If anything, I think it's truly sad that, given all the great things Apple has made, their legacy seems to be that closed and proprietary is better. It's the IT

If anything, I think it's truly sad that, given all the great things Apple has made, their legacy seems to be that closed and proprietary is better. It's the IT equivalent of "greed is good". iOS would be just as integrated and nice if Apple released it as Open Source. But it would give people more choice, Apple would make make less money from it, and they would then be at a disadvantage compared to other companies that did control their entire ecosystem. The problem is that closed, proprietary systems tend to create monopolies, and while the initial products may be great, monopolies are seldom good for customers. The other mistake people make is thinking that closed or open is an either-or proposition. Apples nice iOS ecosystem wouldn't be destroyed overnight if they had a settings option marked "allow unsigned third party apps". Would that compromise their long term / whole stack vision? No.