Yeah if only. I sure wish my phone was powered by a proper GNU linux distro and not this locked down, proprietary blob ridden mess that Android has become.
At least in the old days of Android 9 I could use a call recorder.
Yes, I know there are open source true linux phones out there but their camera quality and usability is terrible, and without the ecosystem apps that I need on a daily basis, I might just as well use a flip phone.
In addition to the phones you likely have in mind, postmarketOS aims to support old Android phones and such. Next time you get a new phone, you could try to port pmOS to your old one. That, or pick up a supported model to play with.
The two OS-share graphs in this article are why I believe regulation must not yet step in to stomp on Consumer choice in smartphone philosophies, and I don’t understand the fervent advocacy for regulators to do so.
Consumers should be free to choose Apple for its design philosophy of a one-stop fully integrated and curated hardware+software experience. Apple should be free to not offer the philosophy the majority of smartphone makers chose to offer and majority of buyers choose to buy, free to pursue its minority niche.
> I don’t understand the fervent advocacy for regulators to do so.
If we're talking about American advocacy for American regulation, it's important to note that the market shares are much different looking in the American market than in the global market:
I’m specifically talking about the assault on Apple’s stance in the EU, across several fronts, including app store, “repairability”, Spotify vs. Apple, etc. I haven’t yet seen US regulators get excited, only lawsuits and occasional Congress-critters.
If, in the USA, consumers are suddenly (2020Q4) preferring Apple’s philosophy, that also seems ok, and those who bet the other way with a majority slice for a decade (Apple is shown as minority on your graph until Q4 which seems such a jump as to be suspect) don’t get to have sour grapes that they were mistaken and try to claw away consumer choice.
So long as any consumer believes paying less(!) for an “open” handset you fiddle with yourself to assemble and maintain from multiple sources is better than paying more(!) for a closed curated one, and as long as devices are available for that choice, it seems the choice is a market choice that remains available and fair, without need of regulation to take away the right of the 15% or 40% or even 60% to make it.
If one day so few consumers make that choice that it’s no longer available, then it’s time to decide whether that choice was mistaken, whether a digital phone may be more like a digital watch, where you do not want PC-era maintenance responsibilities and security concerns interfering with your enjoyment of the appliance for a frictionless job to be done.
Tech paths dead end or mature all the time, it’s ok. Almost seems inevitable that Phone Shack will go the way of Radio Shack and we engineers will find a new thing to hack instead of building radios from transistors or phones from bits.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 32.0 ms ] threadAt least in the old days of Android 9 I could use a call recorder.
Yes, I know there are open source true linux phones out there but their camera quality and usability is terrible, and without the ecosystem apps that I need on a daily basis, I might just as well use a flip phone.
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices
Is that like an 80% receiver? Just code up a few minor drivers and you have a fully-functional phone?
Consumers should be free to choose Apple for its design philosophy of a one-stop fully integrated and curated hardware+software experience. Apple should be free to not offer the philosophy the majority of smartphone makers chose to offer and majority of buyers choose to buy, free to pursue its minority niche.
If we're talking about American advocacy for American regulation, it's important to note that the market shares are much different looking in the American market than in the global market:
https://www.counterpointresearch.com/us-market-smartphone-sh...
Putting aside the merits of regulation, it's disingenuous to frame Apple's technology as a "minority niche" in the United States.
If, in the USA, consumers are suddenly (2020Q4) preferring Apple’s philosophy, that also seems ok, and those who bet the other way with a majority slice for a decade (Apple is shown as minority on your graph until Q4 which seems such a jump as to be suspect) don’t get to have sour grapes that they were mistaken and try to claw away consumer choice.
So long as any consumer believes paying less(!) for an “open” handset you fiddle with yourself to assemble and maintain from multiple sources is better than paying more(!) for a closed curated one, and as long as devices are available for that choice, it seems the choice is a market choice that remains available and fair, without need of regulation to take away the right of the 15% or 40% or even 60% to make it.
If one day so few consumers make that choice that it’s no longer available, then it’s time to decide whether that choice was mistaken, whether a digital phone may be more like a digital watch, where you do not want PC-era maintenance responsibilities and security concerns interfering with your enjoyment of the appliance for a frictionless job to be done.
Tech paths dead end or mature all the time, it’s ok. Almost seems inevitable that Phone Shack will go the way of Radio Shack and we engineers will find a new thing to hack instead of building radios from transistors or phones from bits.
That being said, there are apparently a lot of smartphones out there.