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Comment by izacus | Hacker News Reader

I love the philosophy of steam deck: by default, it's an Switch-like device that hides all the non-fully compatible games in store, has good UI and makes sure everything "just works".

But where it differs from pretty much any other modern software product is that it trusts you as a user - you can install games that aren't verified. It'll tell you why they're not verified (small text, no controller support) but it'll let you install them anyway. And then map touchpads and controllers to emulate keyboard and mouse if you want. You can install games that aren't from Steam store. You can go do desktop mode. It doesn't judge. It will give you good experience by default and then let YOU judge if you want to stray away from it.

It's something that Apple fans always told us it's impossible to build - a device that is joy to use by default while still respecting your wishes as a user.

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100% agree, it's so refreshing to finally get a device that does it's best to be both a great out of the box experience but also respectful the user, reminds me of the olden days of computing, despite what gnome and apple proclaiming such a goal is impossible.

It's also kind of sad this only really exists because Valve are wholly independent and have "fuck you" levels of money.

Another view point: if you want to compete in the big leagues, you need to have "fuck you" levels of money. You can be happy building indie games for desktops as a career, but if you want to compete with Nintendo, Sony, and Meta then you need to take out your checkbook and write lots of zeros. So stop trying to compete with them if you don't have the capital! Build great games that aren't AAA-style FPS, BR, Minecraft/CoD/Halo clones.

This is about hardware, not games

Yup. I'm pretty sure the indie games we all know about made good money. Enough to have continued growing a business without copying any AAA games and avoiding getting bought out or aped.

The dev(s) just chose not to go that route. It makes a lot of sense why not. They don't want to betray their audience and they want to keep having fun making games. Success is not necessarily "competing" with the big companies. There's always room for more types of games.

> Yup. I'm pretty sure the indie games we all know about made good money. Enough to have continued growing a business without copying any AAA games and avoiding getting bought out or aped.

That is only true if you have't heard about most indies. The are plenty of great indie games that just didn't manage the marketing gamble and faded into obscurity without much financial success or even making a loss, especially when you consider the developer's opportunity cost. Then there are even more where the developers gave it their best for years but ultimately failed, either releasing a mediocre game or nothing at all.

Indie game dev is absolutely not something that you should be getting into when your primary interest is financial return. The ones that make it big are a tiny minority.

> despite what gnome and apple proclaiming such a goal is impossible.

GNOME? The great out the box experience... that also allows power users to deeply customize it? It is dishonest to lap GNOME (extremely popular free software) in with Apple (king of proprietary software).

Gnome and customise? The DE that hates giving users any options to change stuff because they (Gnome) knows best?

That is why there is the Gnome Tweak tool and Gnome extensions. You get a great out-of-the-box experience for regular users and good customizability for advanced users. If you want extreme customizability just don't use Gnome. IMO Gnome gets way too much unwarranted critique here.

I don't use Gnome because I find its out-of-the-box experience to be pretty horrible. I couldn't figure out how to fix it, and didn't know about these tools. But it's fine, I'm really happy with the DE I use.

The problem with fixing all its problems with extensions is that they aren't always updated in time for new releases.

And the tweak tool, sure but really the options in there should have been standard settings from the start. This is the core problem with this product.

Sadly, the settings app crashes if you choose the performance power profile... Tweak tool, otoh, works fine.

Gnome removed most buttons and menus that allow customization. You may be thinking of kde plasma instead

It's going back a few years now but the gnome 3 debacle is a reasonable example of not respecting users https://felipec.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/the-problem-with-gn... . I think in subsequent years the devs have been worn down and the community solved the missing features in other ways, but some people have long memories. gnome 3 is the primary reason Ubuntu got its own desktop system, it was that divisive.

The Steam Deck is uniquely positioned to allow people to do potentially hazardous things like install software from unknown sources, and that is because it's primarily a gaming device. People aren't doing banking and work stuff on it, so what is the damage if it gets rooted? Valve could have easily screwed it up by building a walled garden anyways, just to satisfy corporate greed in the name of "maximizing ROI". Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo all have their walled gardens for gaming. The fact Valve hasn't (yet) is refreshing.

Apple is that stoic palace guard at Buckingham palace who says nothing and doesn't move or smile but won't let you leave the appointed tourist areas and bother the queen while GNOME is your obnoxious aunt who is always judging you.

You know its wrong to want to theme your distros desktop don't you? It is such a bother that you always ask your file manager to wear green. You know he doesn't like that can't you see how uncomfortable you're making him?

Prominent developers have variously spoken out against various user and distro customization suggesting that all theming and extensions be removed and even in one notable instance attempting to bully an app that supports many desktops to disable traditional tray icon functionality on other desktops using the dystopian phrasing something on the order of you should decide if you are a gnome app or a XFCE app. Another suggested that it would improve brand awareness if distros couldn't theme their version of gnome. Phrasing only a soulless marketing manager could possibly love.

There can be little doubt that IBM/Red Hat is about as hostile to diversity of options on the Linux Desktop as Apple and not without cause. There are legitimate arguable benefits to a homogeneous ecosystem. They just aren't in quite the same position to dictate options. For instance killing the extension/themeing ecosystem would have empowered forks and as few people would be running gnome as run Fedora.

Since being a pessimst turned optimist (by years of working) i'd replace "sad this only really" with "great this". Sorry for being obnoxiously posive.

Not to mention it's one of the few modern platforms that allows modding up to code injection, memory manipulation, and mod managers that'll gleefully pull code from the four corners of the internet. You know, the things that every other platform heavily locks down over the fears hackers will steal grandma's cookie recipe and not because it allows the selling of 14 different microtransactions for something your average modder could put together in a day.

Despite the negative dismissal (which gets rightly downvoted), I think there’s a good point here - your phone probably needs to have stronger security requirement than your gaming device?

I think that when we walk about security (and privacy!) the question that needs to be asked together is "against who?".

Yes, phones have stronger security requirements, but why are they being secured against people using them? :)

I agree with the sentiment here, but it's worth pointing out that most AAA games now come with an incredibly invasive anti-cheat suite that violates your computer's security and thoroughly violates your privacy. That's precisely because they're allowed to by the OS

If phones were more open, we'd be free to mod our own games and back up our own save files, but we'd have to live with every random crap app we download being able to take over the whole machine permanently any time.

How does that work re: the Steamdeck which is running Linux or other game consoles?

Many games with those invasive rootkit DRMs simply don't work.

Some publishers actually did remove the DRM just for the Deck version proving that DRM maybe isn't all that necessary when there's a will and manufacturer that doesn't bow down to ridiculous requirements :)

Anticheat-protected games just don’t work on Steam Deck (usually just refusing to connect).

A few anticheat engines support specifically Steam Deck after working with Valve, but even then each individual game developer has to opt into it. (For example: Destiny 2 uses EasyAntiCheat which is Deck-compatible but Bungie still refuse to whitelist it on Deck/Steam OS, and warn you may get banned if you try to sidestep the block)

Modern DRMs like Denuvo actually do tend to work in Proton/Wine (aka Steam OS’s compatibility layer) because they’re a wrapper around the game instead of a driver/debugger+game setup.

> If phones were more open, we'd be free to mod our own games and back up our own save files, but we'd have to live with every random crap app we download being able to take over the whole machine permanently any time.

It's possible to give the user full control and the ability to give apps more permissions, while still sandboxing apps by default. Consider, for example, flatpak, which can make the host filesystem totally invisible to apps but also allows the user to pass in files via the file picker or to totally expose paths by overriding its filesystem context.

Yeah, that's true

To be fair, even Android apps are reasonably locked down while still making it possible to install a proscribed emulator or Firefox or whatever

> it's worth pointing out that most AAA games now come with an incredibly invasive anti-cheat suite that violates your computer's security and thoroughly violates your privacy.

Which is why I stopped playing AAA games. I'm fine with avoiding them and having a machine I can actually control.

Because when you sell to a billion people it turns out that some of them need to be secured against the people using them. It only matters that this fraction is non-negligible, not some significant level to be a problem. And, you can't bless the other set with special privileges because those very pathways will be used against the set that needs protection against themselves.

> Protection against themselves

Are these not adults? If not, is it the responsibilty of manufacturers to limit them, or the responsibility of their caretakers?

First of all, no, they're not adults. Kids can have phones, too.

Second, that's an extremely weak argument and I question if it's being made in good faith. But in case you are: the responsibility is on the manufacturer to make a safe product. That's why we have regulations on consumer product safety. You can't sell certain dangerous chemicals. You can't sell plastics with BPAs in them. Et cetera.

The consumer, when they have the product, also has their own responsibility to look out for their own safety. But that doesn't make it ok to give them something dangerous, especially if it's something that contains dangers most people don't even understand or know about, like malware. (Most people are "aware" of malware, but they have no idea how it works or how to protect themselves from it.)

It's good faith, thanks for responding. :) I'm often challenged by these questions because the arguments often become questions of what's the best analog, which feels like it could be unreliable. I get your point about keeping chemicals out of our stuff, but that doesn't feel analagous to control over my device.

Keeping it in the kitchen, I'd say it's more like an Instant Pot that only lets you cook with Instant Pot Approved Recipe Packs. That way you'll never have food poisoning, or so says the marketing, and that's legit great novices! But if that's the only imduction cookpot available, something feels very off.

As for kids, parents are responsible for their use of stoves, cars, knives, etc. All are safe, until misused. I guess I'd like a clear line for where things are nerfed. And admit I might disagree with said line.

Hm, FWIW, I'm more on your side than not - I don't want to be locked out of customizing my devices. That's why I have GrapheneOS on my phone, and I think phone manufacturers may have gone too far in the overprotective side. I was only arguing that the correct path is somewhere in the middle, not a total abdication of responsibility by the manufacturer.

It is the responsibility of you to find an alternative product if you don't like the limits put in place by the company doing this. It is a free market.

My phone secured against whoever picks it up when I lose it or it gets stolen.

Unfortunately, that makes it less convenient and powerful for me to use, but I mostly don't need the power

Because sometimes the people using them are thieves that have stolen the phone, or blackhats that are actively trying to gain access to your bank account.

Phones are the only popular end user device that has any sort of protection worth its salt. Against who? Against easily downloadable malware that can trivially execute as the user, effectively doing anything beside installing a video card driver. Can trivially log key presses, read any screen, download/upload to the internet, read your .ssh folder, browser cache, or encrypt your family photos without a second thought.

Mac is a bit ahead of the other two, but gnu/linux (as opposed to “android linux”) is just insanely unsecure.

> but gnu/linux (as opposed to “android linux”) is just insanely unsecure.

This isn't a property of GNU/Linux. It is very possible to have a highly secure Linux setup. That's not the way most distros operate, though, because highly secure setups tend to be user-hostile (which is the essential conundrum being talked about here, really).

>why are they being secured against people using them?

They're not. They're being secured against malicious actors who can convince grandma to install a rootkit or bitcoin miner on her PC.

In other words, they're being secured against the people using them.

Get back to me when you find someone who was taken by this method that thinks it was used against them...

Why? Most modern PC games come with insanely privileged DRM and anti-cheat measures that lock down and cross-examine everything else your PC is doing. If Denuvo can secure games from being pirated over months of concerted effort, why can't something similar be used to secure my online banking app while still letting me do whatever I want when I'm not using banking?

I see where you are coming from here; but aren't the stakes a bit different here?

A games console is for games. Although there are probably some tiny fraction of people who have installed other apps on there, the overwhelmingly vast majority of people are just going to use it for games.

A smartphone is likely to have address books, email, your photos, maybe sync with your e-health devices, banking applications ... from my point of view, it's an entirely different risk profile.

There must be a way by now to stash this critical stuff away safely in one half of the phone, while the other half runs all the untrusted stuff. If there would be a will (by Apple) there would be a way.

Sure, you stick things into sandboxes and only allow specific permissions to access outside the sandbox. In which case, users habituate to allowing any permissions that anything they install requests (c.f. Android).

So then maybe you say "no permissions are allowed for sideloaded applications", but then you're back here with people complaining that the platform owner is crippling the independent ecosystem because it doesn't allow access to the camera or the mic or the address book or whatever.

Or, you take the more extreme step, and obfuscate from the application whether or not permissions have been granted. The reason why people default to granting excess permissions is that many applications simply will refuse to run without them. If instead of "overtly deny permission" there existed the option to "covertly deny permission (by opting to feed plausible random data instead)" and making that the easier to select "deny" then you have the best of both worlds: well-behaved applications start asking for fewer unnecessary permissions, because the data they're gathering is being poisoned, poorly-behaved applications have their harm reduced, and users who want to build programs that actually need high-level permissions can do so.

It's not much of a sandbox if permissions exist to escape the sandbox. All "secure" apps (mail, pay, banking, chat, ...) need to live in a special compartment which they cannot escape, and no installed apps are allowed in this compartment, only builtin apps.

Everything else lives in a more relaxed compartment which cannot access the "secure" compartment at all.

Essentially two devices, one completely locked up, the other completely open.

A smartphone does nothing what a desktop computer (with ubiquitous root access) doesn't and apocalypse still hasn't happened.

Your literal argument was used for game consoles as well (Oh egads, what will happen if we allow freedom to infest our DRM protected systems?!) until Valve proved everyone wrong.

Maybe instead of spewing the same corporate profiteering arguments here, perhaps think on how we could design our software for freedom AND security and whether defending megacorp monopolies is worth the small improvement in security you're getting in return?

>apocalypse still hasn't happened.

The anti-virus and anti-malware markets are each multi-billion dollar industries; end-point protection is a top-five information security concern for any enterprise; new and exciting ransomware incidents fill the news every week; millions of PCs contribute to botnets that deliver DDoS attacks for pay...

It might not be the apocalypse but it's pretty goddamn terrible.

> It might not be the apocalypse but it's pretty goddamn terrible.

In what way and why are you (well, actually a corporation with monetary interest) making a decision to lockout users because of those industries?

(Also multi-billion? Strongly doubt that.)

> (Also multi-billion? Strongly doubt that.)

McAfee was taken private in 2021 for $14B https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/8/22769910/mcafee-private-i... And had quarterly revenue of $500M at the time: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/mcafee-corp.-mcfe-surpasses-...

For one endpoint security example, unless I misunderstood.

What if I told you that I myself along with the vast majority of consumers just simply do not care about underlying access.

>(Also multi-billion? Strongly doubt that.)

Judging by a fair number of articles, you would be mistaken

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220104005794/en/Glo...

> The global antivirus software market is expected to grow from $3.80 billion in 2020 to $3.92 billion in 2021

> In what way and why are you (well, actually a corporation with monetary interest) making a decision to lockout users because of those industries?

Did you forget that the conversation was about phones being locked down to protect against these kinds of malware?

> It's something that Apple fans always told us it's impossible to build - a device that is joy to use by default while still respecting your wishes as a user.

I never knew I wanted a Valve phone and tablet, but now I do.

God bless Valve for making a viable linux mobile OS that isn't Android. What's to stop them from making a phone at this point? One can dream.

I imagine the biggest obstacle is that it has nothing to do with their business. If they are well run, it seems unlikely.

>I imagine the biggest obstacle is that it has nothing to do with their business.

Mobile is far and away the most profitable, highest revenue segment of the gaming market by a huge margin. I can't imagine they don't want a piece of that.

I can, because they really don't seem to. They aren't a publicly traded company beholden to corporate share holders who only value profit. They have a history of behavior which suggests they care about PC gaming and not a heck of a lot else. Arguably they don't even care about the money that much. Did you know you can sell Steam keys on other store fronts and Valve won't even take a cut?

Want and ability are two different things.

Valve released a phenomonal but imperfect update to the Nintendo Switch which has sold about 1% as well. If Sony released a PlayStation Phone tomorrow, and failed to update it for years despite massive interest, then you'd see a SteamPhone.

Not to mention the fact that they might be able to tap into a market that practically doesn't exist anymore: paid mobile games. Like, actual, "I pay you $5-40, you give me a complete game". People are in the habit of buying games on Steam. Half of the top-20 most played games on Steam right now cost money. SteamDeckPhone's sales would probably be disproportionately people who already use Steam on the PC and/or the Steam Deck, so it would be a significantly different audience than the broader mobile gaming market.

* deep, complex, and regulated market. by comparison, not a lot of FCC rules or local 911 rules related to a Steam Deck.

* strong, like STRONG competition from global leaders a la Apple and Samsung

* much deeper requirements for OEM builds, otherwise they're just white labelling hardware. makes sense for the Steam Deck since the offering is the Steam software and compatibility layer.

* they're in the business of software and software support, and some light hardware support viz. the Valve Index and Steam Deck. but the average person looks at their phone 5+ hours a day and defines many of their life functions are dictated by their phone -- e.g. alarm clock, fitness tracker, music, many forms of interpersonal communication. they will drastically need to up their QA, support, and compatibility -- and those have non-trivial costs.

* OEM manufacturing has ruthless margins; they're a private org but still

* non-trivial build and launch costs

I'll just say that these are, point for point, the exact same arguments made 20 years ago against the iPhone coming to market.

Except, iPhones were first to market with an app store. There's a stronghold that Valve would need to break. If Microsoft couldn't do it with the full weight of its developer division and Windows Phone, then it's not likely Valve can.

>There's a stronghold that Valve would need to break.

If only Valve had a world class digital marketplace...

The same reason that stopped everyone else that tried, the mobile os market is mature and not enough people want or care about another mobile os to make it worth the effort.

>The same reason that stopped everyone else that tried, the mobile os market is mature and not enough people want or care about another mobile os to make it worth the effort.

The point is that they have one now. SteamOS is 10 years old at this point. They've undoubtedly dumped millions into it already, and done most of the wireless networking, battery performance, and UI work needed for Steam Deck. It's a pretty short leap for a company like Valve to add a 5G modem and miniaturize the form factor from there.

I've no doubt they can make it technically speaking. It's just not enough people would buy it to make it worth their while.

Exactly. iOS and Android are good enough for most people. The number of people who'd buy a 'real' Linux-based smartphone simply on principle is tiny.

How many would buy a gaming-first phone (by Valve)? I don't quite know what such a product would mean in practice, or if there is a killer "app" (game) for phone. But it would have higher probabilities of success than "a real Linux phone".

Gaming oriented phones exist for sure. One by Valve with SteamOS, yeah maybe.

It's hard to get around the awkwardness of the physical button problem though: having buttons makes the phone awkward, not having them makes gaming awkward.

Apple fans, if Im being honest, apple fans do know that Android exists. No one who understands tech claims it's impossible. Its just not what they want. They dont want to deal with the baggage it comes with. Saying this as an Apple user in the past now switched to Android for more flexibility, but feeling not worth it and going back to Apple after USB-C integration.

Nah, Apple fans aren't explicitly against sideloading, by and large, they just accept its lack because they care more about the positive features Apple devices have.

> trusts you as a user

Better - it treats you like an owner (which you are).

> It's something that Apple fans always told us it's impossible to build - a device that is joy to use by default while still respecting your wishes as a user.

I can't speak for Apple's fans, but as I understand it some of Apple's main user experience reasons for a walled garden were things like better power efficiency (encouraging native apps vs. battery-draining PWAs), better protection from malicious software and user error (e.g. apps can have their keys revoked, users can't mess with drivers or OS files, etc.), and the ability to enforce app privacy requirements (including non-technical requirements like privacy labeling.) And activation locks make Apple devices less attractive to thieves, and less likely to leak data.

Apple also provides tech support directly to users. Presumably the locked-down iOS devices are easier to support, which saves time for users (and money for Apple.)

You're right though that Apple's model for its gaming handhelds is basically the Switch model and not the Steam Deck model. But I doubt anyone at Nintendo or Apple would have argued that the Steam Deck was impossible to build.

> as I understand it some of Apple's main user experience reasons for a walled garden were things like better power efficiency (encouraging native apps vs. battery-draining PWAs)

Ironically Apple wasn't even planning on offering apps, they thought web apps would be enough. Until Cydia came up and showed users how great native apps can be. And now it's their greatest money maker.

The original iPhone did support native apps - they just had to be written by Apple. ;-)

Developers at WWDC 2007 hated Jobs' "sweet solution" of web apps and wanted to be able to write native apps. Jailbreakers had started probing Apple's apps almost immediately and figuring out how to create native apps, certainly before Cydia. I imagine dynamic aspects of Objective-C (and similarities between the iOS and macOS environments) may have facilitated such introspection and experimentation. Presumably they were able to generate mach-o ARM executables as well somehow before Xcode supported it.

Fast forward a year to 2008 and Apple delivered something that was more than just a dev kit or an installer - an App Store that worked with the existing iTunes Store payment systems. It also happened to be a rather walled garden.

The Cydia Store opened in 2009 and shut down in 2018.

iOS web apps weren't a completely terrible idea - Apple added things like touchscreen support as well as native widgets. Even today they have some advantages, including sidestepping Apple's walled garden. Though with the success of said garden, Apple has less of an incentive to enable web apps to compete with it.

> it trusts you as a user - you can install games that aren't verified.

It goes much further than that! It allows you to install arbitrary software so one can even set the Heroic launcher up [0] and play your games that happened to be bought in other platforms!

[0]: https://heroicgameslauncher.com/

"it trusts you as a user" is really great way of putting it.

> I love the philosophy of steam deck: by default, it's an Switch-like device that hides all the non-fully compatible games in store

As a former Steam Controller user: thank fucking god. The Steam Controller was never supported properly by Valve - games would be featured on the Steam store without compatibility with the Steam Controller, and after 20 minutes of trying different community configs for a new game, you'd get something good but the on-screen prompts would always be wrong.

> PRESS X NOW

When you need to press right shoulder or whatever. Yes Steam Controller was revolutionary, but it took the simplicity of console gamepads and added the fun of debugging a broken windows install.

I was with you right up until the end... I have a Steam Deck and it's absolutely incredible. Support, though, even for the verified games and with nothing modified, is hardly at the level that it is for Apple products and actually using it is nothing like using an Apple product.

As soon as someone has an issue with something that's not officially supported by the OS, Steam/Valve is not going to help them. There's a reason why it's impossible to build something like this for Apple. They don't want any devices that they can't support until they're past their life cycle.

The desktop/Steam OS split was particularly smart. You can have a wonderful, catered, safe experience and never leave Steam OS. Or you can go into the desktop and open up a world of emulators and more.

Steam Deck's UI is personal preference.

There is an annoying bug that if you play a game using a bluetooth controller, put the steamdeck to sleep, then resume later, controller support is dropped in-game. This basically makes the sleep feature useless.

My wish as a user is that it behaves at least as well as last-gen consoles do. I had no problem putting my PS4 / Switch games to sleep and pick them back up later.

The true magic (imho) is the compatibility layer allowing the hardware to run a large swath of PC/Windows games.

>There is an annoying bug that if you play a game using a bluetooth controller, put the steamdeck to sleep, then resume later, controller support is dropped in-game. This basically makes the sleep feature useless.

Does this happen when the game is launched thru Steam? Or when the game is launched outside of Steam? Because I assumed the Steam controller/gamepad translation layer could handle that.

Through Steam, tested on three different verified for steamdeck games.

When woken back up, steam will recognize the controller (so you can use it to navigate the UI), but the running game will revert back to keyboard and mouse.

Using the controls on the steamdeck itself also does not work in game (only the touchpad that emulates the mouse).

So you have to resort to quitting the game and re-launching it.

It was pretty annoying finding this out in the middle of an epic Vampire Savior run.

It looks like a good device, but I wonder about how much data collection is going on.

A look at their privacy policy by Mozilla was something of a mixed review. (https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/steam-d...). They said the policy didn't raise any huge privacy concerns, but that the policy was vague, Valve was unresponsive to questions ("We emailed Valve three times with our privacy and security questions and haven’t heard back from them"), and that ultimately Valve reserves the right to collect and share (read sell) "anonymous" data, aggregated or not, with third parties.

I expect them to track what games you play and when, but what about desktop mode? If you run applications or browse the web how much of that activity is collected by Valve? Anti-cheat software works with the steam deck and that too is often highly invasive recording files on your system or other running processes.

The device also comes with two internal microphones, and I'd probably want to remove them (hopefully that's as easy as it is for PS5 controllers) and has bluetooth which is hopefully easily disabled while traveling.

Do notice that you can also install your own OS.

That is a good sign! If it looks like I can disconnect the mics without too much trouble I'll likely be picking one up.

The main concern raised by that review seems not to be from data collection by them:

> Valve does say they can process anonymous data and they may share anonymous data, aggregated or not, with third parties. This is a fairly common practice and doesn’t worry us too much.

But rather that they don't make sure they're providing an ecosystem that, to their standards, protects the user from data collection by others:

> Here’s the bad news about the Steam Deck though. We can’t confirm it meets our Minimum Security Standards because we can’t confirm it uses encryption or if Valve has a way to manage security vulnerabilities.

If that's a concern, it would likewise be on any computer, I would imagine. I mean isn't the Steam Deck basically a regular e.g. desktop computer turned handheld? It's not an issue specifically about the Steam Deck unless you compare it to more closed platforms like the Switch instead of other regular computers.

And the user does have the option to harden the system, like they can any computer:

> There is a lot written out there on the internet about how to set up encryption on the Linux-based SteamOS yourself. However, we don’t think that users should have to go through that to protect their data.

Like they say, it's a matter of lacking convenience to not have that level of hardening by default.

But again, why is this an issue here, when most people using Steam from their desktop computers probably don't use encryption either.

> But again, why is this an issue here, when most people using Steam from their desktop computers probably don't use encryption either.

Encryption is important because of how portable the device is. I've never lost a gameboy/DS/switch, but I know plenty of people who have. It's bad enough to lose your games, but if you're doing non-gaming things on the device it's a problem. It took a while before Valve added a pin to protect your device too, but they have.

> Valve does say they can process anonymous data and they may share anonymous data, aggregated or not, with third parties. This is a fairly common practice and doesn’t worry us too much.

Given that there's effectively no such thing as anonymous data, I'm really surprised they said this.

A privacy policy does not mean anything. It is not a contract between you and the company, it is not a service level agreement, there is no penalty if it is violated. At worst you may have a violation of some sort of truth in advertising law if the company does not follow it's privacy policy.

At the end of the day it comes down to what the company actually does vs what they say they do.

That's the truth. It's good to keep an eye on what they'll admit to if nothing else. It'll likely take a whistleblower for people to know what a company actually does with their data, although if we're lucky we might learn something by chance from evidence presented in an unrelated lawsuit. What we really need are meaningful regulations.

This. Also, almost every privacy policy I've ever read has enough holes to drive a convoy of trucks through anyway. I believe privacy policies are worthless, and ignore them.

Honestly I hate to say it but I think the Switch was actually the big advance. It does not run PC games but it does run a fairly standard OS ( I believe a flavor of android ) and the old Nvidia processor from the Shield.

I guess what I am saying is it is sort of like the Steam Deck but based on a tablet instead - and can pretty easily be hacked into a tablet instead. The Steam Deck is much more locked down but they MUST have been hugely inspired by the success of the Switch when making the Steam Deck.

Personally I think I am excited for when we might get something a bit more of a hybrid of the two - if ARM does indeed take off on Windows and Linux more then we may end up with a device that can sometimes take a full ARM stack with all of its power advantages and then also run standard older OS processes as well.

> It does not run PC games but it does run a fairly standard OS ( I believe a flavor of android )

No, it's a totally custom OS. Custom kernel, custom user space. They run the BSD network stack off on the side, but so did Windows up until Vista.

Got it. But the hardware is still tablet hardware so its perfectly hackable into Android mode. Not the same as the Steam Deck at all but I think my point still sort of works

AIUI only old hardware where Nintendo forgot to burn some bootloader fuses are hackable. Newer ones are not

Those are the only ones that are softmoddable, but there are modchips for newer ones.

Following that, just about every game console of the past 25 years has been able to be hardware modded to run Linux. The switch isn't special here.

Yes. Nintendo intended it to be 100% fully locked down. They made a trivial mistake in the early versions, since corrected. But they absolutely do not intend for you to run anything other than their exact stuff on it. It could not hardly be more closed down and proprietary.

This Steam Deck is much less locked down. It's an x86 PC.

"If you allow 3rd party app stores and other browsers it will ruin my walled garden device and the official app store and threaten the entire ecosystem Apple meticulously curates!!!"

Oh? Really? Do go on...

>It's something that Apple fans always told us it's impossible to build ...

Yes, but we all know that's a 320B dollar (so far) lie.

Why force apple to do that. That business model has android and that is fine. You need a choice. You want a choice. Apple model is a choice. Forced side load allowed close apple. It may not be good. At least some of us has a choice.

> switch like

steam deck has the size of one and a half nintendo switch(es?).

Damn this is so true. Might get one just to experience it.

Is that not exactly how MacOS works?

To be fair, this is not an Apple level device. 2.5 hr battery life is hilariously bad.

What is the battery life of Apple's gaming device?

I get what you're saying, but the iPhone is one of the world's most popular and most profitable gaming device by a long shot.

Definitely not the most popular; there are many multiples more people gaming on Android devices than on Apple devices.

More people on Android and far more Android market share, but much more profitable on iOS despite the smaller user-base.

There are far more willing and paying customers on Apple products.

https://www.dotcominfoway.com/blog/apple-leads-android-with-...

My iPhone definitely does not last more than 2.5 hours when doing an intensive game.

How many Windows games can you run on it?

At least you have plenty of options to conserve battery. capping framerate at 30 or 40 fps, FSR, configurable TDP limits, underclocking the GPU.

That's for newer AAA games. Games with simpler or more optimized graphics, especially those running in emulators, tend to do really really well.

I ended up buying one of those Anker laptop USB PD chargers, and they can recharge the Deck twice over, so I could actually spend nearly 8 hours fully utilizing the Deck's power without being tethered at all.

How long does the iPhone battery last when playing games with high level 3D graphics?

Good mobile battery life with 'intense' graphics is an unsolved problem, Apple is not immune here.

From 1.5h to ~6h depending on the game. I'd love to see a bigger battery in the next version, though.

Just attaching any off-the-shelf USB-C powerbank is perfectly viable right now.

It's not like you do your 2 hour gaming sessions while moving around all the time. If you're sitting down, a thin wire to a decent size power bank isn't going to interrupt your gaming.

What does battery life have to do with Apple's walled garden?

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