iOS devices never advertised support for booting whatever you want; Macs always did. Very, very different product lines.
Apple has a long, continuous history of locking down hardware. Never having a bootloader unlockable iDevice, unibody, glue, soldered on components that are traditionally user replaceable, soldering in displays and backs when people try to repair batteries, serializing the components so you can't even swap official parts.
Apple has never gone in the reverse direction to make components more easily user serviceable. It's always been in the more restrictive direction. More proprietary with every iteration. Now it's the CPU. Bootloader locking on an M1 Macbook is the next logical step.
They could've just released a locked down Macbook in the first place if that was the goal.
OK, great, but we're talking about a manufacturer that makes products designed to go in the rubbish bin 2-4 years after manufacture (witness the half dozen comments by users in this thread saying they have already put their M1 computers in a drawer somewhere!). Apple are constantly iterating, and the goal of a project like Asahi is to stay ahead of the game and continue running on new hardware.
The proper and correct point that techrat should have made is that the second something like Asahi is a threat to Apple for any reason, Apple can release new hardware that's locked down similar to iOS. You'll even have people on this site defending the changes too, in the name of security or something.
They have a LONG history of making decisions that ultimately are hostile to the user. Apple also has a history of explicitly locking out Linux users.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Apple-T2...
> It looks like even if disabling the Secure Boot functionality, the T2 chip is reportedly still blocking operating systems aside from macOS and Windows 10.
This is further than Microsoft has ever gone with hardware.
Apple has been dipping their toes into the telemetry and ad tracking waters for a while now. If they see Asahi cutting into those margins because people are buying Apple hardware and installing an OS that prevents them from collecting user data, I can believe they'd see them as a threat.
Why? Again, history. Apple has shut down numerous developers who made "competing" features for iOS via apps in the App Store... even though those developers had the app first before Apple decided to add the features into iOS.
But yeah, something something security something...
Just buy the hardware you want to use and don't assume it will get better over time. Even if Apple suddenly decided they wanted to lock out other OS's (they won't), they can't remotely update the bootloader if you're running Linux.