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Iphones try very hard to look like general purpose computers; that's why everyone was so pissed when they pushed that U2 album, it pierced the veil.
by ineptech 6y ago
Iphones try very hard to look like general purpose computers; that's why everyone was so pissed when they pushed that U2 album, it pierced the veil.
- oriolid 6y agoIn my opinion they're not trying very hard. It's called "phone", not "computer" to start with.
- zepto 6y agoApple explicitly markets that the iPhone is locked down. How is that ‘trying hard’ to look like a general purpose computer?
- ineptech 6y agoBroadly speaking, a general purpose computer is one that can do anything (like an Apple IIe) and the opposite is one that is constrained to do a few specific things (like an ATM). Whether an iphone (or a wintel computer with UEFI, or an Android phone locked by the hardware manufacturer, or etc etc) qualifies is a matter of semantics, and not interesting to argue about; I elided this distinction because (I imagined) the kind of people posting here would be familiar with it and know what I meant. A more nitpick-proof way to phrase my point would be that an iphone is a general purpose computer controlled by Apple, and it tries very hard to look like a general purpose computer controlled by the person that bought it. The customers want to have their cake and eat it too; they want the power of a general purpose computer, and the security of a locked-down appliance. You can't have both, but Apple's size and popularity is a testament to how close they have managed to get.