Well, yes, Linux is a serious competitor in that it is (still - Fuchsia might change this in some future release) used underneath Android. While a regular Andro

Well, yes, Linux is a serious competitor in that it is (still - Fuchsia might change this in some future release) used underneath Android. While a regular Android user might not know, care nor notice that it is there, for those who do care this opens possibilities. It makes it possible to run a device which - apart from the seemingly mandatory closed-source radio-related blob (which can do all sorts of nasty things outside of the control of the user) only contains free software and only runs such software as the user chooses to run. This is possible with the combination of Android and Linux, impossible with iOS or MacOS. In this sense Apple is far removed from what I consider to be one of Linux' defining attributes, namely the fact that it allows full control over what gets run on my hardware (apart from that radio-blob, that is). As there is no such freedom with anything Apple I don't consider them to be 'close[r] to the Linux end of the scale', not by a far stretch.