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They need to do that anyway, because the laws depend on the country. There is no other option: different sets of laws are often incompatible, there is not alway

They need to do that anyway, because the laws depend on the country. There is no other option: different sets of laws are often incompatible, there is not always a common subset that works everywhere. So the behaviour of the device has to change depending on the location. But yes, it is silly in this specific case. I’d like someone to explain credibly why letting users delete apps is wrong. In the worst case it’s a minor pain and the user has to re-download it from the store. These apps are thin UI layers over system frameworks anyway.

xp84 2y ago
> the behavior of the device has to change depending on the location. That wasn't the case in a previous era. A country could make a decision that says division is illegal and ban new 4-function calculators, but all the calculators made before that would still work the same. Banned books could still be read if you already had them. Today thanks to the double-edged sword of constant connectivity, it's plausible that Apple can just add and delete features when you pass over physical borders, meaning that the set of functionality you buy is increasingly ill-defined. You don't own a phone, you just own a conditional license to the iPhone experience, which they'll tweak over time to comply with various governments on the most limited geographic scale possible while maximizing their revenue. None of this is that shocking or interesting now that we're used to it, but it's annoying that we don't own or control the devices we buy and can't even guarantee they keep a certain feature set.