For example:
- You MUST use Apple’s own apps (iMessage, Phone, etc.) as well as Apple’s own App Store
- To be fair, the EU is doing work to solve this particular issue…but most of the reforms are only for EU customers
- You have to use WebKit when developing a browser for
macOSiOS and iPadOS, you can’t use Gecko or Blink - iOS apps must be developed using XCode IF YOU WANT TO PUBLISH IT ON THE APP STORE, which is only available on MacOS…
That last one is weird. Why can’t you compile Swift outside of MacOS (i.e. third party IDEs)? Why can only XCode do it?
edit: Gecko and Blink based browsers are available on macOS. I learnt something new today. Not for iOS or iPadOS though. Also, Xcode is only a requirement for publishing in the App Store. You are able to compile Swift in any OS. You’ll just need to distribute the app via sideloading and/or third-party app stores (in the EU)
And cultural impact. Americans are super patriotic about Apple and don’t even notice it.
Eh, they’re perceived as more “lefty” than most of the stereotypically “patriotic” corporations of the US.
There are a couple of reasons for this: (1) Steve Jobs has/had a “crunchy granola” reputation (despite likely being a crypto fascist) due to likening himself to civil rights leaders and other “woke” people and living in California, and (2) they have a large amount of usage by people in the creative arts such as music producers, visual artists, and other people who the right would call “woke” without blinking an eye.
I think it’s all perception, and they are easily just as fascistic as the rest of the corporations. But they try to stay on the good side of a lot of people that care deeply – or at least claim to care deeply – about eroding democratic norms, and the rolling back of people’s rights and that produce a lot of the cultural artifacts the right largely hates, but are broadly-speaking massively popular.