Since there is no sideload and the criptographic keys belong to Apple, then the device belongs effectively to Apple and you just rent it for a fixed fee.
You can't both own it and not own it depending on the situation, thus exposing Apple's hypocrisy as a well-intended parentified gatekeeper just protecting the users/childified adult users.
Another way to think of this is imagine if Apple burned the OS into a ROM chip. That doesn't make them the owner of the device because the user can't write to the ROM chip. By that logic no one would own the device because no one can update it, but that can't really be true.
This is unique to modern technology, and the fact that they sell you the house keeping sole ownership of the keys to certain rooms is indeed worth examining I think.
Except that they are not actually given that freedom.
The entire notion of free software is that users should be free to modify the software stacks of their devices.
Very few consumer devices are free in that sense. You can't run a custom OS on an iPhone.
Not everyone cares about the bits. It’s true that the vast majority of consumers prefer having a single supplier to having freedom to run their own bits.
Sure you can, you just need to replace the components that don't let you with ones that allow your custom OS.
We're discussing consumer hardware.
Can a consumer "just" replace the components of their iPhone? No, they cannot.
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.
No, it means that the state owns the freeway.
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.
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.
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.
Not really. Apple reserves the right to start WiFi or Bluetooth.