7 ms·

Apple really has locked down its ecosystem. It’s kinda depressing that there isn’t more choice and competition in the mobile space. Your choices are Android an

Apple really has locked down its ecosystem. It’s kinda depressing that there isn’t more choice and competition in the mobile space. Your choices are Android and apple.

dkdbejwi383 5y ago
As someone who owns multiple Apple devices and is generally pretty happy with their hardware and services, I agree. I wish there was at least a third option, if not more competition in this space. RIP Windows Phone, WebOS, Meego, Firefox OS, et al
- zdkl 5y ago
  FfOS would have been a great alternative. I kinda still hope that a similar software setup (boot to browser, sandbox all the things to there) will one day be flashable to any generic handheld device, like older Android phones or the Pinephone.
  - pabs3 5y ago
    FirefoxOS still exists as the proprietary KaiOS, and the open fork of it, GerdaOS. https://gerda.tech/ https://gerda.tech/
  - input_sh 5y ago
    It's still there. A fork of it is #3 most popular OS: https://www.kaiostech.com/ https://www.kaiostech.com/ It just targets devices your probably don't want to use (as in with physical buttons), so you haven't heard of it.
    - zdkl 5y ago
      In fact I use it daily in my 3310, buttons and all, as a replacement for my <model forgotten> FFOs phone from a few years back. From that experience I can tell you it has nothing in common from the user point of view.
- bloniac 5y ago
  They all got beaten because Apple and google thrashed them in all the ways that mattered.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Toutouxc 5y ago
    Actually Windows Phone was pretty much killed by Microsoft's lack of marketing, developer incentives and general incompetence, the OSes (7 and 8 mainly, 10 was weird) were incredibly smooth, fast and well designed. For a short while (in between most popular apps gaining WP support and then dropping it) it was IMO the best mobile experience available. You could get a dirt-cheap low-end phone like the Lumia 520 and it just worked. Then there were the AMOLED Lumias (Windows Phone was almost all black!), good cameras, the future looked really promising. Well. Good times were had.
    - theshrike79 5y ago
      Never forget how MS decided to prop up their WP app store numbers by running classes that ended up in the projects being submitted (and approved) to the store. The amount of utter shit in the WP store was astounding. It was like if every single 0 star GitHub project had been submitted to a store for everyone to download.
    - rasz 5y ago
      You couldnt watch a TV show in 2013-2015 without everyone and the dog using product placement Lumias.
    - fmajid 5y ago
      My father wanted a smartphone but didn't want to pay Apple premiums, so I told him to get a Windows Phone because they guaranteed software updates, unlike Android's dismal situation. He was very happy with it, then it was EOL-ed and WhatsApp stopped working on it (I consider that a feature, not a bug, but for some odd reason he disagrees). So I set him up with a LineageOS Pocophone F1. He still misses the simplicity of the Windows Phone UI, though.
- AshamedCaptain 5y ago
  Competition is no longer possible these days, as banks, towns, etc. start to require an _unrooted_ Android/iOS device for basic operations (e.g. authorization of credit card operations, paying taxes and fines, COVID stuff, etc.).
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    At least here in Germany, there are many banks that work fine on rooted devices. And outside of banking and Google Pay, I haven’t seen anything that won’t work on rooted devices. The rest of your comment, I sadly agree with.
    - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
      Up until a couple weeks ago, my French bank's program worked on rooted devices. No longer. Same thing happened with my previous bank a year or so ago. They removed SMS 2FA as an alternative at the same time.
  - alpaca128 5y ago
    Agreed. I tried to get a hardware-based TAN generator from my bank because that's the official alternative, but they indicated as long as I don't do 10k transactions a day I "don't need one". But I did need one, lacking an up-to-date smartphone and a Windows/Mac PC. They were also baffled that I wanted more than 5 digits as login PIN (without username) for the banking app.
pabs3 5y ago
There are lots of open mobile distros. I'd say postmarketOS is the best option for installing on random devices. Or for devices with preinstalled OSes, PinePhone or Librem 5. https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile#Distributions https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile#Distributions
viktorcode 5y ago
On the contrary. Starting from the release of the original iPhone SDK in 2008, developers gained more capabilities and app entitlements than they lost.

Apple really has locked down its ecosystem. It’s kinda depressing that there isn’t more choice and competition in the mobile space. Your choices are Android and apple.

dkdbejwi383 5y ago

As someone who owns multiple Apple devices and is generally pretty happy with their hardware and services, I agree. I wish there was at least a third option, if not more competition in this space. RIP Windows Phone, WebOS, Meego, Firefox OS, et al

zdkl 5y ago
FfOS would have been a great alternative. I kinda still hope that a similar software setup (boot to browser, sandbox all the things to there) will one day be flashable to any generic handheld device, like older Android phones or the Pinephone.
- pabs3 5y ago
  FirefoxOS still exists as the proprietary KaiOS, and the open fork of it, GerdaOS. https://gerda.tech/ https://gerda.tech/
- input_sh 5y ago
  It's still there. A fork of it is #3 most popular OS: https://www.kaiostech.com/ https://www.kaiostech.com/ It just targets devices your probably don't want to use (as in with physical buttons), so you haven't heard of it.
  - zdkl 5y ago
    In fact I use it daily in my 3310, buttons and all, as a replacement for my <model forgotten> FFOs phone from a few years back. From that experience I can tell you it has nothing in common from the user point of view.
bloniac 5y ago
They all got beaten because Apple and google thrashed them in all the ways that mattered.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Toutouxc 5y ago
  Actually Windows Phone was pretty much killed by Microsoft's lack of marketing, developer incentives and general incompetence, the OSes (7 and 8 mainly, 10 was weird) were incredibly smooth, fast and well designed. For a short while (in between most popular apps gaining WP support and then dropping it) it was IMO the best mobile experience available. You could get a dirt-cheap low-end phone like the Lumia 520 and it just worked. Then there were the AMOLED Lumias (Windows Phone was almost all black!), good cameras, the future looked really promising. Well. Good times were had.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    Never forget how MS decided to prop up their WP app store numbers by running classes that ended up in the projects being submitted (and approved) to the store. The amount of utter shit in the WP store was astounding. It was like if every single 0 star GitHub project had been submitted to a store for everyone to download.
  - rasz 5y ago
    You couldnt watch a TV show in 2013-2015 without everyone and the dog using product placement Lumias.
  - fmajid 5y ago
    My father wanted a smartphone but didn't want to pay Apple premiums, so I told him to get a Windows Phone because they guaranteed software updates, unlike Android's dismal situation. He was very happy with it, then it was EOL-ed and WhatsApp stopped working on it (I consider that a feature, not a bug, but for some odd reason he disagrees). So I set him up with a LineageOS Pocophone F1. He still misses the simplicity of the Windows Phone UI, though.
AshamedCaptain 5y ago
Competition is no longer possible these days, as banks, towns, etc. start to require an _unrooted_ Android/iOS device for basic operations (e.g. authorization of credit card operations, paying taxes and fines, COVID stuff, etc.).
- Semaphor 5y ago
  At least here in Germany, there are many banks that work fine on rooted devices. And outside of banking and Google Pay, I haven’t seen anything that won’t work on rooted devices. The rest of your comment, I sadly agree with.
  - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
    Up until a couple weeks ago, my French bank's program worked on rooted devices. No longer. Same thing happened with my previous bank a year or so ago. They removed SMS 2FA as an alternative at the same time.
- alpaca128 5y ago
  Agreed. I tried to get a hardware-based TAN generator from my bank because that's the official alternative, but they indicated as long as I don't do 10k transactions a day I "don't need one". But I did need one, lacking an up-to-date smartphone and a Windows/Mac PC. They were also baffled that I wanted more than 5 digits as login PIN (without username) for the banking app.

pabs3 5y ago

There are lots of open mobile distros. I'd say postmarketOS is the best option for installing on random devices. Or for devices with preinstalled OSes, PinePhone or Librem 5. https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile#Distributions https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile#Distributions

viktorcode 5y ago

On the contrary. Starting from the release of the original iPhone SDK in 2008, developers gained more capabilities and app entitlements than they lost.