No, it's not and has never been held out as such. iPhones are a captive market. If you bought one, you bought into the closed ecosystem. Be that for convenience

No, it's not and has never been held out as such. iPhones are a captive market. If you bought one, you bought into the closed ecosystem. Be that for convenience or ignorance, you are now subject to the whims of Apple. Android is another path, but perhaps just as capitalistic as Apple, but by different mechanisms. You are always free to buy raw hardware and build your own phone from scratch, and write all the software for it. Life is a series of compromises. Choose wisely.