I really don't understand the argument here. That the product is locked down by design is a feature, not a limitation.
Yes, this has the side effect of making them more money and allowing a walled garden to form, but given that the vast majority of users wouldn't do anything different with their phones if a shell was present, this is in my opinion not that large of an effect.
The snide around "clicking on links is dangerous" and locking down the bootloader is unwarranted, because for most people a phone is not a toy (or at least, not just a toy) - it has their communications history, their bank information, their passwords, any many more. And it's really easy to steal people's phones on the subway. This isn't about freedom of computing, this is about the fact that an iPhone in BFU is nearly as secure as a GrapheneOS phone.
There are many problems with Apple software. It's buggy, uses proprietary formats that you can't export, and interoperable with open standards. It's bad, and is the primary reason why I won't buy another iPhone, but Macs have that same problem. On the other hand, being cryptographically locked-down is an optional feature. If you don't like it, buy a computer without that feature. It's harmful to us, to tinkerers and people who want to see how things work, but the average person does not care at all and just wants to be able to open LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs without having their 401k get drained.
show comments
jesperwe
This is sooo true. I have multiple computing ideas that I want to do just for fun but I am not doing because each requires buying a mini-pc, sometimes with a screen too, and put Linux + my app on it.
At the same time I have multiple old phones laying around, Pixels, iPhones, Galaxy that are out of date, have cracked screens or worn out batteries.
Each one of these old phones have same or more computing power than a $300 mini-pc, but I can't use them because I can't just ssh into them and install an app...
Sad, really.
show comments
chmod775
There's nothing much special about phone silicon. They generally run a bit slower than their desktop/laptop counterparts because of power and heat limitations.
At the top end on a desktop power usage doubles for lower double-digit percentage gains. You can shave that off and not lose much. Laptops are a lot closer to phones than they are to desktops when it comes to power and thermal limitations*, so re-using a "phone" chip really isn't crazy.
* 100W power usage on a laptop is entering silly territory, but on a desktop that's the bottom of entry-level rigs.
show comments
epistasis
Apple's latest monitor is more powerful than the NEO, it has:
* A19 Pro CPU (the NEO only has the A18 Pro)
* 12GB of RAM (the NEO only has 8GB of RAM)
* 128GB of NAND storage for iOS (ok this is less than the NEO)
A few days ago I cracked the edge of my smartphone's screen at just the right spot to shut its display off entirely, though it still works. Using the USB-C dongle meant for my laptop, the phone pops into a desktop view which basically is the same experience as a Chromebook (for better or worse).
In the meantime before its repair, I shoved my SIM card into an old flipphone I had in the tech graveyard drawer. I've actually really liked the limited flipphone experience. It's a mental breath of fresh air to not have a time/focus black hole in my pocket at all times. It made me realize that I've had a pretty bad relationship with my smartphone in terms of how much time I wasted on it. I'm considering keeping the flipphone as my primary phone. Maybe smartphones do too much.
froobius
It's very clear that the consumer is getting a worse experience than what is technically possible. There is no good phone-slash-laptop, purely because it's less profitable than locking down the devices and selling them separately.
show comments
fixxation92
Why not just get a Linux phone running Ubuntu Touch or postmarketOS. You'd have full root access, sideloading etc and none of that corporate control, likely for half the price of an iPHone. Sure you'd lose all the Apple look/feel but at least you can do what you want with the phone.
show comments
darenr
I use the Pixel, but the point is the same. Recently Google added the "Dex" like feature where I can plug in the phone to a monitor and use it as my "entire computer" - at first I was excited, I can go to a coffee shop and leave my laptop behind, but then I looked at getting a bluetooth keyboard, mouse, monitor - with battery, and it's now a worse experience. There are monitor/battery/trackpad combination products for this exact scenario but they are nowhere near the quality of just buying a Macbook - doubly so the Neo.
A laptop is more than the sum of its parts. Your phone overlaps with it on a technical level, but format is important.
bluedino
I'm still waiting for a display that I can simply dock my iPhone into, and use it exactly like an iMac.
Ideally it would be a 40-50 inch 4/5K screen that doubles as a desk of some sorts, but I'll take the monitor/iMac form factor.
noemit
Progressive Web Apps Exist. You can download any app. And build them too. I build my own apps that send me notifications from my AI Buddy :)
Try saving my side project to your home screen : Habit.am - works really nicely once you're logged in.
bigfishrunning
Is this news to anyone? of course it is! The reason that they don't let you run MacOS is absolutely arbitrary, in support of you buying another device. It also allows them to avoid the cost of supporting MacOS in another form-factor.
This feels more like a facebook post that would shock my mom then a HN article...
show comments
hotpotatoes
The problem is Mac. They've always locked things down citing safety or user experience, but it is profit and walled garden. Samsung Dex has been doing this for years.
In before someone explains it's not "exactly" the same. Dex has shown this phone/computer ability in practice long before.
show comments
Arcuru
I seem to recall the Carriers having some pretty strict requirements on the devices that can connect to the mobile networks. Anyone know if that's (still) the case?
I'm not trying to defend Apple here, I'm just curious if there would be some kind of carrier validation issues if you slapped a full desktop OS on a phone.
show comments
ghaff
Microsoft has been SO successful with trying to converge devices </s> I'll agree that Apple has business reasons for keeping device classes separate. But I also think that keeping at least phones and laptops separate makes a lot of sense. I CAN use my phone as a full computer, but having done so traveling, it's not the best experience.
zahirbmirza
The reason the iPhone is so successful is because Apple don't let us use it as a "entire" computer.
I am just glad, that we can still run a proper OS on a proper computer. If they made a modified iPad OS for their baby laptop it could have been an ominous sign.
show comments
bottlepalm
Anyone have a theory why Apple hasn't done this yet? They release an 'iBook' which is basically a wired or even wireless lapdock for your iPhone running OSX in a partition. Seems like that would decimate the entire Windows, laptop, even desktop market in short order.
Everyone with an iPhone, no longer needs their laptop/desktop. Just buy a cheap iBook and there's a good chance it'll already be better than most consumer PCs.
show comments
bronlund
I think the reason is pretty obvious; what really goes on inside of our mobile phones, is not for the faint of heart.
They're all supercomputers that would have ranked on the TOP500 in the 90s.
stronglikedan
iPhone users just now discovering Samsung Dex... cute
barumrho
It would be cool if iPhone could double as a laptop by just adding a monitor and keyboard/mouse and switch over to macOS.
show comments
2OEH8eoCRo0
> I'm bothered, as I have been since the original iPad introduction 16 years ago, by the unnecessary restrictions placed by corporate powers to run third-party software and operating systems on devices we own.
It's not unnecessary, they do it because they make money as gatekeeper.
show comments
hinkley
Isn’t my Apple Watch faster than a Cray 1?
omegadynamics
Wow everything computer
fmajid
Android now has a desktop mode (as Samsung has supported for years with Dex), and it also works on degoogled variants like GrapheneOS.
etchalon
Some people insist there is no difference between a product and a capability and I honestly don't know to communicate to those people.
I really don't understand the argument here. That the product is locked down by design is a feature, not a limitation.
Yes, this has the side effect of making them more money and allowing a walled garden to form, but given that the vast majority of users wouldn't do anything different with their phones if a shell was present, this is in my opinion not that large of an effect.
The snide around "clicking on links is dangerous" and locking down the bootloader is unwarranted, because for most people a phone is not a toy (or at least, not just a toy) - it has their communications history, their bank information, their passwords, any many more. And it's really easy to steal people's phones on the subway. This isn't about freedom of computing, this is about the fact that an iPhone in BFU is nearly as secure as a GrapheneOS phone.
There are many problems with Apple software. It's buggy, uses proprietary formats that you can't export, and interoperable with open standards. It's bad, and is the primary reason why I won't buy another iPhone, but Macs have that same problem. On the other hand, being cryptographically locked-down is an optional feature. If you don't like it, buy a computer without that feature. It's harmful to us, to tinkerers and people who want to see how things work, but the average person does not care at all and just wants to be able to open LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs without having their 401k get drained.
This is sooo true. I have multiple computing ideas that I want to do just for fun but I am not doing because each requires buying a mini-pc, sometimes with a screen too, and put Linux + my app on it.
At the same time I have multiple old phones laying around, Pixels, iPhones, Galaxy that are out of date, have cracked screens or worn out batteries.
Each one of these old phones have same or more computing power than a $300 mini-pc, but I can't use them because I can't just ssh into them and install an app...
Sad, really.
There's nothing much special about phone silicon. They generally run a bit slower than their desktop/laptop counterparts because of power and heat limitations.
At the top end on a desktop power usage doubles for lower double-digit percentage gains. You can shave that off and not lose much. Laptops are a lot closer to phones than they are to desktops when it comes to power and thermal limitations*, so re-using a "phone" chip really isn't crazy.
* 100W power usage on a laptop is entering silly territory, but on a desktop that's the bottom of entry-level rigs.
Apple's latest monitor is more powerful than the NEO, it has:
* A19 Pro CPU (the NEO only has the A18 Pro)
* 12GB of RAM (the NEO only has 8GB of RAM)
* 128GB of NAND storage for iOS (ok this is less than the NEO)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Studio_Display#Technical...
A few days ago I cracked the edge of my smartphone's screen at just the right spot to shut its display off entirely, though it still works. Using the USB-C dongle meant for my laptop, the phone pops into a desktop view which basically is the same experience as a Chromebook (for better or worse).
In the meantime before its repair, I shoved my SIM card into an old flipphone I had in the tech graveyard drawer. I've actually really liked the limited flipphone experience. It's a mental breath of fresh air to not have a time/focus black hole in my pocket at all times. It made me realize that I've had a pretty bad relationship with my smartphone in terms of how much time I wasted on it. I'm considering keeping the flipphone as my primary phone. Maybe smartphones do too much.
It's very clear that the consumer is getting a worse experience than what is technically possible. There is no good phone-slash-laptop, purely because it's less profitable than locking down the devices and selling them separately.
Why not just get a Linux phone running Ubuntu Touch or postmarketOS. You'd have full root access, sideloading etc and none of that corporate control, likely for half the price of an iPHone. Sure you'd lose all the Apple look/feel but at least you can do what you want with the phone.
I use the Pixel, but the point is the same. Recently Google added the "Dex" like feature where I can plug in the phone to a monitor and use it as my "entire computer" - at first I was excited, I can go to a coffee shop and leave my laptop behind, but then I looked at getting a bluetooth keyboard, mouse, monitor - with battery, and it's now a worse experience. There are monitor/battery/trackpad combination products for this exact scenario but they are nowhere near the quality of just buying a Macbook - doubly so the Neo.
A laptop is more than the sum of its parts. Your phone overlaps with it on a technical level, but format is important.
I'm still waiting for a display that I can simply dock my iPhone into, and use it exactly like an iMac.
Ideally it would be a 40-50 inch 4/5K screen that doubles as a desk of some sorts, but I'll take the monitor/iMac form factor.
Progressive Web Apps Exist. You can download any app. And build them too. I build my own apps that send me notifications from my AI Buddy :)
Try saving my side project to your home screen : Habit.am - works really nicely once you're logged in.
Is this news to anyone? of course it is! The reason that they don't let you run MacOS is absolutely arbitrary, in support of you buying another device. It also allows them to avoid the cost of supporting MacOS in another form-factor.
This feels more like a facebook post that would shock my mom then a HN article...
The problem is Mac. They've always locked things down citing safety or user experience, but it is profit and walled garden. Samsung Dex has been doing this for years.
In before someone explains it's not "exactly" the same. Dex has shown this phone/computer ability in practice long before.
I seem to recall the Carriers having some pretty strict requirements on the devices that can connect to the mobile networks. Anyone know if that's (still) the case?
I'm not trying to defend Apple here, I'm just curious if there would be some kind of carrier validation issues if you slapped a full desktop OS on a phone.
Microsoft has been SO successful with trying to converge devices </s> I'll agree that Apple has business reasons for keeping device classes separate. But I also think that keeping at least phones and laptops separate makes a lot of sense. I CAN use my phone as a full computer, but having done so traveling, it's not the best experience.
The reason the iPhone is so successful is because Apple don't let us use it as a "entire" computer.
I am just glad, that we can still run a proper OS on a proper computer. If they made a modified iPad OS for their baby laptop it could have been an ominous sign.
Anyone have a theory why Apple hasn't done this yet? They release an 'iBook' which is basically a wired or even wireless lapdock for your iPhone running OSX in a partition. Seems like that would decimate the entire Windows, laptop, even desktop market in short order.
Everyone with an iPhone, no longer needs their laptop/desktop. Just buy a cheap iBook and there's a good chance it'll already be better than most consumer PCs.
I think the reason is pretty obvious; what really goes on inside of our mobile phones, is not for the faint of heart.
The original iPhone ran OS X: https://youtu.be/x7qPAY9JqE4?t=522
They're all supercomputers that would have ranked on the TOP500 in the 90s.
iPhone users just now discovering Samsung Dex... cute
It would be cool if iPhone could double as a laptop by just adding a monitor and keyboard/mouse and switch over to macOS.
> I'm bothered, as I have been since the original iPad introduction 16 years ago, by the unnecessary restrictions placed by corporate powers to run third-party software and operating systems on devices we own.
It's not unnecessary, they do it because they make money as gatekeeper.
Isn’t my Apple Watch faster than a Cray 1?
Wow everything computer
Android now has a desktop mode (as Samsung has supported for years with Dex), and it also works on degoogled variants like GrapheneOS.
Some people insist there is no difference between a product and a capability and I honestly don't know to communicate to those people.