But very distinctly, not all. Apple deliberately makes customers buy more than what they need while refusing to sell board-level ICs or allow donor boards to be disassembled for parts. If a $0.03 Texas Instruments voltage controller melts on your Macbook, you have to buy and replace the whole $600 board if you want it working again. In Apple's eyes, third party repairs simply aren't viable and the waste is justified because it's "technically" repaired.
> You can install whatever OS you want on your computer
Just not your iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. Because that would simply be a bridge too far - allowing real competition in a walled garden? Unheard of.
> You can disable the system lockdowns that "tighten the screws" you refer to and unlock most things back to how they used to be.
And watch as they break after regular system upgrades that force API regressions and new unjustified restrictions on your OS. Most importantly, none of this is a real an option on Apple's business-critical products.
Yeah, I know you can't buy every component. But five years ago you couldn't buy any.
We're clearly talking about Macs for the software parts so I'm not sure why you're bringing in iPhone/iPad/Apple Watch where the status quo has remained unchanged since they were introduced. I'd love those to be opened up but that's another conversation.
Regarding system restrictions on macOS (putting aside the fact it fully supports otehr operating systems on Apple hardware), the ability to disable the system restrictions hasn't changed for years. System Integrity Protection is still a toggle that most users never need to touch.
> Most importantly, none of this is a real an option on Apple's business-critical products.
You can install whatever OS you want on your computer - Asahi Linux is the only one that's done the work to support that.
You can disable the system lockdowns that "tighten the screws" you refer to and unlock most things back to how they used to be.