Also, it’s almost impossible to create a freedom-respecting phone due to vendors refusing to release the hardware specs,

This is the only item that answers “what does Apple provide that open platforms are unable or unwilling to provide”. So now my next question is if that’s what preventing open platforms from succeeding, why aren’t our governments working to force low level component suppliers to open up? Surely open specifications for the baseband modems and other necessary phone components would do a lot more for open platforms than the ability to install yet another chrome reskin browser on iOS.