From what I always understood, the argument for the App Store was to ensure the hardware remained stable. While it's easy to say, "it's mine, I can do what I want," when that device is a persons life line to emergency services in the even something happens to them, that is not a responsibility a company should take lightly. I like to think Apple takes that seriously and acts in accordance with that responsibly. They've said as much publicly, but of course one can choose to believe them or not.
Even if someone wants to ignore this concept, where is the line drawn? Should a hardware manufacturer, or OS vendor, be allowed to make a product that blocks malware on their systems (like Windows Defender)? Windows was seen as a poor product because of all the adware that infected it in the early 2000s. That issue has largely been resolved, thanks to efforts from Microsoft. Should they not be allowed to solve the biggest issue that plagued the public perception of their product?
I realize I'm move the goalpost slightly, from hardware to OS vendor, but ultimately, it isn't Apple's hardware that's creating these controls, it's iOS, the operating system. And in the case of Google, it's clearly an OS vendor issue, as Android is installed on a wide variety of hardware from many different OEMs.
Your Windows Defender argument seems like apples and oranges. It doesn't fully prevent adware infection anyway, but regardless, the discussion is about whether a hardware maker (or platform owner if you're going to try to extend this to OSes) should be allowed to prevent 3rd-party software selected by the user from running on their platform.
Defender doesn't do this: it's an optional security application by MS that's included with Windows. Users are free to disable it if they wish. Nothing is preventing Windows users from running whatever software on top of Windows that they like. Defender will prevent some malware from running, and many users like this for obvious reasons, and the fact that it's included for free unlike competing anti-malware software, but it's not so baked into Windows that you can't turn it off. An antitrust argument could possibly be made, along the lines of Windows including IE and putting competing software out of business, but that's a different issue than what we're discussing.
So you're right about this being really an OS vendor issue, but Microsoft doesn't force anyone to use Defender, and doesn't prevent anyone from using competing products. Google also allows using competing app stores (or even side-loading .apk files), though only a tiny fraction of users take advantage of this. Apple is really the problem here because it doesn't allow these things at all.
seems like a false dilemma to me. the platform owner should do all those responsible things that you mention. they should also offer an escape hatch for turning all those portions off, should the owner of the device so choose. I respect Apple's attitude much more than Google and Microsoft these days, but they really go too far with locking down iOS.
Even if someone wants to ignore this concept, where is the line drawn? Should a hardware manufacturer, or OS vendor, be allowed to make a product that blocks malware on their systems (like Windows Defender)? Windows was seen as a poor product because of all the adware that infected it in the early 2000s. That issue has largely been resolved, thanks to efforts from Microsoft. Should they not be allowed to solve the biggest issue that plagued the public perception of their product?
I realize I'm move the goalpost slightly, from hardware to OS vendor, but ultimately, it isn't Apple's hardware that's creating these controls, it's iOS, the operating system. And in the case of Google, it's clearly an OS vendor issue, as Android is installed on a wide variety of hardware from many different OEMs.