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Comment by kgwxd | Hacker News Reader

I wish they'd let anyone run whatever they wanted for whatever lenth of time they want. Anything beyond that is a gross misuse of power.

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I don't understand why this is getting downvoted. Not being able to control what you run on your own computer is kind of ridiculous.

Do you control what you run on a game console?

How is this even an argument? Why is it that someone always trots out the "well other company/industry does it" argument?

Actually, yes, I want to control what I run on a game console, a smartphone, a router, a computer and even my refrigerator.

If that's your desire you are free to buy an NVIDIA Shield for your game console, an Android for your smart phone, any computer, a well known easily hackable router, etc.

Vote with your dollars.

> an Android for your smart phone

There are but a precious few of these that allow you to unlock your bootloader or acquire root access.

There are many that allow you to unlock the bootloader. If all you want to do is run your own apps, pretty much all of them allow it.

Are there any cheap phones with unlockable bootloaders? I've only found it available on relatively expensive models, like Moto G5 (yeah, that's expensive to me).

All Android One devices allow unlocking the bootloader, and they are meant to be inexpensive.

Definitely check out the OnePlus 5T. Sweet phone, very good price, and uber hackable by its owner (if said owner wants to).

Any of the Chinese ones based on MediaTek SoCs. They're not only unlockable, they come that way by default.

Not in every case, I have a cheap MediaTek MT6572-based phone which I've so far failed to unlock. It's something to consider though.

Side note, just was delivered a Shield.

They are horrible. - Constantly hijacking HDMI from other sources - Remote has a sticky down button - Voice turns on and off for no reason and starts operating.

I think they are great for how old they are, price and their capabilities - 4k, HDR, HEVC decoding, inbuilt Plex server, etc.

Switch off CEC (this should stop the HDMI jacking). The supplied remote is truly awful. I use either my home cinema amp remote and/or TV remote (but this requires CEC enabled) and have no problems. Check the r/ShieldAndroidTV/ there's lots of good/cheap remote recommendations in there.

>Vote with your dollars.

I hate this saying. It's such a bullshit saying. a) There is no viable competition and b) It's incredibly profitable to lock people into an ecosystem, so even if you do "vote" with your dollars (hint: you're not voting) every company that you've now "voted" for has an interest in locking you into their ecosystem. The very act of "voting with your dollars" is part of the problem. This requires a principled stand and a demand, not more consumerism.

I gave you plenty of examples. There are plenty of Android manufactures with some phones more locked down than others. There are plenty of routers - some more hackable than others. There are plenty of alternatives to dedicated game consoles.

I do, actually. Mostly because I use older console that have been reverse engineered enough for this to be possible…

You do have the option of running an older phone that has been reverse engineered too.

Comparing a game console to a smartphone is a nonstarter, IMO. That said I'd very much like to control what runs on my game console.

Another thing is the long term impact on developer skills. The majority of the current stock of programmers came to programming before locked platforms became widespread (basically until 2010-ish), often in their teenage years or at college.

But now between tablets, smartphones, ChromeOS, and a clear intention by both Apple and Microsoft to phase out their open OS for a locked down version (iOS, Win10 S), new generations will not have much opportunity to tinker with their device, create their own executables. Of course a minority will always get into linux or whatever will be left of Windows and MacOS in 10 years, and go around that. But for the overall population, isn’t it going to dumb down users, and reduce the pool of future software developers (while the demand for more software is only ever increasing)?

The car analogy is an interesting argument against: you needed to be an engineer to operate early cars, but not anymore, and that didn’t reduce the supply of engineers and mechanics expert on cars. But I would argue that cars is an extreme in term of standardisation, where few engineers are required to design a fleet that satisfies the whole market. While software is highly specific to many different applications, and you need tons of software designers for each corner case (even if we reinvent the wheel way too often).

Cars lack the recursive properties of computers and computer programs.

The reason Apple doesn't do this is they want to make the AppStore a safe-place and a worry free experience. If anyone can run whatever they wanted for whatever length of time they want, then it opens the door for malicious apps to exist. It's a trade off between safety/experience and flexibility. For folks like my Dad, who I took away his PC and replaced with an iPad, it's been great. I just don't worry about malware, viruses, or trojans he might install on his iPad because the odds are he can't get into too much trouble.

GP was clearly referring to letting developers run apps on their own devices, not to letting them put malware into the app store where your dad can find it.

I don’t believe a single second that they prevent you from sideloading your own app in the interest of security. It would be trivial to allow you to manually register your device and be exempt for this particular app, that wouldn’t weaken the platform in any way. This is purely milking users.

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