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We had that in the form of Windows CE based smartphones. As open as a PC, no walled garden, no app stores, just load your app and launch it. The market spoke

We had that in the form of Windows CE based smartphones. As open as a PC, no walled garden, no app stores, just load your app and launch it. The market spoke decisively in rejecting it in favor of the iPhone and Android devices.

HideousKojima 6y ago
>The market spoke decisively in rejecting it in favor of the iPhone and Android devices. Sure, but did the market reject it because it was a more open platform, or because of other considerations? Given that the general public is largely unaware of DRM and the like, it was likely for lack of other features. There's no inherent reason why a more open phone OS couldn't succeed in the market. After all, Android devices are generally more open than iOS devices and they've got the vast majority of the smartphone market.
- finnthehuman 6y ago
  >Sure, but did the market reject it because it was a more open platform, or because of other considerations? Obviously other considerations. Where there is only a small handful of options within a class of product, any statement about "what the market wants" should be limited to very broad strokes. The consumer doesn't select from the entire possibility space, they buy from the available options. Any "correlation is causation" statement about minor details when there are dozens of other larger distinguishing feature are the words of a lying huckster. Giving them the benefit of the doubt isn't that they're not-lying, the benefit of the doubt is that they're lying to themselves too. That's how wrong it is to make those inferences.
  - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
    > "a lying huckster" Rather rude, don't you think?
    - finnthehuman 6y ago
      I did make the context quite narrow and add the caveat for people who are simply deluding themselves, but yeah, it's rude. I've spent enough of my professional life listening to people try to tell me what sales numbers "mean" to have any higher of an opinion.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  > "Sure, but did the market reject it because it was a more open platform, or because of other considerations?" My point was that openness didn't outweigh other considerations in the eyes of people purchasing them. Windows Mobile smartphones were actually dominant in the market until the iPhone was introduced. IIRC from the industry data I had access to, there were over 100 different models in a variety of form factors from a couple dozen OEMs concurrently being sold at its peak. So it was at least ahead of all the alternatives before that point, which weakens the argument that it was "other considerations" that were the main culprit.
  - topkai22 6y ago
    They weren't as open as you remember for most people using pre-iPhone smart phones. Carriers did all sorts of things to cripple reduce functionality so they could sell it back to you. A major factor of the iPhone's early US success was forcing a major US carrier (AT&T) to stop doing consumer hostile things and just let the device connect to the network as intended. So, in part, it was improved openness that drove iPhone/Android's success. It just was network openness instead of device openness.
eloff 6y ago
Can I boot Linux on an iPhone? Install android instead? I don't think we ended up in a place much better off from a freedom perspective. Android is a little better because parts of it are open. Google has been steadily moving things into play services though, which is not open. There is now an open source replacement for play services - I don't think it's very compatible yet though.
- SXX 6y ago
  MicroG is fairly compatible, but obviously it's can't do anything about DRM like SafetyNet.
- px43 6y ago
  > Google has been steadily moving things into play services though, which is not open. This is a good thing, they've been de-googling the base OS and making it as stripped down and bare-bones as possible. This is a huge win for security, privacy, and freedom in general, and exactly what they should be doing. Android should be a small, secure Linux based operating system with an API that makes it easy to build services on top of it. The Google ecosystem should be completely decoupled from the OS.
  - eloff 6y ago
    Fair enough, but android without play services is also barely usable and most apps will not run. It's also an effective way of building the walls around the garden.
    - yellowapple 6y ago
      I'm relatively ambivalent to a walled garden if and only if there's a (reliable) way to opt out of it. In Android's case, it's not only quite possible to opt out of Google's garden, but arguably rather commonplace (Amazon's "Fire" devices, most custom ROMs by default, etc.). In iOS' case, it's outright impossible.
      - waynecrescent 6y ago
layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
The market rejected it because it had crappy UX. Those smartphones were marketed for balding dads in white shirts, working in cubicles. Steve Ballmer types. The iPhone had 60 fps smooth animations, a built-in iPod, a huge capacitive touchscreen, and most importantly none of the baggage of being associated with balding managers in their 40s. It was sexy. It was a fashion statement. There wasn’t even an AppStore on iOS initially.
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  >Those smartphones were marketed for balding dads in white shirts, working in cubicles Ouch, burn. Though oldschool cubicles sound better than the current open office chicken farms I've seen.
  - layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
    Hehe, true! Cubicles are much better from a privacy perspective, but the startup kids tore them down on the dubious pretext of hindering collaboration. It was only a matter of time before BigCos followed suit, if only for the obvious cost saving reasons.
    - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
      I don't mind open offices for the 5 man starups made of the guys who met in college and are trying their luck with blood sweat and tears, however I really do mind them in the nouveau wannabe pseudo startups where it's an open chicken coop for the developer plebs and private offices for the sales/marketing/management. But it's ok, they give you a ping pong and foosball table. /s
      - josuepeq 6y ago
        Let’s hope that the pandemic kills the open office!
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  > "Those smartphones were marketed for balding dads in white shirts, working in cubicles. " While true, I wouldn't say that's a burn because it was exactly those people who could afford smartphones and justify paying the painfully high bandwidth charges of that era. Remember, those phones cost as much as a iPhone today but in 2005 dollars (ouch). The ubiquitous Blackberry, a.k.a. the "Crackberry", and Palm devices were also aimed at the same business and professional market. These early devices paved the way to the current smartphone market.
px43 6y ago
Are you really arguing the that Windows CE platform was more open than Android? Back in 2005, an open source Linux based phone was a hippie pipe dream, and carriers were FIRMLY against allowing anything open source on their networks. Android blew all of that wide open, and now the most popular phone OS in the world is an open source Linux based OS. This is what we were all dreaming about back then. I feel like this is an incredibly underappreciated fact. Yes, some carriers lock down their Android phones, because it's an open platform, so carriers can do what they want with it, but since the dawn of Android there have always been high end Android phones that were trivial to put into developer mode and install whatever wacky OS mods you want.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  > now the most popular phone OS in the world is an open source Linux based OS That's an interesting comment, because it really calls attention to how us nerds often perceive things differently from how the rest of the world does. I am guessing that most consumers would not recognize something that just used vanilla AOSP as an Android phone. Google's closed-source add-ons are a huge part of what people think of when they think, "Android."
  - entropicdrifter 6y ago
    I mean, the average person only has a vague idea of what an OS is, let alone a specific one like Android
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  > "Are you really arguing the that Windows CE platform was more open than Android?" The topic is the control that the user has over a phone they purchased, not source code availability for the OS, so yes, I am. Windows CE smartphones provided access about the same as Windows 98/NT in terms of the freedom to run apps and providing apps unfettered access to OS level APIs. The same can't be said for Android and Apple's sandbox + walled garden model. The only Linux smartphone I can think of from that era that offered similar access and control was the (I think?) Nokia N900 and interest in those was IIRC negligible.
michaelmrose 6y ago
They rejected it because the experience was garbage not because it was open. My least favorite part is constantly manually pruning open apps to fit in tiny memory.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  So basically what many of us still do on iPhone and Android devices.

HideousKojima 6y ago

>The market spoke decisively in rejecting it in favor of the iPhone and Android devices. Sure, but did the market reject it because it was a more open platform, or because of other considerations? Given that the general public is largely unaware of DRM and the like, it was likely for lack of other features. There's no inherent reason why a more open phone OS couldn't succeed in the market. After all, Android devices are generally more open than iOS devices and they've got the vast majority of the smartphone market.

finnthehuman 6y ago
>Sure, but did the market reject it because it was a more open platform, or because of other considerations? Obviously other considerations. Where there is only a small handful of options within a class of product, any statement about "what the market wants" should be limited to very broad strokes. The consumer doesn't select from the entire possibility space, they buy from the available options. Any "correlation is causation" statement about minor details when there are dozens of other larger distinguishing feature are the words of a lying huckster. Giving them the benefit of the doubt isn't that they're not-lying, the benefit of the doubt is that they're lying to themselves too. That's how wrong it is to make those inferences.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago
  > "a lying huckster" Rather rude, don't you think?
  - finnthehuman 6y ago
    I did make the context quite narrow and add the caveat for people who are simply deluding themselves, but yeah, it's rude. I've spent enough of my professional life listening to people try to tell me what sales numbers "mean" to have any higher of an opinion.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
> "Sure, but did the market reject it because it was a more open platform, or because of other considerations?" My point was that openness didn't outweigh other considerations in the eyes of people purchasing them. Windows Mobile smartphones were actually dominant in the market until the iPhone was introduced. IIRC from the industry data I had access to, there were over 100 different models in a variety of form factors from a couple dozen OEMs concurrently being sold at its peak. So it was at least ahead of all the alternatives before that point, which weakens the argument that it was "other considerations" that were the main culprit.
- topkai22 6y ago
  They weren't as open as you remember for most people using pre-iPhone smart phones. Carriers did all sorts of things to cripple reduce functionality so they could sell it back to you. A major factor of the iPhone's early US success was forcing a major US carrier (AT&T) to stop doing consumer hostile things and just let the device connect to the network as intended. So, in part, it was improved openness that drove iPhone/Android's success. It just was network openness instead of device openness.

eloff 6y ago

Can I boot Linux on an iPhone? Install android instead? I don't think we ended up in a place much better off from a freedom perspective. Android is a little better because parts of it are open. Google has been steadily moving things into play services though, which is not open. There is now an open source replacement for play services - I don't think it's very compatible yet though.

SXX 6y ago
MicroG is fairly compatible, but obviously it's can't do anything about DRM like SafetyNet.
px43 6y ago
> Google has been steadily moving things into play services though, which is not open. This is a good thing, they've been de-googling the base OS and making it as stripped down and bare-bones as possible. This is a huge win for security, privacy, and freedom in general, and exactly what they should be doing. Android should be a small, secure Linux based operating system with an API that makes it easy to build services on top of it. The Google ecosystem should be completely decoupled from the OS.
- eloff 6y ago
  Fair enough, but android without play services is also barely usable and most apps will not run. It's also an effective way of building the walls around the garden.
  - yellowapple 6y ago
    I'm relatively ambivalent to a walled garden if and only if there's a (reliable) way to opt out of it. In Android's case, it's not only quite possible to opt out of Google's garden, but arguably rather commonplace (Amazon's "Fire" devices, most custom ROMs by default, etc.). In iOS' case, it's outright impossible.
    - waynecrescent 6y ago

layoutIfNeeded 6y ago

The market rejected it because it had crappy UX. Those smartphones were marketed for balding dads in white shirts, working in cubicles. Steve Ballmer types. The iPhone had 60 fps smooth animations, a built-in iPod, a huge capacitive touchscreen, and most importantly none of the baggage of being associated with balding managers in their 40s. It was sexy. It was a fashion statement. There wasn’t even an AppStore on iOS initially.

ChuckNorris89 6y ago
>Those smartphones were marketed for balding dads in white shirts, working in cubicles Ouch, burn. Though oldschool cubicles sound better than the current open office chicken farms I've seen.
- layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
  Hehe, true! Cubicles are much better from a privacy perspective, but the startup kids tore them down on the dubious pretext of hindering collaboration. It was only a matter of time before BigCos followed suit, if only for the obvious cost saving reasons.
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    I don't mind open offices for the 5 man starups made of the guys who met in college and are trying their luck with blood sweat and tears, however I really do mind them in the nouveau wannabe pseudo startups where it's an open chicken coop for the developer plebs and private offices for the sales/marketing/management. But it's ok, they give you a ping pong and foosball table. /s
    - josuepeq 6y ago
      Let’s hope that the pandemic kills the open office!
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
> "Those smartphones were marketed for balding dads in white shirts, working in cubicles. " While true, I wouldn't say that's a burn because it was exactly those people who could afford smartphones and justify paying the painfully high bandwidth charges of that era. Remember, those phones cost as much as a iPhone today but in 2005 dollars (ouch). The ubiquitous Blackberry, a.k.a. the "Crackberry", and Palm devices were also aimed at the same business and professional market. These early devices paved the way to the current smartphone market.

px43 6y ago

Are you really arguing the that Windows CE platform was more open than Android? Back in 2005, an open source Linux based phone was a hippie pipe dream, and carriers were FIRMLY against allowing anything open source on their networks. Android blew all of that wide open, and now the most popular phone OS in the world is an open source Linux based OS. This is what we were all dreaming about back then. I feel like this is an incredibly underappreciated fact. Yes, some carriers lock down their Android phones, because it's an open platform, so carriers can do what they want with it, but since the dawn of Android there have always been high end Android phones that were trivial to put into developer mode and install whatever wacky OS mods you want.

mumblemumble 6y ago
> now the most popular phone OS in the world is an open source Linux based OS That's an interesting comment, because it really calls attention to how us nerds often perceive things differently from how the rest of the world does. I am guessing that most consumers would not recognize something that just used vanilla AOSP as an Android phone. Google's closed-source add-ons are a huge part of what people think of when they think, "Android."
- entropicdrifter 6y ago
  I mean, the average person only has a vague idea of what an OS is, let alone a specific one like Android
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
> "Are you really arguing the that Windows CE platform was more open than Android?" The topic is the control that the user has over a phone they purchased, not source code availability for the OS, so yes, I am. Windows CE smartphones provided access about the same as Windows 98/NT in terms of the freedom to run apps and providing apps unfettered access to OS level APIs. The same can't be said for Android and Apple's sandbox + walled garden model. The only Linux smartphone I can think of from that era that offered similar access and control was the (I think?) Nokia N900 and interest in those was IIRC negligible.

michaelmrose 6y ago

They rejected it because the experience was garbage not because it was open. My least favorite part is constantly manually pruning open apps to fit in tiny memory.

pjmlp 6y ago
So basically what many of us still do on iPhone and Android devices.