"Apple’s freedom is about giving you the opportunity to install any of thousands of applications with the knowledge that your phone will work just as well after you install them as it did before, and that you can get rid of those applications whenever you want." This whole article is based on a false premise. You don't need to give up the ability to screw up your computer (phone, laptop, whatever) to get the ability to install applications without worrying about screwing up your computer. You can sandbox applications without requiring that applications be signed. You can have all kinds of sandbox models (all the way down to traditional pre-orange-book multiuser timesharing) the constrain any failure to the application itself. Your web browser is exactly this kind of sandbox. So is flash. So are Java applets. These are strong sandboxes... but any system with memory protection and multiuser security can provide you with a high degree of robustness. You can allow the user (the owner of the device, after all) to voluntarily choose to open the sandbox without breaking this model. People are used to having their electronic devices protected by labels that say "if you open this, you void your warranty". The people who want security leave the label alone. The people who want to work on their own engine can rip it off. People are comfortable with this. You can also create a gatekeeper and let them install software that runs outside the sandbox. There's lots of ways you can do this, you can have that software installed when you ship the hardware. You can make installing that software require operating in an insecure mode (for example, flashing a new OS, or rebooting to an "open mode" to install it). You can sign applications, and have them vetted through a central store. Microsoft has been pushing the idea that the only alternative is the last one. The whole ActiveX security model (or should I say 'security nightmare') comes out of this. They've had a number of arguments for it, for example that sandboxes made for too much overhead, and now Apple's bought into it, but it's not necessary, nor (as it's turned out, with people sneaking rogue apps through the app store) is it sufficient. The lesson here is not "See, Apple says it's OK, so why are you on Microsoft's case?". It's "Apple can be wrong too".