Apple needs to enable local owner-authorized examination and backup of the iOS filesystem, for device recovery and forensic investigation. With the never-ending fixing of zero-day bugs in iOS, the only path to a clean iOS installation is DFU restore and data restore. At present, many manual steps are required to restore a device to its previous configuration. Owner-authorized filesystem access would enable root cause investigations of bugs/anomalies like this iMessage-iCloud sequence of cross-device events.
On-disk forensic artifacts are physical evidence already in the possession of Apple device owners, who can be a party to future lawsuits. Information leaks into etheric clouds are more difficult to trace.
There is substantial economic incentive to retrieve iOS forensic artifacts, which is why work to retrieve them will continue independently of Apple actions, until it becomes clearer to Apple customers how they are affected.
Right, and Apple forced Corellium into an out-of-court settlement after threatening to sue for copyright violation when they extracted forensic artifacts from iOS.
Fundamentally I agree with you. I just have no hope that Apple will ever see eye-to-eye with that opinion. They would rather fight it in court than consider serious reform. Apple draws the lines when their jurisdiction doesn't draft regulation for them, and you're the fool for buying their hardware if you disagree.
> you're the fool for buying their hardware if you disagree
Boycotts only work at scale, plus there is little competition for Apple tablets.
Google Pixel Tablet is far behind Apple iPad on OS usability, basic capability like a wired hardware keyboard, and mobile app quality. Qualcomm's Oryon/SDXE platform remains far from their Linux aspirations, even with help from Linaro. Windows is increasingly focused on being a cloud client.
I use GrapheneOS on Pixel phone/tablet in parallel with Apple phone/tablet/laptop, in addition to Linux on x86 and Arm devices, with ongoing dev work to implement some Apple-equivalent functionality in non-Apple ecosystems. Ecosystem network effects means that each platform has strengths and weaknesses, for specific use cases, adding operational cost of 2X devices with data sync overhead.
Linux roadmaps are now funded and entangled with the commercial goals of large companies like IBM, Google and Microsoft. The decline of commercial operating systems is not the same as the improvement of FOSS, which continues steadily but slowly at the grassroots level. Customers need to _both_ invest in FOSS and lobby regulators/vendors to improve commercial software.
