I wouldn't be surprised if Google did the same with Android at some point.
Much different on Android though, far easier to avoid.
Age restrictions only apply to play store downloads, so you can just sideload anything you want. Web filtering only applies to Chrome, so you can just use an alternative browser. IOS is more of a faff to sideload and the web filters apply to all browsers as they are all just Safair under the hood (all use Apples web engine).
Can also just use a custom rom. My next Android device will be something that can use GrapheneOS. They have already said they won't be putting in any identity verification and there's nothing the goons at Ofcom can do about it. Buy phone with standard Android, load on Graphene afterwards.
Bit dramatic when all you need to do is add a credit card to Apple wallet, not really a privacy violation and to be fair out of all the companies I’d trust Apple with my privacy over an Android tablet of some description.
Age verification isn’t going away.
I don't think it's dramatic, it's out of order. You bought an unrestricted device, then without warning, suddenly it's restricted, unless you identify yourself. Apple also intentionally hid it, it was not in the update notes, so you couldn't reject the update if you didn't want it either.
It's massive change to the device you already bought, shouldn't be allowed. Apply to accounts going forward, so people know what they are buying into, fair enough. But to apply it to devices people already bought, is not right. It's not the law either, OSA doesn't require OS level filtering.
