I think they were controlling the perception that third party apps could change your entire device settings. That was/still is something that iPhone users expect to be “safe”. As in, if I carelessly install an unknown app, it at least can’t do much harm and I can just delete it without having any real consequences. The existence of “hack apps” undermines that layman understanding of their device security

The problem there is that the primary security mechanism is enumerating badness by policing what apps users can install. That's not nearly as robust as designing the sandbox so apps can't do much harm. If toggling the setting is really dangerous, which it wasn't in this case, it should have been impossible for an app to do without some sort of special access.

I also think users should be in control of granting or denying that kind of special access, but that's a separate discussion.

The problem with this is that it should be a permission the user needs to grant to the app rather than something that apps can never do under any circumstances even when the user explicitly wants them to. The latter is just the vendor declaring themselves by self-fiat to be immune from competition in the markets for those device software features.

It's the standard Apple "We will decide what you can run on your own computer, not you" paternalism that we have come to know and expect, and that they have perfected over the decades.

That wasn't the standard on the Mac, and looks like it still isn't. That platform has a strong tradition of utility apps that add to or modify core OS functions, and when I looked up "essential mac utilities" today, I found recent listicles with items like Alt Tab (an app switcher), Magnet (window management shortcuts), and TinkerTool (change hidden system settings - exactly like emoji toggles for iPhone).

The iPhone was a big departure from that.

Hazehover is a new rising superstar. It darkens the unfocused app windows. So I guess it's a dark star ;)

I tried hazeover years ago and dropped it quite quickly. Something about the dimming caused visual confusion for me.

So then, was it the same thing waiting 5 years longer than most companies to have something as basic as wireless charging? Or waiting until 2023 to finally adopt USB C charging?

They waited to adopt USB-C for mobile because the trust third parties put into Apple was founded on the fact that they guaranteed ten years of support for Lightning and that’s why it was only iPhone that had accessories like clock radio docks and thermal cameras and external Lightning based peripherals for a long time.