[devnullbrain]

Not only do I think it's relevant, I think it's the whole point. The security argument is the outcome of finding the most useful, contentious point that would support them continuing to make the gobs of money. It's the same way 'think of the children' is used for arguing in favour of various types of censorship - everyone in the know is aware it's not the real reason but we live in a society where calling someone out for BSing is considered rude, or bad politics. So the rest of us have to nod along while being treated as fools.

The TAM is saturated. Taking share from Android is difficult. Making more humans use smartphones is difficult. Making more humans is difficult. Extracting more rent is not. So the idea that the security is more important for future revenues than the ability to exploit the userbase doesn't hold up, particularly when there isn't and can't be an alternative with a different security model.

[robenkleene]

The growth potential comes from future devices that are facilitated by this security model. E.g., you can't have Adobe Creative Cloud's updater process, Zoom, Dropbox, etc... all running their background processes on a resource constrained device like say, AR glasses. This is why Apple is betting the farm in this security model despite its ongoing issues. Apple's future of computing is easily, verifiably, incompatible with a Mac-like security model. This isn't up for debate.

If your argument is a more open model than Apple currently has for the iPhone that might be good argument. But I was replying specifically to the authors comparison to the Mac. My point is that Apple believes having a Mac-like security model for the iPhone would make it less successful, as evidence by there aggressive push to make Mac security more iPhone-like, without enforcing iPhone-style revenue sharing (e.g., you can buy and download software from anywhere without giving Apple a cent).