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> The reason why I'm personally sticking with the iPhone is exactly the walled garden. Exactly. I can and do buy plenty of general-purpose computing devices th

> The reason why I'm personally sticking with the iPhone is exactly the walled garden. Exactly. I can and do buy plenty of general-purpose computing devices that I can install anything I want on. If I wanted to buy phones that I'd also needed to sysadmin, I could do that. But I don't want that, and I find it a bit silly that the author thinks governments should eliminate appliance-style devices as a choice.

zozbot234 3y ago
> If I wanted to buy phones that I'd also needed to sysadmin, I could do that. Is "sysadmin-ing" a phone really that big of a barrier? Ideally, you'd just install Mobian (i.e. Debian Mobile) on a device, security patches would install automatically via unattended-updates, and every two years you would be prompted to initiate a version upgrade. Proprietary apps would be available from Flatpak repos with strong sandboxing applied. That's essentially the same level of 'sysadmin-ing' any iOS/Android user has to do.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  Don't you see a problem with that? Sure, if I really wanted to have debian on the phone, I'd get a capable Android device and sideload something. Would my wife do it? Would your average John Doe do it? Why would an average user ever want to do it? One of the selling points of the original iPhone was exactly that: shit is taken care of. The phone will just work.
  - zozbot234 3y ago
    Plenty of 'John Doe' types are using feature phones these days, because they're uncomfortable with the proprietary 'app' ecosystem that Apple and Android devices come with. A fully supported Debian Mobile device would essentially be a highly reliable feature phone, with selected smartphone features added to it that actually work for the user and not against them.
    - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
      Great for them. Leave my walled garden alone. Considering the volume at which iPhones sell I'm pretty confident that's the sentiment from millions of users. Edit: When I'm somewhere hundreds of kilometers away from home, sitting in the car parked on the side of the road in the forest and trying to connect with people to figure out where I need to go to exactly, I want maps, email, browser, and phone. In that situation I really don't care about debian, flatpak and stuff. I just want the device to do what it was designed for.
      - eptcyka 3y ago
        Millions of users do not care about walled gardens. This does not factor into their purchasing decisions. Windows XP was never a walled garden, millions of people still used it. iOS could allow for more software freedoms without impeding on one's ability to use good first party map software.
        rad_gruchalski 3y ago
        There’s nothing preventing me from using third-party mapping software on the iPhone. That’s not my point.
        eptcyka 3y ago
        That's not my point either - all I'm saying is we can ask for the cake and eat it too, whereas you're content with just being able to have the cake and believe that somehow having the ability to eat it would be worse?
    - vel0city 3y ago
      They're using feature phones which are 100% proprietary and actively fight anyone from sideloading any app at all because they're uncomfortable with Android's ecosystem, which by comparison lets you install pretty much whatever you want if you just enable developer mode on the device? No. People who choose feature phones do so because they don't want to deal with apps at all on their mobile device. Not iOS apps, not Android apps, not Debian apps, not Ubuntu apps, not Symbian apps, nothing. They're wanting a phone that's just a phone, even more of an appliance than an iPhone. They probably wouldn't care about the phone running Debian at all, and they absolutely won't care about running GCC to compile their own apps on their phones.
  - matwood 3y ago
    > Would my wife do it? I tried to switch my wife to Android once and there was a revolt in the house. And that's a system that should be equivalent to iOS.
- randlet 3y ago
  Poe's Law.
- TylerE 3y ago
  “Ideally” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your comment. Of course, I find even vanilla android a terrible UX.
  - zozbot234 3y ago
    That was meant to reflect the fact that current systems like Mobian are quite far from being daily-driver usable. (Mostly because of limited hardware support, which is a very difficult problem to address.) But the same is true of OP's Hp Jornada: it was sold with a different OS out of the box, and it's way too underpowered to actually run an up-to-date free OS, or for that matter, to develop anything on-device besides proof-of-concept "hello, world" examples.
- Bud 3y ago
  [dead]
abecedarius 3y ago
So what happens if the Vision Pro becomes the best interface to general-purpose computing, Apple still insists on "owning the experience", and their patents prevent full competition from devices whose experience you can own? I lean towards your philosophy but I worry that a near-duopoly on advanced devices plus IP restrictions and the like will keep us who value control over our own Turing machines stuck with laptops and desktops.
- cmdli 3y ago
  In that instance, I would say the problem is that the laws around patents are preventing competition, not that one competitor chooses to lock down their system. We have seen that more open systems like Android can exist, so I would expect those systems to stick around for the people that want them. Having both types of systems actually increases user choice.
- zmmmmm 3y ago
  > So what happens if the Vision Pro becomes the best interface to general-purpose computing this is exactly my fear The people who present Android vs iOS as a matter of personal choice are being slightly disingenuous. They are pretending that this choice is a natural inevitable result and will always exist. Their whole reasoning that iOS is "ok" is based on the fact that Android - another totally independent ecosystem, exists. And let's not forget, it's one which Steve Jobs vowed to sue out of existence. The "android" of that ecosystem is the Meta Quest devices. At the moment, yes, you can sideload there and Zuckerberg is on the record saying he will maintain an open ecosystem. Yet it's still very tenuous. The sideloading experience is very poor, worse than Android (something you sideload can't appear as a first class citizen on the device - there's no way to have it show up in the main app menu, random permissions don't work sometimes etc). And the Quest OS layer is not open source - only the underlying Android OS. The technical hurdles required for VR/AR are much bigger than general computing. It's not at all clear to me that an open alternative will emerge. So we are potentially headed into an era where effectively there's no option for general computing that isn't locked down and owned by a Mega corporation. And all these iOS users who are preaching tolerance of Apple's approach will have been the key enablers of this dystopia.
eptcyka 3y ago
It's a false dichotomy to assume that execution of your own code on a device necessarily implies a necessity to be a sysadmin of your own device. It doesn't have to be this way. iOS and it's devices are great for many reasons, but it still can't do all the things I'd want my phone to be able to do because Apple believes it knows better than I do about what I should be able to do with the hardware I own. It's OK to like Apple products, there are many people who are well served by them, and I realize I'm in the minority when it comes to my gripes with their devices. They're also a billion dollar company, their revenue rivals the GDP of most countries - they're allowed to receive criticism without unpaid support on an online forum. I personally would just like to be able to run my own code without having to publish it on the app store or having to deal with recomipiling and reinstalling apps every two weeks. I'd also love to be able to use my GPG keys via NFC, something an iPhone definitely has the hardware to do, but Apple has decided to not allow it.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  I understand that sentiment. So a question in response: if you continue buying more of those devices regardless of those limitations, why? Why not an alternative that would give you those possibilities?
  - EMIRELADERO 3y ago
    It comes from a general ideological belief that the owner of a physical device that happens to be able to run code should get full control over such execution, even if it goes against the wishes of the manufacturer of that device.
    - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
      I fully understand your argument. It’s the same argument I originally replied to at the top of this discussion. I simply shared my opinion about my conscious choice to stay within the walled garden.
      - 3y ago
tpush 3y ago
What? You don't need to sysadmin an Android phone anymore than an iphone while still being able to install anything you want to.
- rad_gruchalski 3y ago
  My past experience with 6 different Android devices doesn’t support your argument. All of them were Samsung devices with various Android versions. Maybe it’s different with official Google devices. However, if that’s the case then we need to stop making comparisons between iPhone and Android.
  - tpush 3y ago
    I don't understand why your particular experience matters in this argument. There are billions of people using Android phones, from little kids to grandmas. Essentially none of these people know what the word sysadmin even means. Why do some people on HN portray Android phones as some nerdy devices when that impression doesn't reflect reality even a little bit? So weird.
    - kelnos 3y ago
      Yeah, I don't get it either. The US is very iPhone-heavy, but Android has a majority market share in most of the rest of the world. That'd be pretty impossible if using Android was like maintaining a Linux server.
    - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
      > I don't understand why your particular experience matters in this argument. It doesn’t matter. We are having a very enlightening discussion based on my opinion. I’m simply sharing my experiences and an opinion based on those experiences. Nothing more, nothing less.
      - wiseowise 3y ago
        > I’m simply sharing my experiences and an opinion based on those experiences. Nothing more, nothing less. Repeating that doesn’t make you immune from criticism.
dumpsterdiver 3y ago
Agreed. It's not like there's a shortage of general computing devices. To me the insistence on allowing side loading is akin to walking onto a farm and asking to put a saddle on a pig. (Farmer) "Uh, sorry we don't do that." (Person) "Well why not? I want a saddle on a pig." (Farmer) "Because that's not how we do things around here. You're welcome to buy your own pig and put a saddle on it, but you can't do that here."
- _piif 3y ago
  There is a shortage of primary driver-ready mobile computing devices which respect the user's privacy. The choices here are Android devices with custom ROMs + microG and daily prayers that Google doesn't go out of their way to break it (which they can very well do since it breaks ToS) or go nuts with SafetyNet or hardware attestation features and lock you out of a lot of (crucial) apps - or worst case just nuke your account if they detect you use such programs. Or alternatively iPhones. I'm unsure why side loading would break the dynamics of their walled garden either. All that does is give both customers and developers the choice of forfeiting the benefits like discoverability, comfort and likely a bunch of App Store-exclusive APIs like IAPs and in return allow access in cases where Apple doesn't approve. I can already guarantee that most developers won't budge an inch from the App Store as the lack of discoverability and the annoyance of downloading an app file and clicking through Apple's warning popups just to install it would effectively kill their app.
- kelnos 3y ago
  There's definitely a shortage of general computing devices that I can carry in my pocket. Your (very strange) analogy reminds me of when I was in 3rd grade, and we were having lunch. There was a substitute teacher that day. I had peanut butter and jelly (packed by my mom), and started putting some potato chips inside it. The teacher came over, asked what I was doing, and said "stop; we don't do that here". It was a dumb thing for her to say then, and it's dumb to tell us what we can and can't do with our devices now.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
kelnos 3y ago
The alternative to the walled garden of the iPhone isn't a device you have to sysadmin. It's just Android. Which has its downsides! I would love a device that ran Android (and let me have root and sideload if/when I want) but protected my privacy as well as the iPhone does.
wiseowise 3y ago
> Allowing people to control what they can install on their device = sys administrating device Funny straw man.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  Yeah, tbh, even iOS isn't a walled garden in a sense. You can pay them to allow sideloading. We just want that for free. It doesn't have to be trivial to enable and certainly shouldn't be something that can happen by accident.
_ea1k 3y ago
What does not wanting to be a sysadmin have to do with anything?

zozbot234 3y ago

> If I wanted to buy phones that I'd also needed to sysadmin, I could do that. Is "sysadmin-ing" a phone really that big of a barrier? Ideally, you'd just install Mobian (i.e. Debian Mobile) on a device, security patches would install automatically via unattended-updates, and every two years you would be prompted to initiate a version upgrade. Proprietary apps would be available from Flatpak repos with strong sandboxing applied. That's essentially the same level of 'sysadmin-ing' any iOS/Android user has to do.

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
Don't you see a problem with that? Sure, if I really wanted to have debian on the phone, I'd get a capable Android device and sideload something. Would my wife do it? Would your average John Doe do it? Why would an average user ever want to do it? One of the selling points of the original iPhone was exactly that: shit is taken care of. The phone will just work.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  Plenty of 'John Doe' types are using feature phones these days, because they're uncomfortable with the proprietary 'app' ecosystem that Apple and Android devices come with. A fully supported Debian Mobile device would essentially be a highly reliable feature phone, with selected smartphone features added to it that actually work for the user and not against them.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    Great for them. Leave my walled garden alone. Considering the volume at which iPhones sell I'm pretty confident that's the sentiment from millions of users. Edit: When I'm somewhere hundreds of kilometers away from home, sitting in the car parked on the side of the road in the forest and trying to connect with people to figure out where I need to go to exactly, I want maps, email, browser, and phone. In that situation I really don't care about debian, flatpak and stuff. I just want the device to do what it was designed for.
    - eptcyka 3y ago
      Millions of users do not care about walled gardens. This does not factor into their purchasing decisions. Windows XP was never a walled garden, millions of people still used it. iOS could allow for more software freedoms without impeding on one's ability to use good first party map software.
      - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
        There’s nothing preventing me from using third-party mapping software on the iPhone. That’s not my point.
        eptcyka 3y ago
        That's not my point either - all I'm saying is we can ask for the cake and eat it too, whereas you're content with just being able to have the cake and believe that somehow having the ability to eat it would be worse?
  - vel0city 3y ago
    They're using feature phones which are 100% proprietary and actively fight anyone from sideloading any app at all because they're uncomfortable with Android's ecosystem, which by comparison lets you install pretty much whatever you want if you just enable developer mode on the device? No. People who choose feature phones do so because they don't want to deal with apps at all on their mobile device. Not iOS apps, not Android apps, not Debian apps, not Ubuntu apps, not Symbian apps, nothing. They're wanting a phone that's just a phone, even more of an appliance than an iPhone. They probably wouldn't care about the phone running Debian at all, and they absolutely won't care about running GCC to compile their own apps on their phones.
- matwood 3y ago
  > Would my wife do it? I tried to switch my wife to Android once and there was a revolt in the house. And that's a system that should be equivalent to iOS.
randlet 3y ago
Poe's Law.
TylerE 3y ago
“Ideally” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your comment. Of course, I find even vanilla android a terrible UX.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  That was meant to reflect the fact that current systems like Mobian are quite far from being daily-driver usable. (Mostly because of limited hardware support, which is a very difficult problem to address.) But the same is true of OP's Hp Jornada: it was sold with a different OS out of the box, and it's way too underpowered to actually run an up-to-date free OS, or for that matter, to develop anything on-device besides proof-of-concept "hello, world" examples.
Bud 3y ago
[dead]

abecedarius 3y ago

So what happens if the Vision Pro becomes the best interface to general-purpose computing, Apple still insists on "owning the experience", and their patents prevent full competition from devices whose experience you can own? I lean towards your philosophy but I worry that a near-duopoly on advanced devices plus IP restrictions and the like will keep us who value control over our own Turing machines stuck with laptops and desktops.

cmdli 3y ago
In that instance, I would say the problem is that the laws around patents are preventing competition, not that one competitor chooses to lock down their system. We have seen that more open systems like Android can exist, so I would expect those systems to stick around for the people that want them. Having both types of systems actually increases user choice.
zmmmmm 3y ago
> So what happens if the Vision Pro becomes the best interface to general-purpose computing this is exactly my fear The people who present Android vs iOS as a matter of personal choice are being slightly disingenuous. They are pretending that this choice is a natural inevitable result and will always exist. Their whole reasoning that iOS is "ok" is based on the fact that Android - another totally independent ecosystem, exists. And let's not forget, it's one which Steve Jobs vowed to sue out of existence. The "android" of that ecosystem is the Meta Quest devices. At the moment, yes, you can sideload there and Zuckerberg is on the record saying he will maintain an open ecosystem. Yet it's still very tenuous. The sideloading experience is very poor, worse than Android (something you sideload can't appear as a first class citizen on the device - there's no way to have it show up in the main app menu, random permissions don't work sometimes etc). And the Quest OS layer is not open source - only the underlying Android OS. The technical hurdles required for VR/AR are much bigger than general computing. It's not at all clear to me that an open alternative will emerge. So we are potentially headed into an era where effectively there's no option for general computing that isn't locked down and owned by a Mega corporation. And all these iOS users who are preaching tolerance of Apple's approach will have been the key enablers of this dystopia.

eptcyka 3y ago

It's a false dichotomy to assume that execution of your own code on a device necessarily implies a necessity to be a sysadmin of your own device. It doesn't have to be this way. iOS and it's devices are great for many reasons, but it still can't do all the things I'd want my phone to be able to do because Apple believes it knows better than I do about what I should be able to do with the hardware I own. It's OK to like Apple products, there are many people who are well served by them, and I realize I'm in the minority when it comes to my gripes with their devices. They're also a billion dollar company, their revenue rivals the GDP of most countries - they're allowed to receive criticism without unpaid support on an online forum. I personally would just like to be able to run my own code without having to publish it on the app store or having to deal with recomipiling and reinstalling apps every two weeks. I'd also love to be able to use my GPG keys via NFC, something an iPhone definitely has the hardware to do, but Apple has decided to not allow it.

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
I understand that sentiment. So a question in response: if you continue buying more of those devices regardless of those limitations, why? Why not an alternative that would give you those possibilities?
- EMIRELADERO 3y ago
  It comes from a general ideological belief that the owner of a physical device that happens to be able to run code should get full control over such execution, even if it goes against the wishes of the manufacturer of that device.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    I fully understand your argument. It’s the same argument I originally replied to at the top of this discussion. I simply shared my opinion about my conscious choice to stay within the walled garden.
    - 3y ago

tpush 3y ago

What? You don't need to sysadmin an Android phone anymore than an iphone while still being able to install anything you want to.

rad_gruchalski 3y ago
My past experience with 6 different Android devices doesn’t support your argument. All of them were Samsung devices with various Android versions. Maybe it’s different with official Google devices. However, if that’s the case then we need to stop making comparisons between iPhone and Android.
- tpush 3y ago
  I don't understand why your particular experience matters in this argument. There are billions of people using Android phones, from little kids to grandmas. Essentially none of these people know what the word sysadmin even means. Why do some people on HN portray Android phones as some nerdy devices when that impression doesn't reflect reality even a little bit? So weird.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    Yeah, I don't get it either. The US is very iPhone-heavy, but Android has a majority market share in most of the rest of the world. That'd be pretty impossible if using Android was like maintaining a Linux server.
  - rad_gruchalski 3y ago
    > I don't understand why your particular experience matters in this argument. It doesn’t matter. We are having a very enlightening discussion based on my opinion. I’m simply sharing my experiences and an opinion based on those experiences. Nothing more, nothing less.
    - wiseowise 3y ago
      > I’m simply sharing my experiences and an opinion based on those experiences. Nothing more, nothing less. Repeating that doesn’t make you immune from criticism.

dumpsterdiver 3y ago

Agreed. It's not like there's a shortage of general computing devices. To me the insistence on allowing side loading is akin to walking onto a farm and asking to put a saddle on a pig. (Farmer) "Uh, sorry we don't do that." (Person) "Well why not? I want a saddle on a pig." (Farmer) "Because that's not how we do things around here. You're welcome to buy your own pig and put a saddle on it, but you can't do that here."

_piif 3y ago
There is a shortage of primary driver-ready mobile computing devices which respect the user's privacy. The choices here are Android devices with custom ROMs + microG and daily prayers that Google doesn't go out of their way to break it (which they can very well do since it breaks ToS) or go nuts with SafetyNet or hardware attestation features and lock you out of a lot of (crucial) apps - or worst case just nuke your account if they detect you use such programs. Or alternatively iPhones. I'm unsure why side loading would break the dynamics of their walled garden either. All that does is give both customers and developers the choice of forfeiting the benefits like discoverability, comfort and likely a bunch of App Store-exclusive APIs like IAPs and in return allow access in cases where Apple doesn't approve. I can already guarantee that most developers won't budge an inch from the App Store as the lack of discoverability and the annoyance of downloading an app file and clicking through Apple's warning popups just to install it would effectively kill their app.
kelnos 3y ago
There's definitely a shortage of general computing devices that I can carry in my pocket. Your (very strange) analogy reminds me of when I was in 3rd grade, and we were having lunch. There was a substitute teacher that day. I had peanut butter and jelly (packed by my mom), and started putting some potato chips inside it. The teacher came over, asked what I was doing, and said "stop; we don't do that here". It was a dumb thing for her to say then, and it's dumb to tell us what we can and can't do with our devices now.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

kelnos 3y ago

The alternative to the walled garden of the iPhone isn't a device you have to sysadmin. It's just Android. Which has its downsides! I would love a device that ran Android (and let me have root and sideload if/when I want) but protected my privacy as well as the iPhone does.

wiseowise 3y ago

> Allowing people to control what they can install on their device = sys administrating device Funny straw man.

_ea1k 3y ago
Yeah, tbh, even iOS isn't a walled garden in a sense. You can pay them to allow sideloading. We just want that for free. It doesn't have to be trivial to enable and certainly shouldn't be something that can happen by accident.

_ea1k 3y ago

What does not wanting to be a sysadmin have to do with anything?