This thing is literally not able to run arbitrary software. It is only allowed to run Apple's OS, and only allowed to install software from Apple's app store, written with Apple's app toolchain, and compiled with Apple's app libraries.

There is a whole world of software that this device will never touch, simply because it's not allowed.

Oh ffs. So really for you the quality of the hardware, the price, the whole experience—these things are irrelevant because you can’t sideload. It’s an Apple product what did you expect? “This is the year of Linux on desktop” people are not the intended customers.

It's not irrelevant! Quite the opposite, the overall experience is precisely what is relevant.

It's exactly what I expected from an Apple product. That's why I was never enthusiastic about this hardware to begin with: I knew anything I would want to do with it would be arbitrarily impossible. That's Apple's business model. Just because I'm not the target audience doesn't mean I don't exist!

The target audience is anyone who is willing to pay $3500 for a walled garden. For fucks sake, I'm allowed to be critical of that business model.

You’re allowed to be anything you want, it’s just a predictable, well-trod take.

It’s no different than the people who show up in new iPhone announcement threads complaining about iOS and the App Store. We’ve heard all this before literally all the time — Google sells Pixels go buy one of those and be happy. Some of us like what Apple does with their ecosystem.