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Your phone is an entire computer

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Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#111

Post by purplehat_ »

throwaway27448 wrote: post #98
purplehat_ wrote: post #91

I really don't understand the argument here. That the product is locked down by design is a feature, not a limitation. Yes, this has the side effect of making them more money and allowing a walled garden to form, but given that the vast majority of users wouldn't do anything different with their phones if a shell was present, this is in my opinion not that large of an effect. The snide around "clicking on links is da…

I understood this stance more 10 years ago, but now we have many layers of fairly well documented exploit tactics and none of them rely on the app store. However forcing users to use an app store was supposed to benefit us has clearly failed. And, somehow, the indignity of being forced into paying apple a 30% tax for a market they wholly own never comes up alongside other paternalistic arguments....

Can you elaborate on "fairly well documented exploit tactics"? My impression is that most of these are either social engineering, for which we need to hire better designers, or complicated chains of hard-to-find primitives only accessible to state actors.

There's definitely problems but the solution isn't to make the iPhone a general purpose computer. We definitely need to defend the existence of general purpose computing at a time where regulation is likely to begin encroaching on it, but the promise of the App Store is "pay a 30% tax and any app you download here will be safe." In my mind, at least, that's the promise, and perhaps one solution to the situation would be to erect consequences to breaking that promise.

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#112

Post by mholt »

purplehat_ wrote: post #91

I really don't understand the argument here. That the product is locked down by design is a feature, not a limitation. Yes, this has the side effect of making them more money and allowing a walled garden to form, but given that the vast majority of users wouldn't do anything different with their phones if a shell was present, this is in my opinion not that large of an effect. The snide around "clicking on links is da…

And yet, try getting a full backup of your Google phone onto your own computer. (Without rooting/wiping the whole thing.) Heck, try getting just your text messages off (without a separate app)!

You can't. (Last time I checked.) The backup is encrypted in the cloud, and the only way to download it is to restore it to a phone.

Whereas I can just plug in my iPhone and get a full backup, complete with sqlite manifest, completely accessible. Text messages, photo library, everything.

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#113

Post by droidjj »

tomComb wrote: post #100
jesperwe wrote: post #97

This is sooo true. I have multiple computing ideas that I want to do just for fun but I am not doing because each requires buying a mini-pc, sometimes with a screen too, and put Linux + my app on it. At the same time I have multiple old phones laying around, Pixels, iPhones, Galaxy that are out of date, have cracked screens or worn out batteries. Each one of these old phones have same or more computing power than a $…

The pixels all ship with unlocked bootloaders.

I recently turned my unused Google Pixel 8 into a server for my personal site and various side projects. It's super satisfying to spin things up in a couple hours, point a cloudflare tunnel at it, and share it with the world.

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#115

Post by Retr0id »

purplehat_ wrote: post #91

I really don't understand the argument here. That the product is locked down by design is a feature, not a limitation. Yes, this has the side effect of making them more money and allowing a walled garden to form, but given that the vast majority of users wouldn't do anything different with their phones if a shell was present, this is in my opinion not that large of an effect. The snide around "clicking on links is da…

If you make a bootloader unlock require a full wipe/rekey of the device, and make unlock status visible at boot, most of the "someone might unlock my bootloader maliciously" concerns go away.

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#116

Post by ghaff »

ianburrell wrote: post #36
bottlepalm wrote: post #2

Anyone have a theory why Apple hasn't done this yet? They release an 'iBook' which is basically a wired or even wireless lapdock for your iPhone running OSX in a partition. Seems like that would decimate the entire Windows, laptop, even desktop market in short order. Everyone with an iPhone, no longer needs their laptop/desktop. Just buy a cheap iBook and there's a good chance it'll already be better than most consum…

There isn't much demand for using phone as computer. If you are at home or work, you can buy a desktop computers for cheap. If you are traveling, you need to find a monitor and keyboard. You could carry small monitor and wireless keyboard, but then you are carrying as much as laptop. People who need to work on the road get a laptop. People who need to send email get iPad and keyboard. Good example of the economics is…

On an upcoming trip I'm actually going to give an iPad with magnetic keyboard I bought a couple years back, assuming different travel patterns than I've had, a try. It seems to work fine. An iPad is also great for plane/train entertainment without a keyboard. But, honestly, it's no lighter than a MacBook Air would be and if my ancient MacBook Pro dies--have a newer one up in my office--that's what I'll probably buy.

I have traveled with just my iPhone and can get by but don't really love it.

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#117

Post by cheschire »

I was talking with someone solidly in Gen X that described their desire to write out longer form documents by hand on paper rather than typing them up. The process of typing helped them work through the content better than typing.

In an analogous way, I feel like I'm in that part of the millennial generation that is more comfortable doing things on a PC than on a phone. Sure I can informally browse airline tickets and cars on my phone, or upload some docs for my , but when things get serious, I'm switching to a PC to complete it.

There's something about doing things on a phone that just does not feel... robust? Maybe I am just too accustomed to the phone experience being minimal, or minimized in some way compared to the desktop experience.

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#118

Post by xyzsparetimexyz »

zahirbmirza wrote: post #64

The reason the iPhone is so successful is because Apple don't let us use it as a "entire" computer. I am just glad, that we can still run a proper OS on a proper computer. If they made a modified iPad OS for their baby laptop it could have been an ominous sign.

That's nonsense. Just have a way to unlock the OS like how getting developer tools work on android.

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#119

Post by purplehat_ »

Retr0id wrote: post #115
purplehat_ wrote: post #91

I really don't understand the argument here. That the product is locked down by design is a feature, not a limitation. Yes, this has the side effect of making them more money and allowing a walled garden to form, but given that the vast majority of users wouldn't do anything different with their phones if a shell was present, this is in my opinion not that large of an effect. The snide around "clicking on links is da…

If you make a bootloader unlock require a full wipe/rekey of the device, and make unlock status visible at boot, most of the "someone might unlock my bootloader maliciously" concerns go away.

Fair point, but that solution doesn't address the market for theft, so there's a tradeoff there.

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#120

Post by 827a »

Maybe I'm alone in this camp, but I really value the idea that my phone is an ultra-stable bedrock experience that, sure, I have to sacrifice some freedoms on but ultimately they're not exactly freedoms I care to express on a 5.8" display whose more critical purpose is things like "my car keys", "my door keys", "maintaining contact with family" etc. Versus, my linux desktop feels like its always in a state of nearly falling apart, and that's what makes it fun. I'm constantly pushing it to the edge, installing 550gb LLMs, four different package managers, right now its got a totally dissected USB cable coming out the front that's attached to a small circuit board for some project, all that's ok because that's what I want out of it. I don't want that out of my phone. I want my phone to ALWAYS turn on and ALWAYS be able to get EVERY text or phone call that's sent to me.

I think anyone who has devoted their life to computing, in all its forms, over the past 20 years should agree: There doesn't exist an operating system that I feel adequately does all of that under one roof. The closest is Android. And that's what I don't get out of posts like this: Android does exist. What do you want out of Android that Google/etc are keeping from you? Samsung has Dex. It kinda sucks. Google allows free-range application installations (and fortunately that recent effort to block it is dead); that's great. I guess there's no real/root UNIX terminal? Bro, I struggle to envision a world where any device I have that has a root shell is also one that I don't inevitably fuck up, even if only temporarily, its ability to receive phone calls from my doctor about the results of a colonoscopy.

The bigger problem that I see right now is that, at least from the perspective of the iPhone: Apple is dropping the ball on their stewardship of this bedrock experience.

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