> Aside: Interestingly enough, Apple was doing this for a long time,
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, I'm not sure I agree with this.
Apple have had some pretty famous "We know what's best for you" stances in their history - one button mouse, original Mac keyboard with no cursor keys, original iPod only working with Macs, very limited array of products configurations, no licencing of MacOS to non-Apple computers, iPhone apps only available through their app store etc etc. Some of those have eventually changed, but (apart from maybe the iPods being Mac-only) they haven't typically restricted the success of those products.
If anything, the darkest days of their history were probably at the point when they were offering a vast array of products and configurations in an attempt to give users exactly what they thought they wanted.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, I'm not sure I agree with this.
Apple have had some pretty famous "We know what's best for you" stances in their history - one button mouse, original Mac keyboard with no cursor keys, original iPod only working with Macs, very limited array of products configurations, no licencing of MacOS to non-Apple computers, iPhone apps only available through their app store etc etc. Some of those have eventually changed, but (apart from maybe the iPods being Mac-only) they haven't typically restricted the success of those products.
If anything, the darkest days of their history were probably at the point when they were offering a vast array of products and configurations in an attempt to give users exactly what they thought they wanted.