I bought the damn thing. (And don't even try the whole "oh apple checks the security of app store blah blah blah" - we all know that's a load of crap and easy to bypass. But in the name of that security theater, loads of legitimate small time developers get their submissions rejected and accounts deleted in a daily basis, and for what? This is providing zero utility to the end user whatsoever.)
To be clear, I'm in NO way saying Android is better. Quite the opposite. Google wasted no time turning that entire platform into a raging dumpster fire from hell. And the number of people who've been victimized via the Google Play store is dramatically and demonstrably higher than that of the Apple App Store. But letting these guys have control for any reason is the wrong answer, full stop. The end user needs to have the tools, sophistication, knowledge, and most importantly *POWER* to secure their own device.
Neither monopoly gives people either one right now, and that's an abysmal sin.
> Quick note as well: When I wrote the above, I was thinking from the perspective of MacOS and general computing. I don't consider smart phones to be actual computers at all. More like overpriced toys that are usually far more trouble than they're worth (IMO). I wasn't even thinking of iPhone vs. Android until your comment.
What are your alternatives, realistically? No access to older OS versions, no access to older App Store releases even if you could, and they won’t allow you to use any other App Store either.
You could try to jailbreak the device and see if you can find an alternative App Store (i think there used to be one called Cydia? Not sure if it still exists), but that’s a hell of a lot of work.