To give them their due, they do a good job of at least appearing to offer superior service through vertical integration - as a long-time Android user, I am probably going to make the switch at the iPhone 15 release to make the most of this while it lasts.

Car companies can't offer anything close; this subscription features thing from Intel, Mercedes and BMW is bold-faced grifting and needs to be stamped out with extreme prejudice.

Running your own software on your own iPhone requires a $99 a year subscription. Just for code signing, it's basically pure profit, and there's no practical way around it.

It's a classic masterpiece of platform gatekeeping: Getting money for doing nothing, but being the only one who can do it.