What are your ethical issues with Apple? Why mention them in the first place without further explication? Your other points rang true for me but this seems a little tangential.
I don't believe you can genuinely purchase an Apple phone at the moment, and I think they're trying pretty hard to move their laptop/desktop machines in the same direction.
Namely - Much of their mobile ecosystem is utterly hostile towards non-Apple developers - including the owner of the device.
They lock hardware/software features behind entitlements that require Apple's permission (and of course an accompanying fee) to use. Good luck using multicast on your personal device on your personal network. Turns out you can't. The hardware can, of course, but only if Apple allows it.
In fact, turns out almost all of the software Apple provides to run their hardware treats you like a user, and not an owner. They riddle (and cripple) the product with digital locks, and do not provide the keys to the owner.
Instead they provide keys only to apps submitted for review to their store, signed with their certs. So again, it's hard to say I actually own the damn thing.
I would think the use of Chinese labor abuses to make iPhones is the ethical issue. Funny you didn't mention that.
You are making the "all or nothing" fallacy.
You absolutely can make the ethical choice when you have the choice. In some cases, you are simply forced to make the lesser evil choice.
Transparency is the first step. Yes, in some cases it is unavoidable, but to translate that into overall inaction, IMHO, is lazy.
> they wouldn't be able to purchase anything made by an international company
I suggest you don't make sweeping generalizations, then.
> The overall being one's choices for a new smartphone are iPhone, Android, or abstain.
That's why I took care to point out "In some cases, you are simply forced to make the lesser evil choice."
> When the parent comment elected Android for "ethical" reasons those reasons would not include the labor conditions of the phone's manufacture since that doesn't vary between most Apple and Android phones.
You're not allowing for someone to still consider the ethics of an issue: it's not like subtraction, if A has it and B has it than neither have it, so why consider it. IMO that's reductive. It can still be considered.
These two clothing companies provide 100% transparency on their sourcing and labor practices.
You absolutely can choose to wear clothing that doesn't enslave people. Maybe not 100% (shoes are still difficult to source), but it doesn't mean throwing your hands up and walking away. Or being cynical toward someone who is trying.
If you think that somehow the people working on apple hardware construction are treated worse than the people working on the vastly higher number of android devices, etc you need to provide some evidence.
I recall a case where apple audits found a supplier using child labour, included that in their report, included the remediation (including cases where they outright dropped suppliers). The headlines weren’t “apple found child labour and stopped it”. The headlines were “apple uses child labour”.
The reason you don’t get that for other manufacturers is that they a) don’t audit, and b) don’t publish details even if they somehow become aware.
Fwiw, Apple does provide more control over the display tucked away under Settings/System Preferences => Accessibility (lots of goodies there, actually).
Not clear if you knew that and still found that too limiting, but perhaps others will have fun poking around in there.
At least on the Mac, I can almost always find a third-party tool that can accomplish anything Apple didn't expose.
I largely agree they need to reduce their App Store fees — it is damaging their goodwill for relatively limited benefit, but more-so it's attracting government scrutiny that will likely lead to worse outcomes for Apple and its users if they don't relent.
Does "Reduce White Point" on iOS/iPadOS help at all?
https://support.apple.com/en-by/guide/iphone/iph3e2e1fb0/ios
You can simply delete the apps that have that effect.