I doubt carrier concerns were the motivation for the Apple iPhone App Store - they'd have mandated some kind of AT&T and Sprint App Store (with $2 ring-tone and wallpaper downloads...). Besides, Windows Mobile, Nokia and Blackberry all had their own respective ecosystems long before Apple - I say this as a user of PocketGear since 2001.
I hate to say it, but Apple is right: the use-cases for truly unlocked computing on constrained mobile devices are very limited and, given our experience with the Windows tech support scammers a massive liability for everyone: if non-expert users have any access to a button on their phone that will drain their bank accounts, no matter how clearly labelled, then there will be rampant attacks to make them press it; the only solution, therefore, is to make it completely impossible to both run unsigned code, and for code to execute outside of a sandbox.
In the early days of iOS - there was a much stronger justification for jailbreaking because iOS was just so aneamic - useful features like a Widget Dashboards or "Today" summary screen, data tethering, and ad-blocking were all conspicuously absent. But now we've got them and since iOS 8 or 9, it's been perfect for me.
The fact that all the same restrictions still apply to the iPod Touch and the WiFi-only iPads shows that Jobs's infamous "Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down" excuse was bullshit.
I hate to say it, but Apple is right: the use-cases for truly unlocked computing on constrained mobile devices are very limited and, given our experience with the Windows tech support scammers a massive liability for everyone: if non-expert users have any access to a button on their phone that will drain their bank accounts, no matter how clearly labelled, then there will be rampant attacks to make them press it; the only solution, therefore, is to make it completely impossible to both run unsigned code, and for code to execute outside of a sandbox.
In the early days of iOS - there was a much stronger justification for jailbreaking because iOS was just so aneamic - useful features like a Widget Dashboards or "Today" summary screen, data tethering, and ad-blocking were all conspicuously absent. But now we've got them and since iOS 8 or 9, it's been perfect for me.