Apple vs. Everyone: Why Some Features You'll 'Never' Get (and why that's intentional)
The Missing Feature That Isn’t Missing
Last week, my cat knocked my phone off the desk. Again. As I picked it up, I noticed the group chat had moved to a different app because someone’s Android messages were showing up as green bubbles. Again.
This isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. Or rather, the absence of a feature that Apple could implement tomorrow but chooses not to.
Welcome to the strange world of intentional limitations—where the most valuable tech company on Earth actively decides what you can’t have. And they’re remarkably good at it.
The conversation about Apple’s “missing” features usually goes one of two ways. Either Apple is a greedy corporation deliberately crippling devices to extract money. Or Apple is a visionary company protecting users from themselves. Both narratives miss something important.
The truth is more interesting and more uncomfortable. Apple’s feature omissions form a coherent strategy that serves multiple goals simultaneously. Some of those goals benefit you. Some benefit Apple. Often, they benefit both in ways that make them nearly impossible to separate.
The Ecosystem Lock-In Playbook
Let’s start with the obvious one. iMessage.
RCS support came to iPhones in 2024, years after the rest of the industry adopted it. But the blue bubble versus green bubble distinction remains. Cross-platform group chats still degrade. Media quality drops when messaging Android users.
Apple could fix this completely. They choose not to.
The internal logic is straightforward. Every friction point between iPhone and Android users creates social pressure. Teenagers don’t want to be the green bubble in the group chat. Families standardize on iPhones to share photos properly. Work teams gravitate toward single-platform solutions.
This isn’t speculation. Internal Apple communications revealed during various legal proceedings show executives explicitly discussing how iMessage creates switching costs. The feature gap is measured, monitored, and maintained.
But here’s where it gets complicated. Apple also invests heavily in privacy features that genuinely protect users. End-to-end encryption in iMessage actually works. The privacy nutrition labels in the App Store provide real information. On-device processing for many AI features keeps data local.
The same company that strategically cripples cross-platform messaging also builds legitimate privacy infrastructure. These aren’t contradictory behaviors from Apple’s perspective. They’re complementary strategies serving the same goal: keeping users inside the ecosystem.
Privacy becomes a moat. Security becomes a selling point. And the ecosystem grows stickier with every feature that works better within Apple’s walls than across them.
What Android Gets That You Don’t
The feature gap runs both ways, but the direction matters.
Android users can install apps from any source. iPhone users cannot, with limited exceptions in specific regions due to regulatory pressure. Android users can set default apps more comprehensively. Android users can automate more system functions. Android users can customize their home screens with actual widgets that do actual things.
Some of these gaps have closed over the years. iOS finally got proper widgets. Default browser and email settings eventually arrived. But the pattern holds: features that increase user autonomy typically arrive on iPhone later and with more restrictions.
The standard Apple defense involves security and user experience. Unrestricted app installation creates malware vectors. Deep customization creates confusion. Extensive automation creates support nightmares.
These concerns aren’t imaginary. Android’s malware problem is real. Less sophisticated users do get confused by too many options. Technical support for highly customized systems costs more.
But the security argument often exceeds what the actual threat model supports. Side-loading apps from known developers presents minimal risk to informed users. Yet the restriction applies equally to everyone.
The user experience argument assumes users can’t handle complexity. Maybe some can’t. But the solution treats all users as if they can’t, while collecting the ecosystem benefits that restriction provides.
The Repair Question
Apple’s relationship with device repair tells a similar story.
For years, independent repair was effectively impossible. Proprietary screws, paired components, software locks, and unavailable parts created a repair monopoly. Break your screen? Apple or authorized service only.
Right to Repair legislation changed some of this. Apple now offers parts, tools, and manuals for self-repair. Progress, certainly.
But the implementation reveals ongoing ambivalence. Tools are expensive. Processes are complex. Some components still require Apple’s system configuration tool to function properly after replacement. The letter of repair rights gets followed while the spirit stays contested.
The business logic is clear. Device repairs cannibalize new device sales. Every phone that gets fixed is a phone that didn’t get replaced. Every user who repairs their own device is a user who didn’t pay Apple’s service markup.
Environmental arguments cut both ways. Apple claims repair restrictions ensure quality and safety. Critics note that device longevity matters more for environmental impact than repair quality.
How We Evaluated
To understand Apple’s feature strategy, we examined several sources.
First, competitive feature analysis. What does Android offer that iOS doesn’t? What arrived on iOS years after Android? Where do gaps persist despite no technical barrier?
Second, regulatory proceedings. Legal cases and antitrust investigations have surfaced internal Apple communications. These documents reveal decision-making rationales that Apple doesn’t share publicly.
Third, developer restrictions. The App Store guidelines document what Apple allows and prohibits. Patterns in rejections reveal unstated policies. API limitations show what Apple permits apps to do versus what the hardware could support.
Fourth, regional variations. Where regulation forces Apple to change behavior, we can observe what they’re willing to do when they must. The EU’s Digital Markets Act created a natural experiment in Apple flexibility.
Fifth, historical analysis. Which features did Apple resist, eventually adopt, and how did they frame each transition? The pattern of delay followed by claims of innovation tells its own story.
This approach has limitations. We cannot access Apple’s internal strategy documents directly. We cannot know which decisions reflect genuine technical constraints versus business preference. We infer from observed behavior and revealed preferences.
But the pattern is consistent enough to draw conclusions.
The Privacy Paradox
Apple’s privacy positioning deserves separate examination because it demonstrates the complexity of their strategy.
Apple Privacy is a genuine product. App Tracking Transparency disrupted the advertising industry. On-device processing for many features keeps data local. The privacy nutrition labels provide real consumer information.
These features cost Apple money in some ways. Advertising revenue they don’t collect. Processing efficiency they sacrifice for privacy. Relationship friction with developers who want more data access.
But privacy also serves Apple’s business model. They sell hardware, not advertising. User data is less valuable to them than to Google or Meta. Privacy differentiation drives hardware sales.
So when Apple restricts data collection, they’re protecting users and attacking competitors simultaneously. When they require app tracking permission, they’re enabling user choice and handicapping Meta’s business simultaneously.
This isn’t hypocrisy. It’s alignment. Apple’s business model happens to benefit from privacy in ways that Google’s doesn’t. Apple is genuinely better on privacy and strategically motivated to be so.
The uncomfortable implication: if Apple’s business model changed, their privacy commitment might change too. The protection is real but contingent.
The Developer Tax
The App Store operates as both distribution platform and toll booth.
Thirty percent of most transactions goes to Apple. Fifteen percent for smaller developers under certain programs. Zero percent for categories Apple exempts, often categories where they face competition from physical retail.
Apple’s defense involves platform value. They built the hardware. They built the operating system. They built the distribution infrastructure. They review apps for quality and security. They handle payments. They provide developer tools.
All true. Also true: they don’t permit alternatives. The thirty percent isn’t a market price. It’s an administered price set by a party that controls both the platform and the only distribution channel.
flowchart TD
A[Developer Creates App] --> B[Submit to App Store]
B --> C{Apple Review}
C -->|Approved| D[Available on Store]
C -->|Rejected| E[Revise or Abandon]
D --> F[User Purchase]
F --> G[Apple Takes 15-30%]
G --> H[Developer Receives Remainder]
style G fill:#ff6b6b,color:#fff
style C fill:#4ecdc4,color:#fffThe EU forced alternative payment options. Apple implemented them with such extensive warnings, friction, and commission alternatives that adoption remains minimal. Compliance without capitulation.
Developers face a choice: accept Apple’s terms or abandon iOS users entirely. Some users represent the most valuable demographic in mobile computing. The leverage is structural.
This creates subtle effects beyond direct costs. Apps optimize for Apple’s review process. Features that might get rejected don’t get built. Innovation happens within Apple’s acceptable boundaries.
The thirty percent tax is visible. The innovation tax—features never attempted because rejection seemed likely—is invisible but potentially larger.
The Automation Limitation
iOS automation tells a specific story about control.
Shortcuts (formerly Workflow, a third-party app Apple acquired) provides impressive automation for Apple’s ecosystem. You can build complex flows that interact with Apple apps and services.
Third-party app integration remains limited. Shortcuts can only access what apps explicitly expose. The system APIs that would enable deeper automation stay locked.
Compare to Android’s Tasker, which can automate nearly any phone function. Or macOS Automator, which can script system behaviors extensively. iOS automation exists in a supervised sandbox.
The security argument applies here too. Unrestricted automation creates attack vectors. Malicious scripts could abuse system access. User confusion could result from complex automation behaviors.
But the restriction exceeds the threat. Informed users who want deeper automation pose minimal security risk to themselves. The limitation protects Apple’s control more than user safety.
This matters because automation represents a skill. Users who automate their tools develop understanding of how those tools work. Restricted automation means reduced understanding. The device becomes more opaque, more dependent on Apple’s choices.
Generative Engine Optimization
This topic performs interestingly in AI-driven search and summarization contexts.
AI systems summarizing Apple’s feature strategy tend toward simplified narratives. Either Apple is good (privacy, security, user experience) or Apple is bad (lock-in, rent-seeking, anti-competitive). The nuanced reality—that both narratives capture partial truths—gets compressed into whichever framing the query implies.
This matters for how we think about technology criticism generally. AI-mediated information tends toward clean conclusions. Messy realities with contradictory elements resist summarization. The features Apple omits serve multiple purposes simultaneously, and that simultaneity is exactly what makes them strategically powerful.
For readers navigating an AI-mediated information environment, this suggests a meta-skill: recognizing when questions have complicated answers that summaries flatten. Apple’s feature choices are a good test case. If your understanding feels too clean, too morally clear, you’re probably missing something.
Human judgment matters here precisely because the situation is genuinely ambiguous. Apple does protect privacy. Apple does extract monopoly rents. Apple does prioritize user experience. Apple does maintain strategic lock-in. All of these are true at once.
The skill of holding contradictory truths simultaneously becomes more valuable as AI systems that prefer clean narratives become more prevalent. Apple’s feature strategy is an excellent case study for developing that skill.
Automation-aware thinking—understanding how tools shape the information we receive and the conclusions we draw—becomes essential. The tools want to give us answers. Sometimes the honest answer is “it’s complicated, and here’s why.”
The Skill Erosion Question
There’s a deeper issue beneath Apple’s specific choices.
When technology becomes opaque, users lose capability. Not just capability to use that specific technology—capability to understand how technology works generally.
My grandmother could fix her sewing machine. She understood its mechanisms, could diagnose problems, could maintain it for decades. Most iPhone users cannot replace a battery. They don’t understand what apps do with their data. They accept permissions without reading them because the alternative—not using the phone—isn’t viable.
This isn’t entirely Apple’s fault. Technology complexity has increased across all platforms. But Apple’s specific choices—against repairability, against transparency, against user autonomy—accelerate the trend.
The iPhone is arguably the most sophisticated consumer device ever created. Most users understand approximately zero of how it works. They know which buttons to press. They don’t know why.
Apple would say this represents good design. Technology should be invisible. Users shouldn’t need to understand implementation. Just use the thing.
There’s merit to this position. Not everyone wants to be a computer scientist. Accessibility matters. Simple interfaces serve many users well.
But the argument assumes users who don’t understand remain capable of evaluating whether the technology serves them. That assumption becomes harder to sustain as systems grow more complex and more central to daily life.
When you don’t understand your tools, you trust their makers completely. When you can’t verify claims about privacy or security, you accept marketing. When you can’t repair your devices, you depend on the manufacturer indefinitely.
This dependency erodes skills at both individual and societal levels. Fewer people understand how digital systems work. Fewer people can evaluate technology claims critically. Fewer people can maintain, modify, or repair their own equipment.
Apple didn’t create this dynamic. But their choices consistently favor it.
The Intentionality Defense
Apple would object to framing their choices as “intentional limitations.”
From their perspective, they’re making design decisions. Optimizing for most users. Protecting against misuse. Enabling better experiences within considered constraints.
This isn’t entirely wrong. Design involves choices. Every feature included is a feature that could confuse, break, or be misused. Constraints enable focus. Saying no to some things enables saying yes to others.
The iPhone’s success stems partly from what it doesn’t do. The original iPhone couldn’t copy and paste. It couldn’t run third-party apps. It couldn’t multitask. Each limitation was eventually removed, but the initial simplicity contributed to adoption.
Apple’s design philosophy genuinely values constraint. They do believe simplicity serves users. They do believe curated experiences beat open ones for many people.
quadrantChart
title Apple Feature Decision Matrix
x-axis Low Strategic Value --> High Strategic Value
y-axis Low User Benefit --> High User Benefit
quadrant-1 Eventually Implement
quadrant-2 Immediate Priority
quadrant-3 Never Implement
quadrant-4 Strategically Delay
RCS Support: [0.7, 0.6]
App Sideloading: [0.2, 0.5]
Privacy Labels: [0.8, 0.8]
Default Apps: [0.4, 0.7]
Self Repair: [0.3, 0.6]
The problem is that these genuine beliefs happen to align perfectly with business interests. When philosophy and profit point the same direction, distinguishing motive becomes impossible.
Apple likely believes they’re serving users through their restrictions. They also financially benefit from those restrictions. Both can be true. But users should understand that the advice comes from an interested party.
What Users Actually Lose
The specific costs of Apple’s restrictions deserve enumeration.
Interoperability costs. Messages degrade across platforms. File sharing has friction. Ecosystem switching requires starting over with app purchases, learned workflows, and stored data.
Autonomy costs. Users cannot install apps Apple disapproves. Cannot repair devices easily. Cannot automate freely. Cannot customize extensively.
Financial costs. App Store commissions increase app prices. Repair monopolies increase service costs. Ecosystem lock-in reduces competitive pressure on Apple’s pricing.
Understanding costs. Opaque systems remain opaque. Users don’t develop mental models of how their tools work. Dependency increases while comprehension decreases.
Innovation costs. Apps that Apple might reject don’t get built. Use cases Apple doesn’t anticipate don’t get served. The innovation boundary matches Apple’s imagination, not users’.
These costs are distributed unevenly. Sophisticated users who want autonomy pay more. Average users who prefer simplicity pay less. The subsidy runs from power users to casual users.
Whether this redistribution is appropriate depends on values. Markets typically let users choose their own trade-offs. Apple chooses for everyone within their ecosystem.
The Regulatory Response
Governments have noticed.
The EU’s Digital Markets Act forced alternative app stores, alternative payment systems, and interoperability requirements. Apple implemented these requirements while loudly complaining and adding friction wherever possible.
US antitrust action proceeds more slowly. The Department of Justice filed suit. Resolution will take years.
Japan required alternative payment options for certain app categories. South Korea similarly. The regulatory pressure is global and increasing.
Apple’s response has been consistent: comply minimally while preserving maximum control. Where they must change, they change. Where they can resist, they resist. Where they can make compliance unattractive, they do.
This suggests the restrictions aren’t primarily about security or user experience. If they were, Apple would implement alternatives that maintained those benefits. Instead, they implement alternatives designed to be worse.
The revealed preference is control. Security and user experience are real considerations. They’re also useful justifications for restrictions that serve other purposes.
Living In The Garden
Despite everything above, I use Apple products.
The ecosystem works well. Devices sync seamlessly. The privacy features are real. The build quality is excellent. The software is polished. The integration is unmatched.
These benefits are genuine. The criticism above doesn’t erase them. Trade-offs are real, and Apple’s trade-offs serve many users well.
But I use these products with open eyes. I know the interoperability limits are strategic. I know the repair restrictions are profit-motivated. I know the automation limits preserve control. I know the ecosystem stickiness is designed.
This awareness doesn’t change my device choices. But it changes how I think about them. I’m a customer, not a beneficiary. Apple serves me because it profits them. When those interests diverge, I know whose will prevail.
My cat, incidentally, has no such philosophical concerns. She knocks the iPhone off the desk because it makes a satisfying sound. She doesn’t care about ecosystem lock-in or repair rights. She cares about napping, eating, and occasionally asserting dominance over inanimate objects.
There’s something to learn from this, though I’m not sure exactly what. Perhaps that our relationship with technology need not be so fraught. Use the tools. Acknowledge the trade-offs. Don’t mistake commercial products for moral entities.
Apple isn’t good or evil. They’re a company pursuing their interests through a set of choices that sometimes benefit users and sometimes don’t. The same is true of every technology company. The same is true of most human institutions.
The particular way Apple pursues their interests—through curated simplicity, ecosystem integration, and strategic restriction—has distinctive implications. Understanding those implications helps users make informed choices. Or at least makes the choice to remain uninformed more honest.
What Would Change Things
Apple’s restrictions would change under specific conditions.
Regulatory pressure that’s costly to circumvent. When compliance becomes more expensive than changing behavior, behavior changes. The EU has shown this works, imperfectly.
Competitive pressure that threatens market share. If users left the ecosystem over specific restrictions, those restrictions would ease. Currently, network effects and switching costs make departure unlikely.
Business model shifts. If Apple needed advertising revenue, privacy protections might weaken. If subscription services became primary, hardware lock-in might matter less. Business model shapes incentives.
Reputational costs. Public pressure can influence corporate behavior, especially for consumer brands. Apple values their reputation. Sufficient criticism on specific issues could move them.
None of these seem imminent for most restrictions. The ecosystem grows. The market share holds. The business model succeeds. The reputation remains strong.
So we should expect more of the same. Strategic restrictions justified by genuine benefits. Compliance with regulation accompanied by friction. Incremental openness when competitively necessary. Continued cultivation of the walled garden.
The Honest Conclusion
Apple makes excellent products with deliberate limitations that serve Apple’s interests.
Some of those limitations also serve users. Privacy restrictions protect against tracking. Quality controls prevent malware. Design constraints reduce confusion.
Some of those limitations harm users. Interoperability limits create switching costs. Repair restrictions increase costs. Autonomy limits reduce capability.
The honest conclusion is that both are true. Apple is neither hero nor villain. They’re a sophisticated company pursuing sophisticated strategies that produce mixed results for users.
The appropriate response is neither worship nor boycott. It’s informed engagement. Use the products that serve you. Understand the trade-offs you’re accepting. Advocate for changes where restrictions exceed their justifications.
And maybe, occasionally, appreciate the irony of analyzing corporate restriction on a device designed to keep you from analyzing too deeply.
The British lilac cat has fallen asleep on the keyboard. She does not care about any of this. Perhaps she has achieved what the rest of us are still seeking: genuine indifference to the tools we cannot fully understand or control.
The features you’ll never get are features Apple decided you shouldn’t have. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they’re self-serving. Usually, they’re both. Living with that ambiguity is part of living with modern technology.
At least the blue bubbles look nice.