I have this discussion nearly daily when talking with Android users. The iPhone is not a modular unit that can be tampered with at all, but despite even being a software developer, I do not actually care about my phone being modular. I want it to work and I want it to work well across the entire platform. Not only does iOS severely limit your options for changing your phone's UX, something a lot of people lament about quite often, but they also have rigorous design-guides that push every developer in the eco-system to have it look the same way. Something as simple as the date/timepickers that Apple removed in iOS 14 can't be changed by the user, but Apple does their hardest to make sure everyone makes it look the way they've set it up, and for my purposes I legitimately prefer that over deciding it myself but having the apps on the platform ultimately use either or willy-nilly.

There definitely are issues with Apple, but the user not having full access to changing their device isn't really one, and that's coming from someone who most definitely has the know how to do pretty much anything and still remain safe, I'd dread to see users be stuck having full root access to their phones without even knowing what the fuck that means.

There absolutely needs to be options for those that want to be able to hack away at their phone to their hearts content, but it doesn't need to be every phone, and Apple aren't criminals just because they don't offer that possibility and users happen to want their phones anyway.

Please don't give me root access to my iPhone, I do not care about it, I have no need for it, and I do not want it.