> I think he/she was being ironic. You either own it or Apple owns it.
That’s really reductive thinking. I guess the idea is to blur all the different connotations of “own” into one thing and assert they are all the same?
I “own” a car, but am not allowed to drive it in some situations (if I’m drunk, on the wrong side of the freeway, …). Does that mean the state actually owns it?
Disregarding context in favor of reductive binaries is the #1 sign of zealotry. You see it everywhere: either a movie is original or it’s not, so Avatar is / isn’t (pick one) because it follows familiar tropes / innovated in visual arts (pick one).
The world is actually contextual. The moment you throw that out, no meaningful statement can be made.
By registering the car and obtaining a license you are agreeing to obey the rules set out by the state in exchange for permission to use the roadways.
To steelman the argument, you could argue that by using an iDevice you are using Apple's services and agree to follow the rules set out by them. But there is no such possible way to use an iDevice without relying on Apple's services.
With a car you can have it delivered and only use it off public roads on your own property. That would be a lot less useful, but it is something people do sometimes, such as with vintage/museum cars, race cars, construction/farm/mining vehicles, etc.
It's always your vehicle. The issue is the roads not the vehicle. But with an iDevice, even if it's legally "your phone", it's been designed to be impossible to do whatever you want with it within the bounds of the law, which weakens the traditional notion of what it means to "own" something (ie "right of disposal").
Again to steelman it, the retort is "Apple has the right to manufacture devices in alignment with protecting their business model, if you don't like it then buy other devices". Which is fine normally, except that the only other major similar device manufacturer is starting to do similar kinds of things and our society increasingly depends on the assumption everyone has a phone.
So what's increasingly becoming the scenario is that you have a choice: either allow your rights over your own property be infringed, or allow your ability to participate in society be infringed.
> But there is no such possible way to use an iDevice without relying on Apple's services.
There is. One can go through the iPhone setup wizard and opt out of everything. You don’t need to have any accounts, neither iCloud nor App Store one, or to be logged on to any Apple services to use your phone.
Someone who knows more about iOS than both you and me could comment further on whether subtle things like aGPS would continue to function as expected, but everything you specifically thought of when you wrote “to use an iDevice” would work.
It's still constantly phoning home for things like OS updates.
And that's not even the main issue, you're still unable to decide what software you're running on it, so Apple controls what you're able to do on it even if you opt out if all of that.
> I “own” a car, but am not allowed to drive it in some situations (if I’m drunk, on the wrong side of the freeway, …). Does that mean the state actually owns it?
That’s really reductive thinking. I guess the idea is to blur all the different connotations of “own” into one thing and assert they are all the same?
I “own” a car, but am not allowed to drive it in some situations (if I’m drunk, on the wrong side of the freeway, …). Does that mean the state actually owns it?
Disregarding context in favor of reductive binaries is the #1 sign of zealotry. You see it everywhere: either a movie is original or it’s not, so Avatar is / isn’t (pick one) because it follows familiar tropes / innovated in visual arts (pick one).
The world is actually contextual. The moment you throw that out, no meaningful statement can be made.