3 ms·

Funny, I didn't realize how little I wanted a tablet until I got a brand new iPad as a signing bonus. I gave it away after half a year to a friend of mine, as f

Funny, I didn't realize how little I wanted a tablet until I got a brand new iPad as a signing bonus. I gave it away after half a year to a friend of mine, as for just two millimeters more, I'd have my MacBook Air, with a real operating system, a decent keyboard and an implicit stand that will hold up the screen upright when I'm watching something in bed. Never looked back, tablets just didn't make sense for me.

digi_owl 11y ago
> a real operating system Must say that the notion that some OS is more "real" than another is odd. I could kinda understand it back in the featurephone days. But these days the distinction seem arbitrary at best.
- kenjackson 11y ago
  The distinction between a locked down mobile OS and a relatively open desktop OS is really not that arbitrary IMO.
- pixl97 11y ago
  If you cannot install a native program you wrote for the device without hacking the firmware on the device, you do not have a 'real' operating system. I mean, of course you have an operating system, it's just one that Apple, Microsoft, or Google controls in the strict sense what you can do with it.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    And what would native be in the case of Android? Flip the "unknown sources" setting and you can dump any random APK onto it. The tablet market neither begins nor ends with iPad.
    - pixl97 11y ago
      Being that endymi0n was talking about an iPad, it certainly relates to the conversation.
      - digi_owl 11y ago
        And dismissing the whole product category after having encountered only the most restrictive entry seems hasty. I will admit that Android has issues as well, but running arbitrary code is not one of them.
  - derefr 11y ago
    You can do that on iOS, insofar as you can attach any arbitrary iOS (or tvOS, or watchOS) device to Xcode running on a Mac, and pressing Run in Xcode will launch the "native program" you wrote on the iOS device (and keep it installed afterward.) It's distributing binaries to others that's the hard part of these mobile ecosystems. Running your own code on your own device has never been restricted.
- dexterdog 11y ago
  To me a real OS is something where you can have root access on the command line out of the box.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Depending on what we define as "root access", OS X might no longer qualify, considering the restrictions imposed by SIP[1], which comes enabled out of the box. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Integrity_Protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Integrity_Protection

digi_owl 11y ago

> a real operating system Must say that the notion that some OS is more "real" than another is odd. I could kinda understand it back in the featurephone days. But these days the distinction seem arbitrary at best.

kenjackson 11y ago
The distinction between a locked down mobile OS and a relatively open desktop OS is really not that arbitrary IMO.
pixl97 11y ago
If you cannot install a native program you wrote for the device without hacking the firmware on the device, you do not have a 'real' operating system. I mean, of course you have an operating system, it's just one that Apple, Microsoft, or Google controls in the strict sense what you can do with it.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  And what would native be in the case of Android? Flip the "unknown sources" setting and you can dump any random APK onto it. The tablet market neither begins nor ends with iPad.
  - pixl97 11y ago
    Being that endymi0n was talking about an iPad, it certainly relates to the conversation.
    - digi_owl 11y ago
      And dismissing the whole product category after having encountered only the most restrictive entry seems hasty. I will admit that Android has issues as well, but running arbitrary code is not one of them.
- derefr 11y ago
  You can do that on iOS, insofar as you can attach any arbitrary iOS (or tvOS, or watchOS) device to Xcode running on a Mac, and pressing Run in Xcode will launch the "native program" you wrote on the iOS device (and keep it installed afterward.) It's distributing binaries to others that's the hard part of these mobile ecosystems. Running your own code on your own device has never been restricted.
dexterdog 11y ago
To me a real OS is something where you can have root access on the command line out of the box.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- icebraining 11y ago
  Depending on what we define as "root access", OS X might no longer qualify, considering the restrictions imposed by SIP[1], which comes enabled out of the box. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Integrity_Protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Integrity_Protection