Also my iPhone could easily power a great desktop experience if the software wasn't so locked down.
Very sad, 15 billion transistors in my pocket and I can barely use them to their potential. What kind of future is this?
https://github.com/tomkidd/Quake-iOS
> or emulated games on it.
https://docs.libretro.com/guides/install-ios/
You can build and deploy IPAs yourself, or you can use AltStore and similar.
> Very sad, 15 billion transistors in my pocket and I can barely use them to their potential. What kind of future is this?
One where it is comparatively very difficult to drain your full store of data and your wallet by installing shitware.
I don't get the point you make about data retention. On android.i can install myriad blockers, browsers and apps to protect myself.on iPhone, I get whatever apple has deigned to grant their users.
> One where it is comparatively very difficult to drain your full store of data and your wallet by installing shitware.
God forbid we treat other people with respect and not consider your average person is a complete idiot that’s being protected by dystopian big brother knowing better than you.
Except that, in the specific case of operating and maintaining a computer system, they are complete idiots. People have other things to care about and computers only matter insofar as what they want out of them. If that includes (as it did in the 00s) screensavers that will keylog their hardware, they will download the keylogger. And to be clear that's not a value judgment; there are many things about which I am a complete idiot. I don't try to replace my own brakes in my car. I probably could do it. The cost of doing a bad job would be very high. So I stay within my lane.
In computer-related fields specifically, education rarely sticks. Ask anyone who's ever been tasked with educating users about technological opsec. In one ear, out the other. The only sane path forward is to default to high and thick walls. That doesn't mean that you can't opt out, with more or less difficulty. That is the signaler that yes, you have a clue and are prepared to deal with the consequences, and that's great if you are. People are, for the most part, not, and optimizing for you, while hanging the overwhelmingly outnumbering group of normal people in the breeze, is bad.
Requiring a similar activation process would be beneficial, but once activated, the restrictions shouldn't be so onerous.
A below-average software developer is probably still a standard deviation above the mean when it comes to competence with computers, and we're not optimizing for developers here.
TBH, even just requiring USB sideloading would eliminate most people's concerns in this thread.
TBH, the case I am more worried than most about is that the actual, biggest use of this will be, not might but will, addiction-mongers in the games space suckering people into downloading apps that are uninhibited by even the relatively low walls that Apple puts into place. Even things as simple as "have a standard payment flow so people know when you are charging them for money" is then off the table, and that makes doing evil really, really easy.
This is like complaining: "my tractor has 600 HP and yet it cannot even reach 80MPH. Very sad.", or "My Ferrari has 600 HP, why can't it tow that 30 ton trailer. What kind of future is this?"
If it has the hardware to do it, why should it be locked in software?
Why should I need to buy two cars just because of software?
Ah, I remember the pitch by Jobs, truly a visionary.
When I bought my first iPhone it was the first product that I paid a large chunk of my savings for and which I really hated in several ways, but I needed in other ways. It's a necessary evil.
It's like watching the stillborn OpenPandora or GP2x, and discovering that "devices bought almost exclusively to pirate SNES/SEGA games" have no devs writing games for their market because ... well ... you know ...
———
Woke: using OSS as a dev model because it's inherently more efficient/effective and leads to better software Broke: using OSS because "muh rights".
And it is, remember, an absolutely tiny group of people that actually contribute to something like Debian. What percentage of users has even filed a bug report, let alone contributed a fix? It must be well under 1%. You don't actually need that many people. All it takes is a dedicated few.
The fact that even then a 'foss phone' doesn't seem to be viable speaks volumes. It would probably only take half a dozen skilled people to get pissed off and channel their pissed-off energy into it, and that doesn't seem to have happened. Either it's way harder than it has any right to be, or it actually isn't that desirable. Revealed preferences and all that...
I need a phone - I got a smart phone because it was the only sane fiscal decision... and when I got that phone I was presented with the options of iOS or locked down Android.
This may just be a Canadian thing but I think it's important to not present this as a completely free choice. If you're on a budget and you need a phone to occasionally communicate with the outside world you're going to be forced into getting a smart phone - the only choice is Android vs. iOS.