Totally agree. It's a market failure that a company that makes a device that you buy is more interested in pleasing another company (the telcom) than you (the customer).
In a market with competition device manufacturers would be fighting over adding features like anonymous teathering for their customers, and phone companies would be charging for data use, and with enough competition that use-per-byte would become dirt cheap quickly.
If it's your hardware, you're free to install your own software which does not honor those checks. But apparently you can't do that, so it's not entirely your hardware, as you can't run any code on it.
This hasn't been true for a while. Anyone can build and install their own iPhone apps, the requirement to buy a developer license went away a while ago.
I'm talking about OS. iPhone apps are extremely limited. For example you can't alter your network stack with iPhone app, AFAIK. Apple has so much control that you can't even install their own OS without their explicit permission, so you can't rollback to a previous version.
The radio portion cannot stop you from using tethering though. Also, as far as I am aware, radio firmware on Android is often stored on an internal MMC card.
Not exactly. Radio chip firmware is responsible for controlling the physical layer, and restricting access to it is a practical compromise that ensures people don't generally cause RF interference for one another.
The problem discussed upthread is on the application layer - you not being able to run arbitrary code on your own device because companies prefer to please one another rather than their customers.
if you jailbreak, there's a tweak that allows you do set up a wifi or data sharing hotspot on any carrier, even if they don't allow it. it's called tetherme.
TBH carrying a second device, on which I have root, tcpdump, and iptables, is much better overall, as I can monitor/block all the app-based spyware that is endemic today on smartphones.
as long as you're still at or below ios 12.2 you can use unc0ver.
note that it's a semi-untethered jailbreak so you have to re-jailbreak every time you restart, but that basically comes down to opening an app and pressing a button.
iMessage and OS-level security/malware-resistance, primarily.
The product can still be good and useful even if the product managers are carrier-bootlicking shitheads who place a third party’s interest above that of their actual paying customers.
Exactly. You usually gotta "color outside the lines" if you want anything cool, i.e., jailbreaking (jb) or hackintoshing. I'm surprised no one's tried hackiosing on custom hardware, although it would take a pile of enginerding and gnidrenigne.
It is not yours. Do you decide what it does? No, Apple does what it may do. Can you use as you see fit? No Apple decides what is fit. Can you modify as you see fit? No. Apple DRM decides what you may modify.
You do not own the device, Apple does. The device is Apple's slave. It obeys its master and not you.
The law even backs up this, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act forbids you from doing what you want with it. If you don't live in the US, don't worry your home is probably a party to WIPO and anti-circumvention is illegal there too.
It is not your hardware. Your "ownership" is abrogated by law.
I have to carry two devices because of this. :(
Also in this list: Apple allowing video players to disable seeking in ads. It’s my hardware, fuckers.