[HN Gopher] Your phone is an entire computer
___________________________________________________________________
Your phone is an entire computer
Author : medhir
Score : 198 points
Date : 2026-03-13 18:02 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medhir.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medhir.com)
| bottlepalm wrote:
| 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.
| batchfile wrote:
| It would decimate their own business.
| MrWiffles wrote:
| This. The more locked down, the less in control we are, the
| higher margins they command. This is why app stores exist -
| it has nothing to do with safety or security, and everything
| to do with monopolizing the distribution supply chain from
| soup to nuts. Don't like it? Too bad, it's fully locked down
| and cracking it is a (potentially) criminal offense, so
| whaddayagonnadoaboutit?!
| efskap wrote:
| I think Apple is just really careful about how they segment
| their product line for each use case, and would never go for a
| "jack of all trades" solution like this.
| MBCook wrote:
| That would also seriously hurt the sales of Macs. Even more so
| now that the Neo exists.
| bottlepalm wrote:
| It would explode sales of Mac. OSX on iPhone, people wouldn't
| need the separate Windows laptops they're used to. OSX on
| iPhone is the _gateway_ for consumers into the OSX ecosystem.
|
| And when those consumers want more powerful hardware, instead
| of buying a more powerful Windows laptop/desktop - they buy a
| Mac instead.
|
| I feel like Apple knows this as well, so I can't figure out
| why they haven't pulled the trigger. Anti-trust risk? lol
| MBCook wrote:
| I don't think it would be an antitrust risk.
|
| I don't understand the argument for why allowing it would
| mean more Apple computer hardware sales though. Could you
| explain why you think that would happen?
| alephnerd wrote:
| The form factor is a major difference.
|
| HNers are significantly more technical than the median consumer
| and are used to text and keyboard interfaces - a large portion
| of humanity isn't. You see this with Foundation Models as well
| - most have started to shift away from only concentrating on
| text to TTS and STT usecases.
|
| Also, DeX style monitor screen share with a Bluetooth keyboard
| has been supported since iOS 15.
|
| Additionally, a major portion of Apple's desktop revenue is
| coming from poweruser and specialist demand - IT departments
| bulk purchasing developer laptops, designers having their
| entire design workflow within the MacOS environment, and video
| editors heavily dependent on MacOS.
|
| Furthermore, arguments about how Apple has an incentive not to
| cannibalize revenue are dumb, given how open Apple is to
| cannibalizing revenue where PMF exists (eg. the iPad Pro versus
| lower tier MacBooks or the MacBook Neo versus lower tier
| iPads).
| bottlepalm wrote:
| The entire Mac line is a teeny tiny slice of revenue compared
| to iPhone. Allowing OSX on iPhone would increase the utility
| of iPhone, leading to _more_ sales.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Allowing OSX on iPhone would increase the utility of
| iPhone, leading to more sales
|
| That assumption is not necessarily true.
|
| What this implies is that there is a market of existing
| consumers that would not buy an iPhone because it lacks OSX
| support.
|
| The iPhone portion of Apple's business generates around
| $144B in YoY revenue in Q1FY27 [0].
|
| Whenever an organization contemplates building a net new
| capability like the one you mentioned, a quick test is
| whether it would be able to generate and sustain at minimum
| the equivalent of 1% of yearly revenue.
|
| If this was a $1B revenue opportunity it would have been
| implemented, but it's not.
|
| Nor is it a feature that can actively or dramatically
| increase Apple's market share in most markets.
|
| A good proxy of such demand would have been a sudden
| increase in iOS users using USB-C screen share and a
| Bluetooth keyboard to interface with an iPhone in a desktop
| form factor (something which has been enabled since iOS
| 15), but such an increase has not happened.
|
| [0] - https://counterpointresearch.com/en/insights/apple-
| reaches-a...
| fragmede wrote:
| Consumers haven't been told they can do that though. It's
| not ergonomic to do that. There's not a Belkin plastic
| dock to support that use case, so I don't find that is a
| good proxy for it.
| jerf wrote:
| Money.
|
| The general public thinks phones and computers are
| fundamentally different. Heck, I remember arguing this point
| even on HN back when smart phones were first coming out and
| being generally on the losing side as people got very excited
| about "app stores" and such. I see no practical path to getting
| to the point that enough of us realize that there is simply no
| reason for our phones to be locked down the way they are that
| the companies are forced to undo it, especially with our elites
| pushing with all they are worth to lock things down harder.
|
| The companies take that confusion to the bank.
|
| There have been numerous attempts at making phone/laptop
| crossovers, where you can plug your phone into a dock and get a
| computer, or slide your phone into a laptop case, etc. Some of
| them are even still around, but they're all definitely second-
| class citizens. There's a variety of problems that I think
| they've had in the market, not least of which is the fact that
| the average person still sees "phones" and "computers" as
| fundamentally different so the product makes no sense to them,
| but another issue that I think has held them back is that the
| product inevitably work by porting the limitations of the phone
| into the computer, rather than porting the freedom of the
| computer into the phone.
|
| In the USB-C era, there is no excuse for every phone not having
| a mode where you can plug it into any ol' USB-C hub/dock and be
| able to get a desktop environment, even down to the "middle-of-
| the-line" phones. It would require in most cases no extra
| hardware. They just don't.
| bottlepalm wrote:
| Money? You don't think Apple would make a killing on OSX
| licenses and lapdock sales if they allowed OSX on iPhone
| tomorrow?
|
| Mac is a tiny slice of revenue for apple. OSX on iPhone would
| blow it out of the water. Apple would turn the PC market
| upside down, taking a sizeable chunk from Windows. As there'd
| be no point for most people to have a separate laptop/desktop
| at that point.
|
| People also thought that phones needed keyboards before Apple
| showed them a better way. This is all on Apple to make a
| reality, no one else can bring general purpose computing to
| iPhone except them. It's their choice to make.
| krab wrote:
| Why would it decimate the Windows market? From my experience,
| there's a strong correlation between iPhone and Mac usage.
|
| Looking at the stats, the Win:Mac ratio is 4:1 but
| Android:iPhone only 2:1 so it might hurt Windows. But if iPhone
| users are more likely to use Mac or don't use computers much
| already, then expanding iPhone capabilities would cannibalize
| Apple business.
| bottlepalm wrote:
| Because then most people with an iPhone wouldn't need to buy
| a separate laptop/desktop. I'm sure Android as well would
| follow in short order (not the half hearted attempts they've
| made so far). Sales would plummet. Windows decimated.
| fmajid wrote:
| No, the iPhone has over 50% market share in the US, macOS is
| nowhere near that.
| api wrote:
| Other than UI and other surface differences, the fundamental
| distinction between a Mac and an iDevice is... what it is.
|
| A Mac is a real computer. I can run any code I want on it. I
| have root.
|
| An iDevice is like a game console. I can only run App Store
| apps (without jumping through a lot of hoops). I do not have
| root (without again jumping through many hoops or ugly hacks).
|
| If Apple wanted to unify the platform they have two choices.
| The first is to abandon the "real computer" market entirely.
| The second is to make iDevices real computers by unlocking
| them.
|
| I suspect they'd rather keep two platforms.
|
| Under the hood they both share a lot of code, so it's not two
| totally distinct platforms. It's more like two sets of defaults
| and two "skins."
| bottlepalm wrote:
| MacBook Neo has in a way unified the platforms. The only
| difference is essentially what OS is booted up with the chip.
| jsheard wrote:
| That was already the case with the M-series chips, which
| are shared between Macs and higher-end iPads. The Neo just
| extends it to the A-series as well.
| bottlepalm wrote:
| Yep I know, and now using a last gen A chip, I feel they
| are really rubbing our faces in it.
|
| Like Apple is saying, "Nice iPhone 17 Pro w/ A19 w/ vapor
| cooling chip you have there; you know you run a full
| general purpose OS on it, but we're not gonna let you,
| nanananana :p"
| medhir wrote:
| No exactly, Apple is playing in our faces, all while
| people continue to defend the "differences" of device
| categories and the subsequent justification of shipping
| iPhones and iPads with locked bootloaders.
| bottlepalm wrote:
| Unless you work for Apple or hold significant stock then
| I don't see the logic in defending this choice to
| hamstring the iPhone.
|
| But even as an investor, I think Apple could bring a lot
| of people/money to the Mac ecosystem by getting them in
| with an iPhone lapdock.
| fragmede wrote:
| The belief that people only hold opposing opinions to
| yours because they have money on the line is such
| conspiracy theory nonsense. Some random teenage in middle
| America couldn't just really like Apple products? It's
| gotta be some grand conspiracy against you?
| macintux wrote:
| I think the friction of using a keyboard/pointing device with
| a touchscreen, or fingers with a desktop interface, is too
| high to unify them. I know it's been done, I'm unconvinced
| it's been done well.
| mrkeen wrote:
| Because people like TFA pay them not to. It doesn't matter how
| much you hope Apple changes course - you vote with your wallet.
| ianburrell wrote:
| There isn't much demand for using phone as computer. If you are
| at home or work, you can buy a desktop computers for cheap. If
| you are traveling, you need to find a monitor and keyboard. You
| could carry small monitor and wireless keyboard, but then you
| are carrying as much as laptop. People who need to work on the
| road get a laptop. People who need to send email get iPad and
| keyboard.
|
| Good example of the economics is that Macbook Neo or iPad Air
| are cheaper than new iPhone.
|
| iPhone should export display, but more for showing videos or
| presentations. My Pixel 10 has USB-C display and I haven't used
| it, but I have computers for all purposes.
|
| Apple should spend more effort making the iPad usable for work.
| It would be good candidate for USB-C display, but with iPadOS.
| bottlepalm wrote:
| How can there be demand for something that doesn't exist?
|
| If Apple releases a $300 lapdock tomorrow, basically a
| screen, keyboard, battery, that allows using your iPhone as a
| normal general purpose computer with OSX - why would anyone
| buy a laptop/desktop?
| ianburrell wrote:
| Why would anyone buy that instead of Macbook Neo for $600?
| Macbook doesn't need a iPhone to use.
|
| If you are doing serious work, which are the people who
| want a dock, then you need the power of Macbook Air or
| Macbook Pro.
|
| For most people, iPad or iPad Air with keyboard is a better
| option since you get tablet for fun and can do some light
| work.
| jonahhorowitz wrote:
| FWIW, you can plug your iPhone into an external monitor to do
| a Keynote presentation. You need a USB-C (or Lightning) to
| HDMI dongle in most cases, but it works fine.
|
| - https://support.apple.com/guide/keynote-iphone/present-
| on-a-...
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm always reluctant to do non-standard stuff for
| presentations. There's enough that can go wrong even with a
| direct HDMI out. I've done it in a pinch but pretty much
| always carry a laptop with me when I'm presenting along
| with local copies of my presentations. I've actually gotten
| a text in the middle of the night asking me if I can fill
| in for another speaker who forgot and are in a different
| country :-)
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Imagine an executive placing their phone on a magnetic dock
| as they sit down, which automagically connects to the screen
| and gives them access to everything they were doing before.
| Also easy to imagine a university computer lab where everyone
| brings their own compute and IT doesn't have to manage
| physical desktops.
|
| I'm skeptical that there's "no demand" for that kind of
| functionality rather than a lack of good implementations.
| Look at how popular wireless CarPlay and Android Auto are.
| They're essentially the same functionality, but tailored to
| an in-car experience instead of desktop.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Imagine executive tapping their phone down on reader, and
| it pops up everything they were doing, and they get to keep
| using their phone.
|
| The first flaw in the idea is that computing is cheap. You
| can make a computer the size of a phone for people to carry
| around, that has been tried but failed. The second flaw is
| that everything is in the cloud, only developers and
| offline need local access to their files. The cloud also
| means that can desktop in the cloud.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| You _can_ make a computer the size of a phone. That 's
| what the latest macbook neo is. The rest of the space
| inside is battery and peripherals. I'm not sure what
| cloud has to do with this discussion.
|
| Re: keep using phone, that's exactly what's already
| possible with CarPlay and AA.
| ghaff wrote:
| On an upcoming trip I'm actually going to give an iPad with
| magnetic keyboard I bought a couple years back, assuming
| different travel patterns than I've had, a try. It seems to
| work fine. An iPad is also great for plane/train
| entertainment without a keyboard. But, honestly, it's no
| lighter than a MacBook Air would be and if my ancient MacBook
| Pro dies--have a newer one up in my office--that's what I'll
| probably buy.
|
| I _have_ traveled with just my iPhone and can get by but don
| 't really love it.
| xp84 wrote:
| Why would Apple want to sell a lapdock when they could instead
| sell you the same thing + a redundant SOC (aka, a MacBook) and
| then high-margin cloud services to sync all of your data
| between your two differently-shaped computers?
| bottlepalm wrote:
| Because most people with iPhones are buying Windows
| computers, but give them a cheap entry lapdock into the Mac
| ecosystem and maybe their next more powerful system will be a
| Mac.
|
| Mac is a niche right now, iPhone with OSX could level the
| playing field.
| joemi wrote:
| I think there are a number of reasons why Apple specifically
| hasn't done this. In addition to what others have already
| mentioned (demand, segmentation, profitability, etc), another
| factor would probably be difficulty with the overall design.
|
| Part of why Apple's products are often praised for their design
| is that they do a few things really well and focus on those
| things, instead of trying to do absolutely everything. Consider
| the iPod, the iPhone, Apple TV, etc -- they're all pretty
| focused on doing certain things and Apple's really polished the
| experience. The Mac desktops and laptops kind of stretch this
| by allowing more things, but they still largely try to focus
| the user into certain workflows, via the plethora of apps that
| come standard with macOS and the vendor lock-in that they push.
|
| Making a phone that can also be a full computer goes against
| these design principles. Apple's closed the gap a bit in recent
| years by making macOS and iOS a bit more similar than they used
| to be, but they're still pretty different. If you're on a
| M1/2/3/4/etc processor laptop and you've tried using an iOS-
| specific app (not ones that's designed for both phone and
| desktop) on it, you'll see some of those differences
| (interfaces tuned for touch are weird with a mouse, things are
| sized wrong for desktop, file restrictions can be weird,
| keyboard input can be lacking, etc etc etc), and it's not
| enjoyable. Going the other direction, the first thing that pops
| into my head is: how in the world would the mac desktop be
| represented on iOS? I'm someone who keeps a lot of files on his
| desktop, grouped in different sections of the screen for
| different reasons, and I have no idea how that would be
| represented on a relatively tiny phone screen (at least in a
| way that didn't destroy my intentional groups). There are other
| aspects of macOS that would prove tricky to have analogs on a
| phone screen, too, but this reply is already getting so long
| that very few will read it...
|
| Now that's not to say that it's impossible. In fact it probably
| isn't. But there would be compromises (and those compromises
| would be on top of the compromises already present in
| iOS/macOS). To do it well, it'd be a much bigger project than
| most people realize. It's not just changing a few options and
| letting us use our phone that way. It'd be more akin to
| designing the first iPhone. Note that it's not just Apple who
| hasn't done this yet. Literally _no one_ has done it well yet.
| I truly hope one day Apple (or someone else, even) does it
| well, since that'll be a glorious day. But it'd be a huge
| project, so I'm not holding my breath.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| A little computer board is only a fraction of the BOM of a
| laptop, so a 'lapdock' of equivalent quality couldn't be very
| much cheaper than a whole laptop.
|
| If you use cloud storage, your laptop already has all the stuff
| on your phone anyway.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > 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.
| MBCook wrote:
| There are other reasons.
|
| A big factor in the success of the iPad and maybe just some
| degree the iPhone, but especially the iPad, is that it's
| "unbreakable". All out restrictions mean it's computer people
| don't worry will suddenly stop working because they clicked to
| the wrong link. It won't get a weird virus from their email.
|
| That is a serious upside for a lot of consumers.
| AstroBen wrote:
| You can still have that. Make unbreakable the default, and
| add an "admin mode" toggle.
| MBCook wrote:
| The last 25 years of Apple has made it pretty clear that's
| not "the Apple way".
|
| Yeah they _could_. They could do a lot of things people
| constantly ask about, like upgradable RAM. But there is no
| reason to think they will.
| joemi wrote:
| As I noted here
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47369155 that wouldn't
| stop the people that need the protection.
| crooked-v wrote:
| I feel like that same reason is why you see a lot of
| seriously tech-savvy people try to use iPads as laptop
| substitutes over and over even though they're obviously still
| not suitable for it for technical tasks. There's a lot of
| latent appeal in "okay, what if I just didn't have to worry
| about any of that ambient technical crap?".
| quikoa wrote:
| They could allow unlocking the phone by burying that option
| deep in the settings with scary warnings etc. Most people
| could use the device with the restrictions. The fact that
| this is not possible at all is greed.
| etchalon wrote:
| One of the first things help desk scammers do is convince
| people to turn off antivirus and/or Windows Defender on
| their computers.
| joemi wrote:
| If they did that, every influencer would make youtube
| videos and tik toks telling people how they should enable
| that setting to make their phone better or more powerful
| "for free", and everyone would just do it, especially the
| people who really shouldn't because they don't know any
| better.
| MBCook wrote:
| Yep. Scammers have managed to get people to install
| profiles on their devices so they can run non-appstore
| approved scam apps.
| AstroBen wrote:
| > everyone would just do it
|
| Wouldn't it be better to solve that with education? Also
| MacOS gives you a warning when you're opening something
| not vetted by them.
|
| The idea that it's some higher authorities responsibility
| to keep us safe quickly slides into losing freedoms we
| care about.
|
| Would you also like all websites to be ISP-approved?
|
| We could also have all social media filtered through LLM
| guards to keep us safe?
|
| Maybe link our IDs to our online identity to protect our
| kids.
| bitwize wrote:
| It's also because U.S. carriers don't like people hooking up
| arbitrary devices that can run arbitrary software to their
| network. In the civilized world, you have a device that talks
| GSM/LTE, you're golden as long as you don't violate any
| transmission laws. But in the USA carriers are still doing
| device allowlisting because I guess they want to bin QoS and
| don't want pro-grade traffic going over consumer accounts, nor
| the added expense of support for consumer accounts with exotic
| hardware that "might" break the network.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Just wanting to be a gatekeeper doesn't cover measures like SIP
| that don't make them anything and presumably took immense man-
| hours to implement.
|
| I think the more accurate view would be an intersection of some
| of the company wanting to make money off gatekeeping and some
| of the company wanting to make quality devices that stay
| functional and malware-free even after you give to a deeply
| gullible grandparent for a while, and the former using the
| latter as a transparent excuse much of the time.
| hotpotatoes wrote:
| 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.
| MBCook wrote:
| I've been hoping Apple would allow this for years, although it
| doesn't seem like something they would do.
|
| The fact that iPadOS now has windowing seems like it would only
| make it work better. iPads can already do everything necessary,
| so why not the iPhone?
|
| Unfortunately I suspect that if this was ever going to happen,
| which I would've bet against, it's now let's likely. I suspect
| current Apple would rather sell me a Neo then let me use my
| phone. In other words I think the existence of the product
| might rule it out under current leadership.
|
| Who knows. I could be wrong. Only time will tell.
| crooked-v wrote:
| If the rumored folding phone with a close-to-iPad-mini UI
| handles USB monitor connections the same as the iPad, that
| would give the basic version right there, albeit at a huge
| base price.
| MBCook wrote:
| I hadn't thought of that. In my mind I think Apple will say
| "not an iPad, you don't get it" but the distinction
| (hardware UI wise) would be much much fuzzier than today.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| It's always funny to watch hackernews slam apple for user
| experience decisions based off what's best for their average
| customer as if every person purchasing an apple device is a
| hackernews.
|
| It seems like the viability of running a computer from an A16
| really just came to fruition. There's heat, performance,
| battery life, etc implications that the average consumer can't
| quite articulate but it matters to them.
|
| Apple's goal seemed to be to decimate the Cheap Plastic Intel
| Laptop space, and I think they succeeded at catching the
| industry with their tails between their legs.
| retired wrote:
| Isn't Dex similar to connecting a monitor to an M-powered iPad?
| Perhaps that will one day come to iPhone.
| 7speter wrote:
| I thought i saw there was similar functionality as dex
| available on usb c ported iphones (and ipads)?
|
| You can hook up a mouse and keyboard, maybe even a monitor? I
| thought I saw it in passing... I still have a lightning
| iPhone
| xp84 wrote:
| You can connect keyboard, mouse, and video, but you just
| get screen mirroring on the screen (or it can properly
| display a full-screen video in some apps, I think... though
| DRM video may refuse), so, it's pretty limiting.
| wds wrote:
| 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.
| WorldPeas wrote:
| as someone who did this for a week, it's nice until you need to
| install an app to check your bank statements or manage your
| insurance. Maybe that will get better as agents do, however
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| You don't have a laptop or desktop for those things?
|
| Whilst I may not represent the average person, I have no need
| to check bank statements or manage insurance immediately, so
| I can wait until I'm at a 'real' computer to do it more
| conveniently and easily and with a bigger screen and keyboard
| and mouse.
|
| GPs point about the 'relationship with the smart phone' seems
| to be pertinent. "need to install an app" to do these things
| only makes the point stronger.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| You know any iPhone with USB C you can just plug into a monitor
| right?
| xkxdnzbzb wrote:
| and?
| bronlund wrote:
| I think the reason is pretty obvious; what really goes on inside
| of our mobile phones, is not for the faint of heart.
| froobius wrote:
| 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.
| fsflover wrote:
| > There is no good phone-slash-laptop
|
| There is: https://puri.sm/posts/my-first-year-of-
| librem-5-convergence/
| FpUser wrote:
| Looking at the price vs what's inside - sorry but I'll pass.
| dist-epoch wrote:
| Allow me to tell you about Samsung DeX.
|
| The real problem is that there is no market for it.
| Zambyte wrote:
| I used it for years with a Nexdock. I just don't really use a
| phone anymore (mostly Daylight computer, where attaching a
| keyboard and most mostly gets me what I want).
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| They're all supercomputers that would have ranked on the TOP500
| in the 90s.
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| 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...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I have long wished for a future when I could just plug my phone
| into a KVM and have a full desktop experience.
| liveoneggs wrote:
| I don't want the phone os on a screen but the phone is
| powerful enough to run a full linux VM and work well-enough
| as a good desktop.
| xp84 wrote:
| Samsung DEX isn't far off from this, it's just that you're
| limited to Android instead of Linux, MacOS etc.
|
| But Apple will surely never allow such a thing since their
| main interest is in selling as many pieces of hardware to
| each of the Apple Faithful as possible. So they with a
| straight face suggest that a single human needs an iPad Pro
| (which easily tops $1500 with the eye-wateringly-expensive
| keyboard and a storage upgrade) and a laptop. Nevermind that
| they may have the same chip inside.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I own too many Apple devices, so I may unintentionally
| qualify as one of those Apple Faithful, but even so I can't
| really find a place for the iPad in my life. I've tried, I
| do own an old iPad Pro, but it is semi-permanently mounted
| to my treadmill as the only use case I've ever had that
| sticks. As a practical matter I either want my phone, or a
| real desktop computer.
|
| Something like that Samsung DEX with a real Linux OS and
| maybe I'm getting a new phone.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"Samsung DEX isn't far off from this"
|
| I have the latest and greatest and can attest that the
| experience is atrocious
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Microsoft tried to sell it as a promise of Windows Phone 10.
| It mostly worked just around the time that Microsoft killed
| Windows Phone.
| chriswarbo wrote:
| I do that with my Pinephone (a powered USB-C hub with
| ethernet, HDMI, keyboard and mouse; I also plug a proper set
| of speakers+subwoofer into headphone jack).
|
| Both Phosh and PlasmaMobile turn into a "proper" desktop when
| "docked" (Gnome-like and KDE-like, respectively).
| hyperhello wrote:
| Arbitrary is doing a lot of work. With MacOS you can use an
| iPad as a touchscreen external monitor. Try it and you'll learn
| that it's not a touchscreen OS. It's not as simple as "not
| letting you".
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| Maybe it doesn't have a touchscreen interface, but i take
| issue with it being a touchscreen OS. I suspect most people
| who would want to run MacOS on an ipad would attach the
| appropriate user interface devices.
| hyperhello wrote:
| Like a keyboard and trackpad, yes, and the battery would be
| in the base, and...
| throawayonthe wrote:
| uhuh except ipad keyboards with trackpads are an existing
| accessory
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| or...plug into usb and use the ipad battery. the ipad
| already has a battery. Just don't limit what software you
| could load, that's all that's being asked here.
| microtonal wrote:
| They could have a lean version of the macOS desktop on every
| iPhone where it would switch to the macOS desktop once you
| plug it into a display. Include iWork on both sides with
| shared storage and you could switch between the phone
| interface and macOS.
|
| I mean Samsung DeX has done something similar, but Apple
| could make a much more powerful version, since they have a
| real fully-developed desktop and they have apps for both
| platforms that use a single code base.
|
| They will, of course, never do this, because it would result
| in losing Mac sales. Though I think less than one would
| initially think, because a laptop is much handier on the go
| than carrying a separate display, keyboard, and mouse and the
| lapdocks or whatever they are called have much worse displays
| and keyboards.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| iPhone users just now discovering Samsung Dex... cute
| Arcuru wrote:
| 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.
| iamtedd wrote:
| I doubt that's the issue. Phones already have a baseband
| processor and OS in control of the modem. Also evidence if
| viability is all the Windows laptops with WWAN.
| karteum wrote:
| You can connect to 4G with your root-enabled Linux PC and a USB
| dongle or minipci module. Carriers don't care about your
| application processor, they only care about the baseband. In
| the case of a smartphone, you can have root access and still
| run the Qualcomm closed blob firmware that will drive the
| baseband
| darenr wrote:
| 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.
| idolofdust wrote:
| I had a similar experience where I tried out a Z Fold 7 with a
| kickstand and foldable bluetooth keyboard. I was curious about
| the feasibility of an all-in-one computing experience; it was
| clunky but surprisingly somewhat productive.
|
| Then when confronted with scenarios where I had no stable
| surfaces I realized why the LAPtop form factor reigns supreme.
|
| Peripheral add-ons like the NexDock are very nifty, but at that
| point you are suffering from the same physical constraints of a
| phone + laptop lifestyle. All with zero of the benefits of a
| locally accessible, more mature, and capable OS.
| evanjrowley wrote:
| My excitement towards Dex is really about it being a stepping
| stone towards ChromeOS replacement. I only want that because
| Chromebooks getting the the Google equivelant of the Apple Fast
| Pair experience will lower the cost of a convenience that my
| professional life increasingly depends on. Important for people
| who have too many meetings, I guess.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| Nexdock 360.
|
| Granted, its not as good of a "feel" as a laptop. But for the
| price and the features its great. You can get a good
| aftermarket track-pad and use that. I use a wireless mouse,
| because it lets me also use it as a monitor+mouse+keyboard for
| my Steam deck so I can play FPS games.
| etchalon wrote:
| Some people insist there is no difference between a product and a
| capability and I honestly don't know to communicate to those
| people.
| medhir wrote:
| My contention is that the definition of said product and its
| inherent capabilities is being gatekept by a corporation that
| would love you to buy both an iPhone and Mac, and treat them as
| separate. In fact, I do have both already! But I still want
| rights to modify my iPhone as the computer it is.
|
| The MacBook Neo is a great example of just how fungible these
| categories are, at least as far as the SoC that runs them is
| concerned. I paid for my iPhone in full, there is no reasonable
| justification for why I can't repurpose it / modify it as I see
| fit.
| leothetechguy wrote:
| Because those people reject the principles that uphold that
| distinction, and so do I.
| etchalon wrote:
| Just out here buying furnaces and using them as grills.
| barumrho wrote:
| It would be cool if iPhone could double as a laptop by just
| adding a monitor and keyboard/mouse and switch over to macOS.
| fmajid wrote:
| Tim Apple wants you to pay thrice, once for a phone, once again
| for a tablet and finally one last time for a laptop.
| hinkley wrote:
| That's basically the Neo.
|
| Apple did patent a design for a dock in a monitor for a
| portable device to slot into. It's gotta be getting close to
| expiration now. I think the trick is heat dissipation.
|
| My friend who is a macOS programmer years ago had an idea for a
| startup mode for iMacs where instead of just being a screen,
| the storage and video card would also be accessible over the
| thunderbolt bus, so you could plug a laptop in and have
| multiple video cards at your disposal.
| 46493168 wrote:
| Thermals and the interconnection speed would be a drag, but it
| would be nice to have a target display mode on a mac for iPhone
| fmajid wrote:
| Android now has a desktop mode (as Samsung has supported for
| years with Dex), and it also works on degoogled variants like
| GrapheneOS.
| chmod775 wrote:
| 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.
| fragmede wrote:
| There is and there isn't. Your phone, almost certainly, with a
| shorter list of exceptions than not, has a locked bootloader
| and consequently cannot run unsigned software with full
| permissions without additional work. Sometimes that work is
| impossible to do. In terms of capabilities, sure, your phone is
| as capable, if not more capable than a desktop computer from a
| decade or two ago. The phone in my hand that I'm writing this
| from is 100 times more powerful than the computer I had as a
| kid. So that's an important point to make. However the
| specialness of phone silicon is the locked down bootloader and
| the downstream effects of that. You can point out exceptions
| where you can unlock the bootloader, but those are
| _exceptions_. The vast majority of phones you aren 't going to
| get root on. So in that dimension, that's what's special about
| phone silicon. The signed chain-of-trust that is baked in and
| prevents you from running unsigned binaries with full
| permissions on phone silicon.
| xyzzy_plugh wrote:
| You are conflating many things here. A locked bootloader
| _does not_ imply you cannot run unsigned software _in user
| space_. There are also many phones that _do_ allow you to
| unlock the bootloader. I have a drawer full of them.
|
| Finally, the ability to allow you to unlock your phone
| bootloader or to run custom firmware has nothing to do with
| the silicon. It's a software choice. The trusted software
| could most certainly decide to disable these safeguards.
| fragmede wrote:
| It most certainly could, but will it? I have that same
| drawer. There is absolutely custom silicon dedicated to
| putting up those safeguards. The problem is the trusted
| software decides wether or not to disable those safeguards
| is what makes it special.
| beeflet wrote:
| >A locked bootloader does not imply you cannot run unsigned
| software in user space.
|
| In the long term it does because the purpose is to provide
| the scaffolding for remote attestation. Once remote
| attestation becomes the norm, it transitions into becoming
| a de-facto requirement for doing pretty much anything in
| the real world. Today, banking apps. Tomorrow, getting past
| the cloudflare turnstyle. The next day, everything.
| reactordev wrote:
| And here I am with a laptop with a 450W brick next to it to
| make it function...
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Laptops are a lot closer to phones than they are to desktops
|
| Introducing the MacBook Neo.
| hinkley wrote:
| Isn't my Apple Watch faster than a Cray 1?
| omegadynamics wrote:
| Wow everything computer
| ghaff wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I remember the period of 1998-2008 or so when Windows seemed to
| be in absolute crisis because the average Windows user was
| _not_ qualified to be using a computer connected to the
| internet.
|
| I'd go visit my family in New England (more than one group) and
| they'd have a 640x480 screen and be doing all their web
| browsing through 70 vertical pixels because they'd installed 30
| toolbars -- and they thought there was nothing wrong with this!
|
| The world was reeling from a cyber war between two German teens
| who were trying to outdo each other with viral "love letter"
| programs because people would just click on... anything!
|
| Plenty of us were looking for some platform, any platform, that
| would deliver us from that nightmare. It wasn't going to be the
| Sun Ray, it wasn't going to be Linux (talk about frying pan to
| the fire), it was going to be the iPhone.
| xyzsparetimexyz wrote:
| That's nonsense. Just have a way to unlock the OS like how
| getting developer tools work on android.
| phpdave11 wrote:
| The original iPhone ran OS X: https://youtu.be/x7qPAY9JqE4?t=522
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It still does, they just call it iOS.
| epistasis wrote:
| 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...
| elAhmo wrote:
| You didn't mention the part that it costs five times as much.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| But it's not even supposed to be a "computer".
| bluedino wrote:
| 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.
| purplehat_ wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway27448 wrote:
| I understood this stance more 10 years ago, but now we have
| many layers of fairly well documented exploit tactics and none
| of them rely on the app store. However forcing users to use an
| app store was supposed to benefit us has clearly failed.
|
| And, somehow, the indignity of being forced into paying apple a
| 30% tax for a market they wholly own never comes up alongside
| other paternalistic arguments....
| purplehat_ wrote:
| Can you elaborate on "fairly well documented exploit
| tactics"? My impression is that most of these are either
| social engineering, for which we need to hire better
| designers, or complicated chains of hard-to-find primitives
| only accessible to state actors.
|
| There's definitely problems but the solution isn't to make
| the iPhone a general purpose computer. We definitely need to
| defend the existence of general purpose computing at a time
| where regulation is likely to begin encroaching on it, but
| the promise of the App Store is "pay a 30% tax and any app
| you download here will be _safe_. " In my mind, at least,
| that's the promise, and perhaps one solution to the situation
| would be to erect consequences to breaking that promise.
| throwaway27448 wrote:
| A 30% tax and no freedom to install what you want better
| come with protection from state actors lmaooo. Otherwise
| what could be worth such a heavy-handed (and under a
| rational state, illegal) method?
|
| Especially when the app store is nos filled with gambling
| apps and social media built to exploit children....
| benoau wrote:
| > the promise of the App Store is "pay a 30% tax and any
| app you download here will be safe."
|
| Apple, who revealed in court that they enjoy a 75% profit
| margin on that fee, is being sued for that promise being
| false advertising on account of the crypto scams they keep
| approving.
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2025/06/19/class-action-suit-app-
| store-c...
|
| Stemming from the case where Apple revealed their 75%
| profit margin on these fees, Apple was referred for
| criminal investigation for illegally forcing everyone to
| pay that fee violating a court order to ensure they get it
| and then lying to a judge about it.
|
| https://daringfireball.net/2025/04/gonzales_rogers_apple_ap
| p...
|
| They are also being questioned in the EU to ascertain
| whether they are doing enough to stop the proliferation of
| scams on the App Store.
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2025/09/23/apple-under-legal-scrutiny-
| in...
|
| They are even facing a RICO case for their role
| distributing and profiting from illegal gambling apps.
|
| https://readwrite.com/apple-google-rico-lawsuit-
| sweepstakes-...
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| It came out in the Epic trial that 90% of App Stors revenue
| comes from shitty pay to win games and loot boxes - cry me
| a river for them.
|
| Most of the other revenue that companies make from mobile
| are using the app as a front end to services where payments
| never go through the App Store
| d--b wrote:
| It's only about the right to use your device as you see fit.
|
| It is kind of silly that people buy raspberry pis to run their
| NAS, while they trash ther infinitely more capable iphone every
| couple of years.
| kube-system wrote:
| The iPhone is designed to be a good smartphone, not a good
| NAS. It is silly to expect anyone to compromise the design of
| a mass market product to support some esoteric MacGyvering
| entirely unrelated to the original product.
|
| Should we all expect Toyota to design their ECUs to be used
| as a NAS?
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| It's not about "design", because the iPhone is perfectly
| capable of running arbitrary code, it just refuses to do so
| if you're not Apple.
|
| The situation is such that the legal owner of the device
| has _less_ power over it, post-sale, than the company that
| made it.
|
| That reason alone, the imbalance of power, should be enough
| to support abolishing those restrictions, preferably by
| law.
|
| To be clear: this is something that should be _beyond
| market forces_ , and it should apply to anything that is
| sold to consumers and can run code. The end goal should be
| that no user remain less powerful, in terms of code
| execution and access to content, than the manufacturer.
| Unit327 wrote:
| A NAS is just an example, here's a better one; I love to
| use my old phones as wall mounted displays and controls for
| home assistant, or as remote music players plugged in to
| some speakers that I can hook into in music assistant. Some
| of my old phones are more than capable of this hardware
| wise but are locked to older versions of android and can't
| run anything built for a newer version, so they end up as
| ewaste intstead.
|
| I think my next phone is going to be a fairphone or
| something for this reason.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| You can do this but you have to remove the battery and
| hook up the circuitry to external power. This practically
| turns the phone into a glorified SBC. It may still be
| worth it since there's more of a mass market for phones
| than SBCs (and phones come with lots of extra hardware
| components that can be useful) but it's not that huge of
| a win.
| d--b wrote:
| Of course Apple doesn't want people to use their device in
| a way that's not how they designed it. They're very anal
| about the user experience, they don't want kids to install
| ArchLinux on their grandparents iPhones, and have the
| grandparents complain that their phone is shit. I get that.
|
| Conveniently, the way they designed the phone allows them
| to charge 30% of every transaction that happens on the
| device...
|
| But that's beyond the point. The point is that the iphone
| is a capable device, that probably can run macos, and it's
| a waste that we're not allowed to.
| Aurornis wrote:
| I still remember the era when jailbreaking Android and iPhones
| was gaining popularity among less technical people. It was eye
| opening to watch how many people I knew would search for a
| random web page and then unquestioningly follow instructions on
| the screen to install software from the first link they
| clicked.
|
| All of this to get custom fonts in their messaging app or some
| other little feature they saw on someone's phone.
|
| I started getting a lot of requests for help from people who
| had broken key functions on their phones or even bricked them
| entirely.
|
| Even today there's a culture of downloading Android builds from
| long forum threads on XDA developers and other forums and
| hoping they're not compromised.
| dotancohen wrote:
| The Linux community settled very quickly on the model of a
| Linux distribution, distributed via FTP, as a safe place to
| acquire on OS. Some got very popular.
|
| Is there anything like that in the Android world? I'd love an
| alternative Android distro the supports writing notes with
| the S-Pen from the lockscreen. Where does one find such a
| thing?
| beeflet wrote:
| There are AOSP-based distros like grapheneOS and calyxOS
| with various "app stores" like fdroid that behave similar
| to package managers on linux. There are also just run-
| linux-on-your-smartphone distros like postmarketOS. I doubt
| stylus integration is good in either.
| mholt wrote:
| And yet, try getting a full backup of your Google phone onto
| your own computer. (Without rooting/wiping the whole thing.)
| Heck, try getting just your text messages off (without a
| separate app)!
|
| You can't. (Last time I checked.) The backup is encrypted in
| the cloud, and the only way to download it is to restore it to
| a phone.
|
| Whereas I can just plug in my iPhone and get a full backup,
| complete with sqlite manifest, completely accessible. Text
| messages, photo library, everything.
| Nervhq wrote:
| Google takeout. Done, nice try though to make some totally
| irrelevant comparison to excuse apple behavior.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Can you restore it to your phone?
| Retr0id wrote:
| If you make a bootloader unlock require a full wipe/rekey of
| the device, and make unlock status visible at boot, most of the
| "someone might unlock my bootloader maliciously" concerns go
| away.
| purplehat_ wrote:
| Fair point, but that solution doesn't address the market for
| theft, so there's a tradeoff there.
| Retr0id wrote:
| If you put the icloud-lockout stuff early enough in the
| boot chain (which I believe is the case on apple silicon
| macs already?), that seems like a solvable problem too. I
| can understand why apple hasn't put the engineering effort
| into making something like this happen, but I don't think
| it's because they _can 't_ make it happen.
| albuic wrote:
| And it is not stopping people from steal IPhones as they
| can resell parts as usual.
| fragmede wrote:
| The stolen parts have serials on them that get
| blacklisted. iOS isn't going to run with a camera that's
| been marked as stolen.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > 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 so is their god damn computer!
|
| The ONLY reason why we treat phones differently from computers
| has no relationship at all with what's at stake, it's purely
| because Apple felt they could get away with it for phone, while
| they estimated that people would stop buying macs right away if
| they did the same thing for computers. It's literally that
| simple.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| If you steal someones phone on the subway its not going to be
| BFU.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I like iPhones because they are a little bit restricted.
|
| But let's be real here. They should have unified everything 5
| years ago. Your phone should plugin to a screen and be a
| "netbook" level device and anything 13 inches and up should be
| running MacOS. The iPad should have a real affordable keyboard.
|
| These limitations are no longer designed to make the product
| better.
| ryanjshaw wrote:
| I moved to a beach town and found out the tides app only
| exists on my Apple Watch. I went through 10 iOS apps that
| didn't work properly or wanted me to pay subscription before
| giving up. I just don't understand... do they not use their
| own products or something?
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| It does have a "real affordable keyboard" - any BT keyboard
| and mouse. My wife uses both that came from Amazon for $30
| bucks each
| RIMR wrote:
| "locked down by default"
|
| This is not an honest portrayal of iOS. iOS is locked down
| period. "By default" makes it seem like there's a choice
| involved anywhere, and there isn't.
| twelvedogs wrote:
| If it was easy I would expect 5-10% if people would probably do
| it, much like alternate desktop installs
|
| This would mean millions of devices
|
| You mention Graphene is more secure so what exactly am I
| gaining from not being able to install it other than my phone
| being trash once it's out of support
| amelius wrote:
| > That the product is locked down by design is a feature, not a
| limitation.
|
| And why should the entity locking down the design be the same
| entity as the one selling it? Is that a feature too?
|
| You can't imagine a world where people can install different
| services by different providers to protect their devices? And
| have some actual competition? And therefore choice?
| fragmede wrote:
| We almost had that with the browser wars, when Microsoft was
| forced to have customers choose which browser they wanted
| when they got a computer. Operating system choice was already
| lost to Windows, but at least browser, they were forced by EU
| directive to let the customer choose which one they wanted.
| Then the game changed, and now it's basically Google or Apple
| for your smartphone, with a tiny bit of competition that
| doesn't really count. If the EU really had guts, they'd say
| that computing devices must let the user install a OS of
| their choice, at their risk, and businesses would be able to
| just sell phones, with the option of GrapheneOS alongside
| Android and iOS or Windows Mobile or FirefoxOS or WebOS. We
| didn't get that future, unfortunately.
| amelius wrote:
| We really need to have a "no-tether law" that says that the
| consumer should be able to break all ties with the vendor
| and still be able to use the device as advertised.
|
| Otherwise, you bought a service, not a product.
| samrus wrote:
| > 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
|
| Come on now. This is so naive. Why not lock your computer down
| too? If its so proconsumerist
| Magnusmaster wrote:
| Problem is a lot of apps require a locked-down device. You
| can't use a phone that isn't locked down in most of the world.
| And it will spread to PCs eventually.
| jovial_cavalier wrote:
| do you like the boot's taste?
| why_at wrote:
| >On the other hand, being cryptographically locked-down is an
| optional feature. If you don't like it, buy a computer without
| that feature.
|
| But that's the thing, where can I buy a phone without a locked-
| down operating system? GrapheneOS on a Google Pixel is
| basically the only option right now, and this still has
| problems thanks to hardware attestation in a lot of apps that
| the ecosystem forces us to use.
|
| This is largely because Apple has dictated the direction of
| smartphones for the past two decades. All of our expectations
| for control over our phones are completely out of whack
| compared to other computers.
|
| Somehow we managed to survive without the majority of society
| being scammed out of their life savings before Apple came in
| with the iPhone and locked down iOS, and yet now people are
| earnestly defending the notion that 90% of people should not
| even have access to the filesystem on their own device.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > hardware attestation in a lot of apps that the ecosystem
| forces us to use
|
| Only a tiny amount of apps force you into hardware
| attestation, and these are mostly around banking, mobile
| payments and the like. So just use a separate, locked down
| device for those (where the anti-fraud protection of a
| locked-down system can be a benefit) and your more open day-
| to-day device for mostly everything else. A hidden advantage
| is that the dedicated device for secure uses is not something
| that you're forced to carry with you; you can leave it in a
| secure place instead.
| xg15 wrote:
| And what gives you the confidence that the amount of apos
| will stay tiny?
| scoofy wrote:
| >Somehow we managed to survive without the majority of
| society being scammed out of their life savings before Apple
| came in with the iPhone and locked down iOS
|
| What on earth are you talking about? People have been getting
| scammed since the days of AOL! What an insane perspective.
| It's not about _total_ money lost from scams. It 's about the
| amount of impact it has on the individuals who get scammed.
| What's the problem with Russian roulette after all? Most
| people playing Russian Roulette are _absolutely fine!_ The
| point is that the damage done to the few people who get
| scammed is so high, _we ought to care about their lives too_.
| At the end of the day, it might end up being us... it
| probably won 't, but it might.
|
| Yes, monopolistic network effects are a problem, but that can
| be handled with regulation.
| lwhi wrote:
| Oh please:
|
| > Yes, this has the side effect of making them more money and
| allowing a walled garden to form [...]
|
| I think you've mixed up 'side effect' with 'primary
| motivation'.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > That the product is locked down by design is a feature, not a
| limitation.
|
| I would say most people in tech who aren't interested in
| fiddling with their phones have no issue with this either and
| frankly intentionally prefer more locked down options, all
| things considered.
|
| It's fine to criticize abusive practices that companies engage
| in, but I tire of the narrow-mindedness of some people who
| measure everything according to their personal interests. Like,
| expand your mind, man.
| xg15 wrote:
| > _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._
|
| If that were the entire reason, the straight-forward thing
| would be to give the _user_ tools to secure the phone, such as
| setting a password and encrypting data based on that password.
|
| It wouldn't make sense to spent enormous amounts of resources
| to "secure" the phone _against its own user_ , yet that is what
| they do.
|
| I think a more honest explanation is that they aren't just
| securing their own corporate power, but also the power and
| business models of all kinds of app developers - this way,
| developers can sell trivial UI improvements as "premium
| features" or even put in deliberate anti-features and the user
| can't do anything about it.
|
| Games can put in loot boxes and microtransactions, YouTube can
| declare that keeping a song playing and putting the phone away
| is a premium feature and movie rightsholders can decide the
| exact circumstances under which a movie may be watched.
|
| That's all before the ubiquitous tracking and data collection.
|
| Everyone wins, except the user...
|
| > _and just wants to be able to open LOVE-LETTER-FOR-
| YOU.TXT.vbs without having their 401k get drained._
|
| So do I, even if I'm a tinkerer. That's what sane permission
| settings and - if you like - a locked bootloader are for. What
| you don't need for that is to restrict the _owner_ from
| unlocking the bootloader.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| So exactly what "proprietary standard" does Apple use as far as
| media, files, connectors etc?
| georgyo wrote:
| Reading your comment made me segfault a little.
|
| You don't understand the argument of why people might want to
| install their own OS on a device they own. And then say you
| won't buy another iPhone because you don't like their
| software... It sounds like you _do_ understand the argument.
|
| I greatly dislike Apple software, but I think their hardware is
| quite nice. I would buy apple hardware if it wasn't handy-caped
| by their OS.
|
| It used to be said that Apple was a hardware company that
| happens to make an OS. This argument never made sense to me,
| because while they make good hardware they very clearly don't
| want people to use it.
| jesperwe wrote:
| 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.
| tomComb wrote:
| The pixels all ship with unlocked bootloaders.
| droidjj wrote:
| I recently turned my unused Google Pixel 8 into a server for
| my personal site and various side projects. It's super
| satisfying to spin things up in a couple hours, point a
| cloudflare tunnel at it, and share it with the world.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Do you have a write up of the software you used to do this?
|
| Was it just using Android apps or did you flash GrapheneOS
| or PostmarketOS onto it first?
|
| Is it permanently plugged into power (risking spicy pillow
| scenarios)?
| microtonal wrote:
| Just nitpicking: unlockable bootloaders. The bootloader is
| locked by default. But you can unlock it without needing
| Google.
|
| Additionally, Pixels support a Linux VM and has a desktop
| mode (I'm running GrapheneOS, it may still be that these
| features have to be enabled through the developer settings).
| the_pwner224 wrote:
| > But you can unlock it without needing Google.
|
| Well akshually.... the bootloader is initially _not_
| unlockable. You must connect the phone to the internet.
| Within a few minutes a background process will reach out to
| Google servers to check whether it was purchased outright
| or with a payment plan. It will only enable the bootloader
| unlocking toggle after this step. Phones bought with a
| carrier contract won 't be unlockable until paid off.
|
| In those initial few minutes (/ before you connect it to
| the interwebs), the bootloader unlock option in the
| developer settings & fastboot will be disabled.
| why_at wrote:
| And even with this there are still apps which require
| hardware attestation and won't work on alternative
| operating systems.
| federiconafria wrote:
| Same, the computing capacity and redundancy you could achieve
| with your spare devices...
| ricardojoaoreis wrote:
| I'm using a Nexus 5 with postmarketOS as an SMS gateway
| connected to the internet! So glad old phones were a bit more
| open
| kelvinjps10 wrote:
| In Android you can use termux and run them as a servers I have
| done it that way
| dist-epoch wrote:
| > but I can't use them because I can't just ssh into them and
| install an app...
|
| of course you can. just ask your agent. it took me 1 hour to
| vibe-code and install an Android app on my locked down Android.
| fixxation92 wrote:
| 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.
| kumibrr wrote:
| I think the author goes more towards repurposing the device
| after its EoL.
| noemit wrote:
| 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.
| endemic wrote:
| I built a few native iPhone apps 15 years ago, but these days
| do my tinkering in web tech and "Save to Homescreen." Probably
| couldn't do this if I wanted functionality like photo/video
| editing or heavy 3D, but for my relatively simple use case,
| Webkit is fine. This has the benefit of completely bypassing
| the App Store, and lets me share apps by just linking to them.
| kalterdev wrote:
| > As a US citizen, I must go through the Apple-approved App Store
| to download / install third-party software. Smells like freedom.
|
| 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.
| rcarmo wrote:
| The fun thing for me is that we are now having the same argument
| about iPhones that we've always had about iPads.
|
| For me, the iPad would have died if the Neo had a 12" screen.
| Only the iPad mini remains a useful form factor.
| kumibrr wrote:
| Many people here says that it's locked up by design, and while I
| agree, we could have an alternative firmware (not iOS or even
| GUI) that gives full control and complete access through ssh and
| repurpose it as we want.
|
| 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.
| cheschire wrote:
| I was talking with someone solidly in Gen X that described their
| desire to write out longer form documents by hand on paper rather
| than typing them up. The process of typing helped them work
| through the content better than typing.
|
| 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.
| Hoodedcrow wrote:
| I don't think it's generational at all, doing things on a phone
| is pretty objectively less comfortable.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| My daughter didn't really grow up using a desktop computer,
| though she would see my wife and I do that often enough.
|
| She prefers a phone, but has difficulty even doing most of the
| things you or I would want to accomplish. It is mysterious to
| her, because the phone makes it difficult and sometimes even
| nearly impossible, and so she acts like that is impossible.
| When the google screen only shows you two results, you give up
| if there's no clear answer in two results. When the phone
| screen shows 20 words on it, you think reading 1500 words is an
| ordeal. Cluttered pages not quite fixed with adblock can have
| the clutter ignored on a large monitor, but when there is no
| adblock and the screen is 3 inches wide, the clutter drowns out
| the signal completely.
|
| Phones may be an entire computer, but they are a deliberately
| crippled computer that makes reading text input difficult,
| writing text input even more difficult, and makes thinking most
| difficult of all.
| 827a wrote:
| Maybe I'm alone in this camp, but I really value the idea that my
| phone is an ultra-stable bedrock experience that, sure, I have to
| sacrifice some freedoms on but ultimately they're not exactly
| freedoms I care to express on a 5.8" display whose more critical
| purpose is things like "my car keys", "my door keys",
| "maintaining contact with family" etc. Versus, my linux desktop
| feels like its always in a state of nearly falling apart, and
| that's what makes it fun. I'm constantly pushing it to the edge,
| installing 550gb LLMs, four different package managers, right now
| its got a totally dissected USB cable coming out the front that's
| attached to a small circuit board for some project, all that's ok
| because that's what I want out of it. I don't want that out of my
| phone. I want my phone to ALWAYS turn on and ALWAYS be able to
| get EVERY text or phone call that's sent to me.
|
| 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.
| paxys wrote:
| Desktop computers being as open as they are is an anomaly. It
| only came to be because the systems originated from research labs
| and hacker cultures rather than rent-seeking corporations. And
| even though corporations (like IBM and Microsoft) did push them,
| there was a lot more emphasis on business rather than consumer
| use at the time.
|
| 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.
| danielEM wrote:
| Why would you allow your phone to be a computer if you can sell a
| computer AND a phone? Allowing "random" OS to be installed on
| your phone would mean loosing control over your phone (including
| spying, gathering statistical data to influence major decisions,
| ability to paralyze communication of your country etc etc)
|
| 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.
| hybrid_study wrote:
| The argument here is valid, if I read this correctly. Why can't
| Apple simply allow your iPhone SIMPLY be just a transportable PC,
| that you can connect a keyboard, mouse, and monitor and do
| anything else you can do with Echo or any Apple computer?
| [EDIT]Provided that some functionalities (the phone) be walled
| off for security.
| WorldPeas wrote:
| I'm glad they've made a more affordable and repairable laptop but
| I can't help but notice (in addition to what the author's said)
| they can put a cell phone into a laptop's body, but not a cell
| modem into a laptop. If the macbook pro max had a cell model that
| would go like hotcakes
| atomics423 wrote:
| I wish I could use my iPhone with a broken display as a MAC. I
| was going to fix it, but it cost me $400 to replace it, so it's
| lying useless.
| imranq wrote:
| Okay so the OP is saying that since Macbook Neo has the same
| hardware as iphone, but not locked down, so why is iphone locked
| down. They say its because of the app store profits.
|
| Sure App store is not to be understated, but I'd add our phones
| include way way more personal information than a laptop like NFC
| for credit cards, personal photos, and all biometric and contact
| information. Not to mention cellular network connection and
| generally forms as a soft form of identity. None of these apply
| to a laptop. So form factor does matter.
|
| BUT even if we unlocked the iPhone, the desire for 'MacOS on
| iPhone' is actually the wrong thing to ask for. Pete Steinberger
| had in this interview
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcwK1Uuwc0U&t=1182) that UI is
| basically the wrong paradigm in a world where agents should do
| tasks for us in milliseconds. We should be able run any local
| services from our phone like grabbing
|
| Good news is we already have this via terminal apps in Android.
| Now what's left is the ability for agents to run on your device
| and basically accomplish tasks for you
| medhir wrote:
| Perhaps it is the way I framed the article, but the core of my
| argument is not "MacOS on iPhone".
|
| Yes, I do personally desire that as a niche thing, but the
| broader point is the nature of a locked bootloader that
| prevents _any_ third-party software from being loaded /
| installed without getting an approval from Apple.
|
| Whether the desire is third party apps on iOS outside of Apple-
| vetted channels, or entirely new operating systems like Linux
| or MacOS, I'm mainly arguing I should have the right to modify
| the software however I'd like as the device owner.
| ifh-hn wrote:
| This reads like Stockholm syndrome, like there's no other option
| but being held prisoner by apple.
| beeflet wrote:
| Fabrication of microchips is based on massive economies of
| scale. Thanks to apple, the majority of top-of-the-line
| microchips are going into locked-down computers. What happens
| when Apple or similar companies control 90% of the market, and
| you are paying exorbitant prices for crappy microchips in
| exchange for the privilege of running user-controlled software?
|
| A decade or two ago, Intel introduced the Intel Management
| Engine to new computer processors. Their competitors followed
| suit. The market has stopped making products without these
| trusted computing "features" a long time ago. Eventually, you
| stop being able to choose.
|
| These are the consequences of a computer market led by
| consumers that don't understand computers. The invisible hand
| is legally blind.
| comboy wrote:
| Your sim card is an entire computer.
| ivanstepanovftw wrote:
| Can it run OpenClaw?
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