That wouldn't affect your kids and telling Grandma how to do that over the phone is very difficult. And at that point she could be handing over her credit card anyway.
It’s not just little Billy and Grandma who shouldn’t be turning that mode on, it’s most people.
The media would have a field day at Facebooks expense. Why would Apple even let them on the app store if they did something so stupid?
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203551/apple-facebook-b...
This isn’t even a hypothetical, it really happened. And yet people still have a hard time believing Facebook (and other companies) would abuse iPhone side loading if given a chance. Of course they would!
Apple doesn't want to deal with a million hackers screwing with their devices and clogging up their support system, and also then having to deal with endless reports of terrible customer service because someone paid 1000$ for an iPhone and then Apple won't help them out when they brick it with the latest flashware they downloaded from usenet. Followed by the inevitable complaints that "Apple Customer Care is terrible". Easier just to control the entire ecosystem, and tell folks who don't like it, "cool, cya".
It would be very helpful to developers and debugging too.
Surely a developer or ten has suggested the same thing by now?
My guess is focus: they are 100% focused on being the best closed platform that is easy to use and everything is handled for the user. A lively sideloading and 3rd party homebrew scene would be a massive distraction for the Dev team and most importantly the support side with little direct business ROI (indirect could be big but a harder sell).
Possibly harming brand reputation showing people what they could have absent the paid wall. When the alternative exposes people to risk, and they'd rather not have to explain themselves?
lol i can think of a few billion other reasons why they don't want it to happen.
Well obviously that's the most basic reason why but that doesn't help us solve the problem.
How exactly does it cause a loss in revenue? It's very possible the benefits that come from being more open improve the platform for everyone and increase sales. So it's valuable to be very specific on where the costs are.
Also, people already gripe about the fact that to "fully unlock" your mac these days, you need to disable SIP, and how that disables some things (but at least not your warranty). Do you really think the same people would be happy with "developer mode but no more warranty" on iPhones? Especially if someone like Epic or Facebook or Google insist that their apps need this unlocked mode and so the only way to use them is to void your warranty?