If anything, it's android that is turning into a more closed and restricted environment.

I'm sure the Fortune 500 sans Apple will play ball a do what's best for us.

as long as the first party iOS experience is still solid, I don't care. If apple has to prevent updates / services to 1p services because 3p cannot keep up, then I'd be pretty incensed. There is a reason i left android last year!

I doubt it can be if more apps are allowed. E.g. allowing one browser means they can control very tightly the performance characteristics of it and any other apps that use its renderer. If third party browsers are allowed then it's much harder to do that.

I know Android does it, but Android's got many years of experience doing it, and it's generally not as smooth as iOS.

Apple would likely rather delete the code and stop releasing phones than do that.