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.

At the same time I have multiple old phones laying around, Pixels, iPhones, Galaxy that are out of date, have cracked screens or worn out batteries.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.

I have a pile of iphones without battery sitting in a drawer and It would be a really cheap way to run fun stuff.

The only thing that could be worrying is device theft, but a simple CLI tool for the initial device registration after firmware flash might do it.

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.

A laptop is more than the sum of its parts. Your phone overlaps with it on a technical level, but format is important.

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.

* 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...

In an analogous way, I feel like I'm in that part of the millennial generation that is more comfortable doing things on a PC than on a phone. Sure I can informally browse airline tickets and cars on my phone, or upload some docs for my , but when things get serious, I'm switching to a PC to complete it.

There's something about doing things on a phone that just does not feel... robust? Maybe I am just too accustomed to the phone experience being minimal, or minimized in some way compared to the desktop experience.

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.

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.

Android phones are nothing but linux phones and video output (DP over USB-C, earlier MHL) is for many years already included in many phones. I would love to carry one device with everything on it. I would be very happy if that device was like a laptop with detachable core, that acts as phone.

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.

This feels more like a facebook post that would shock my mom then a HN article...

For me, the iPad would have died if the Neo had a 12" screen. Only the iPad mini remains a useful form factor.

In before someone explains it's not "exactly" the same. Dex has shown this phone/computer ability in practice long before.

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.

Try saving my side project to your home screen : Habit.am - works really nicely once you're logged in.

I think anyone who has devoted their life to computing, in all its forms, over the past 20 years should agree: There doesn't exist an operating system that I feel adequately does all of that under one roof. The closest is Android. And that's what I don't get out of posts like this: Android does exist. What do you want out of Android that Google/etc are keeping from you? Samsung has Dex. It kinda sucks. Google allows free-range application installations (and fortunately that recent effort to block it is dead); that's great. I guess there's no real/root UNIX terminal? Bro, I struggle to envision a world where any device I have that has a root shell is also one that I don't inevitably fuck up, even if only temporarily, its ability to receive phone calls from my doctor about the results of a colonoscopy.

The bigger problem that I see right now is that, at least from the perspective of the iPhone: Apple is dropping the ball on their stewardship of this bedrock experience.

If you’re a U.S. citizen, it’s worth studying what this country’s foundational freedom means specifically, why and why not something else, such as consumer rights.

Vendors keep them open today only because there is a historical exception, but make no mistake if the laptop computer was first introduced to the masses in 2008 you would be downloading apps through official stores and paying a 30% fee on all transactions and would only be able to do a tiny fraction of what is possible on them today.

To me the surprise isn't that the phone is locked down, but that Apple allows MacBook Neo to do so much. Just look at its iPad counterpart.

It's not unnecessary, they do it because they make money as gatekeeper.