Apple makes you sign the same contract that e.g. google makes you sign, which says basically "I sign away all rights to anything I create to the maximum extent

Apple makes you sign the same contract that e.g. google makes you sign, which says basically "I sign away all rights to anything I create to the maximum extent legally permissible under California law" (You can look up what those exceptions). For companies like Apple, this basically means they own everything you might do, since their "area of business" in essentially limitless. However, once I signed away my rights, the experience at Google and Apple was quite different. At Apple, I waited months, with multiple follow up pings, to get approval from a lawyer for a one line trivial patch for an OSS project. I had to give an argument that my contribution provided a direct business benefit to Apple, and generating goodwill in the community was explicitly listed as a reason that is not valid. I couldn't contribute to any Google run OSS projects either (some issue with the CLA, not sure of the blame, TBH). In contrast, at Google you are encouraged to contribute, don't need any approval for normal OSS projects, and I have easily gotten approval to release two personal projects.