That's a passive-aggressive argument. ANYTHING is our choice to make. I want to live in a permanent structure, so I'm forced to take one with a door. If I would strongly prefer to enter by climbing through a window and would rather not have a door, I don't have to buy or rent a home, that's my choice to make. I could just shelter under a tree. They don't have doors.
So anyway, yes, we're forced by Apple, and by phone manufacturers in general, into lots of things. At some point perhaps it gets nit-picky, sure. Let's just take the example at hand:
(1) I would like to own a smartphone. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to want. They're very useful.
(1.a) I would like to own a smartphone that runs on iOS. This is also a reasonable thing to want. It's also reasonable to want one that runs on Android. It's reasonable to have a preference. But now I'm forced to buy one from a particular vendor.
(1.a.i) I would like to own a smartphone that runs on iOS that [feels comfortable to hold or is of a certain weight or has a powerful processor or has a camera that can do X or anything]. Now we're really forced. I have to buy a phone from Apple, and I have the model or models that fit the description.
Or I could just choose to stick with my 5c which I did, and fortunately they came out with the SE, and I bought that instead of a 6S. At that point I could still upgrade my hardware without having to abandon the size. I wasn't forced in that way at the time. And though I'd been replacing my phone every couple of years to get the newer features, when the 7 and 8 came out I would have been forced to get the larger phone in order to get some of the newer features. I would have loved to have the more advanced camera, for example. But to get it (on a smartphone that runs iOS) I had to buy the larger phone, and at that point I made a choice to not do so. I stuck with the SE, and gave up the other things.
This is a self-evident statement, and not limited to phones. Besides it supports my point: if I want to buy [a product] and [a product] doesn't come exactly as I want it then of course I make a choice: live without [a product] or decide I would rather not live without [a product] and be forced to buy it as it is.
And that's right. Had Apple not offered anything larger than the 5 series, then you WOULD have been forced to buy it if staying on iOS was important to you. You wouldn't just have SAID it, you would have been. And I thought the 4S was wonderful. I think it's the height of the iPhone's design history: perfect size, perfect weight, attractive design; and I was a little put out by the new 4-inch size. But when the time came to upgrade I was forced to buy the larger size.
So I held out for four years with my SE. Didn't buy two years ago, made that choice you're on about. Now I'm another two years down the line. Important to me to stay on iOS, I consider it very worth my while to stay with new enough hardware to maintain support for a few years, so it's time to upgrade now. It's only going to get worse: I expect the SE to be the last phone with a home button. I like the home button. So four years from now, when I expect I'll be wanting to upgrade again, there will be more things I am forced to do.
*rolls eyes*
In this case, the case of purchasing an iPhone, there are lots of people that don't feel this way. There are lots that do. I grant that I expect that there are more in the first group than in the second, but there are still lots. There are those that feel forced to buy the SE because of the things it IS (smaller than the other new phones, home button), and there are those that feel forced to buy the SE because of the things it ISN'T (expensive, as large as the other phones, Face ID). You can say "limited by the choices" instead of "forced" if that goes down easier.
