This is clearly a value judgement, not a technical assessment. The OS recognizes RAW, and opens the file using the appropriate RAW profile. If you use Finder, Photos, iPhoto, Image Capture, Preview, or Aperture, they display a converted RAW and/or allow you to edit from the RAW file.
You may not like that you have no control over this behavior (substituting your own, customized RAW profile, let's say). You may prefer working with more sophisticated image editing tools (which is your privilege), but if Apple's only purpose was to support iPhone photography, it would need none of this.