[threeseed]

> Apple maintaining iron-fisted control over the platform at the expense of both developers and end-users.

There are legitimate benefits to having a locked down platform which Apple (and developers/consumers) have decided is worth the negatives. There are zero viruses or malware on iOS compared to quite a few on Android. The quality of applications is significantly higher on iOS because (a) developers have a consistent platform to optimize for and (b) majority of iOS users are more than likely on the latest release.

This approach is working so well for Apple that Google, Samsung and Microsoft are all trying to emulate it.

[georgemcbay]

I honestly don't see any real benefits of Apple's lock-down approach compared to ChromeOS's lock-down approach. Users who want the full security of ChromeOS can use it as it ships and be happy, users who want to live on the wild side can fairly trivially (but with enough effort that they don't do it on accident) break the locks.. best of both worlds, user gets to decide how much they want to live in a locked box.

I don't disagree that there are benefits to the consistency of the Apple ecosystem versus that of Android, but all of those benefits are rooted in Google's lack of control of what phone vendors do with the OS (though they have been working to change that), not lack of control of users or app developers.. the entire jailbreaking ecosystem proves that such freedom doesn't harm the people who want the safe thing, it is just a shame they are forced to constantly fight against the phone vendor (on the Apple side) to keep things open whereas Google (usually -- they've been uncharacteristically dickish with Chromecast hardware) usually goes out of their way to allow the user to run free if they want to.

[afarrell]

And these advantages are meaningful not just for the companies, but for the end-user. Most users don't want to root their own machines, they just want a machine that can help them live their lives, make ends meet, and learn more about their world. A virus that bricks the machine keeps them from doing that.

Of course, for some 15-year-old girl in Jakarta, "learn more about their world" may in fact mean rooting their machine so they can deal with grotty Unix details and 8 years down the road build on that to for an MEng thesis and then startup.