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Your phone is an entire computer

medhir.com

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Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#151
post #132
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could allow unlocking the phone by burying that option deep in the settings with scary warnings etc. Most people could use the device with the restrictions. The fact that this is not possible at all is greed.

If they did that, every influencer would make youtube videos and tik toks telling people how they should enable that setting to make their phone better or more powerful "for free", and everyone would just do it, especially the people who really shouldn't because they don't know any better.

> everyone would just do it

Wouldn't it be better to solve that with education? Also MacOS gives you a warning when you're opening something not vetted by them.

The idea that it's some higher authorities responsibility to keep us safe quickly slides into losing freedoms we care about.

Would you also like all websites to be ISP-approved?

We could also have all social media filtered through LLM guards to keep us safe?

Maybe link our IDs to our online identity to protect our kids.

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#152

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 still remember the era when jailbreaking Android and iPhones was gaining popularity among less technical people. It was eye opening to watch how many people I knew would search for a random web page and then unquestioningly follow instructions on the screen to install software from the first link they clicked. All of this to get custom fonts in their messaging app or some other little feature they saw on someone’s…

The Linux community settled very quickly on the model of a Linux distribution, distributed via FTP, as a safe place to acquire on OS. Some got very popular.

Is there anything like that in the Android world? I'd love an alternative Android distro the supports writing notes with the S-Pen from the lockscreen. Where does one find such a thing?

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#153

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 $…

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Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#155

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…

I think there are a number of reasons why Apple specifically hasn't done this. In addition to what others have already mentioned (demand, segmentation, profitability, etc), another factor would probably be difficulty with the overall design.

Part of why Apple's products are often praised for their design is that they do a few things really well and focus on those things, instead of trying to do absolutely everything. Consider the iPod, the iPhone, Apple TV, etc -- they're all pretty focused on doing certain things and Apple's really polished the experience. The Mac desktops and laptops kind of stretch this by allowing more things, but they still largely try to focus the user into certain workflows, via the plethora of apps that come standard with macOS and the vendor lock-in that they push.

Making a phone that can also be a full computer goes against these design principles. Apple's closed the gap a bit in recent years by making macOS and iOS a bit more similar than they used to be, but they're still pretty different. If you're on a M1/2/3/4/etc processor laptop and you've tried using an iOS-specific app (not ones that's designed for both phone and desktop) on it, you'll see some of those differences (interfaces tuned for touch are weird with a mouse, things are sized wrong for desktop, file restrictions can be weird, keyboard input can be lacking, etc etc etc), and it's not enjoyable. Going the other direction, the first thing that pops into my head is: how in the world would the mac desktop be represented on iOS? I'm someone who keeps a lot of files on his desktop, grouped in different sections of the screen for different reasons, and I have no idea how that would be represented on a relatively tiny phone screen (at least in a way that didn't destroy my intentional groups). There are other aspects of macOS that would prove tricky to have analogs on a phone screen, too, but this reply is already getting so long that very few will read it...

Now that's not to say that it's impossible. In fact it probably isn't. But there would be compromises (and those compromises would be on top of the compromises already present in iOS/macOS). To do it well, it'd be a much bigger project than most people realize. It's not just changing a few options and letting us use our phone that way. It'd be more akin to designing the first iPhone. Note that it's not just Apple who hasn't done this yet. Literally _no one_ has done it well yet. I truly hope one day Apple (or someone else, even) does it well, since that'll be a glorious day. But it'd be a huge project, so I'm not holding my breath.

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#156

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 $…

> but I can't use them because I can't just ssh into them and install an app...

of course you can. just ask your agent. it took me 1 hour to vibe-code and install an Android app on my locked down Android.

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#157

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…

[dead]

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#158

It's very clear that the consumer is getting a worse experience than what is technically possible. There is no good phone-slash-laptop, purely because it's less profitable than locking down the devices and selling them separately.

Allow me to tell you about Samsung DeX.

The real problem is that there is no market for it.

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#159

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 like iPhones because they are a little bit restricted.

But let’s be real here. They should have unified everything 5 years ago. Your phone should plugin to a screen and be a “netbook” level device and anything 13 inches and up should be running MacOS. The iPad should have a real affordable keyboard.

These limitations are no longer designed to make the product better.

Re: Your phone is an entire computer

#160
post #112

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, co…

Google takeout. Done, nice try though to make some totally irrelevant comparison to excuse apple behavior.
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