2 ms·

how do you define a general purpose computing OS? I would be hard pressed to see how iOS or iPadOS are not general computing OS's.

• jpttsn 6y ago
  General purpose OS to me means a platform whose primary use involves that I bring my own software. This is vague; I'm no really inclined to work from a strict definition in this case. It seems Platonic and unproductive. As evidence for the vague distinction, see early quote (in TFA) from Jobs: >“We define everything that is on the phone,” he said. “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers”… “These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.” Of course many say consumers are entitled to redefine the product and hold their new definition over the manufacturer's head, with courts/other politics as a backup cudgel should consumers' market power not suffice. That's what I argue is distasteful on part of consumers.