It's really hard to prove that a person who paid money for an object in their hand, without an explicit leasing agreement, is not the "owner" of that object.
Without a compelling, court-tested, legal precedent for Apple to claim "you don't own that iPhone in your hand", the assumption is that you do, regardless of what the EULA might say. EULAs that are contrary to standing law are not valid.
The fact that one can buy iPhones on the secondary market lends credence to notion that consumers own their devices.
And given that Atari and Nintendo both tried, and failed, to make similar arguments against 3rd party software manufacturers, I think it's pretty clear which way the courts would go, if it were to ever be tested.
We don't live in a society where corporations get to make up whatever rules they want, as long as they can convince someone to sign on the dotted line.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_is_nine-tenths_of...
Without a compelling, court-tested, legal precedent for Apple to claim "you don't own that iPhone in your hand", the assumption is that you do, regardless of what the EULA might say. EULAs that are contrary to standing law are not valid.
The fact that one can buy iPhones on the secondary market lends credence to notion that consumers own their devices.
And given that Atari and Nintendo both tried, and failed, to make similar arguments against 3rd party software manufacturers, I think it's pretty clear which way the courts would go, if it were to ever be tested.
We don't live in a society where corporations get to make up whatever rules they want, as long as they can convince someone to sign on the dotted line.