> The fact so many technical people believe that security and freedom are mutually exclusive, and pay for that lie, is proof the Apple propaganda is working exactly as intended.

My Aunt Millie's iPhone is secure against herself because she can't install random garbage off the Internet and is in a walled garden.

As someone who works in IT: users are often their (and their organization's) own worst enemy. We've tried training and blacklisting (with anti-virus) for decades, and it appears that whitelisting and locking things down is what actually works.

I'd be happy with a 'compromise' where there's a factory reset where you can install your own code but it blows an e-fuse to indicate that device is no longer 'OEM certified secure' state.

Chromebooks had a screw you could remove on the motheboard to fully unlock them to do whatever you want. Something no one would do by accident. This was a reasonable solution from the less-evil Google days.

> I'd be happy with a 'compromise' where there's a factory reset where you can install your own code but it blows an e-fuse to indicate that device is no longer 'OEM certified secure' state.

You just described what Samsung does with their phones. You can unlock them, but even if you later switch back to the normal OS, some features are permanently disabled by that fuse.

I've seen malware popups that give detailed steps on how to install the app on Android. You can put up all the scary warnings you want but if someone really wants to install some scam app, they will click past everything.

I really wish we could have a simple "don't bother me, I know what I'm doing" switch on these phones but I can certainly understand the reasons why Apple and Google are putting in as many roadblocks as possible to protect users from themselves.

Maybe we should be specific when we mean “secure”. What you mean is like “secure MDM”, when the adversary is the user. The parent meant “secure against external adversaries”.

Lumping consumer devices with the need for secure business devices and often offloading that to personal devices is the problem.

I wish they stop finding ways to lock down the device in the name of security and/or release different SKUs for the more secure use cases, provided by the organizations themselves if they deem it necessary.

It's true! The EU forced Apple to make it so you can install apps from third parties and every day iPhones are found haunted by malware! That's why root exploits only exist in Europe!

Well, except that one-click PDF persistent root exploit American researchers found, and there not being any sort of iOS malware wave in the EU.