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2071 points K0nserv | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.2s | source
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divan ◴[] No.45088415[source]
> It should be possible to run Android on an iPhone and manufacturers should be required by law to provide enough technical support and documentation to make the development of new operating systems possible

As someone who enjoyed Linux phones like the Nokia N900/950 and would love to see those hacker-spirited devices again, statements like this sound more than naïve to me. I can acknowledge my own interests here (having control over how exactly the device I own runs), but I can also see the interests of phone manufacturers — protecting revenue streams, managing liability and regulatory risks, optimizing hardware–software integration, and so on. I don't see how my own interests here outweigh collective interests here.

I also don’t see Apple or Google as merely companies that assemble parts and selling us "hardware". The decades when hardware and software were two disconnected worlds are gone.

Reading technical documentation on things like secure enclaves, UWB chips, computational photography stack, HRTF tuning, unified memory, TrueDepth cameras, AWDL, etc., it feels very wrong to support claims like the OP makes. “Hardware I own” sounds like you bought a pan and demand the right to cook any food you want. But we’re not buying pans anymore — we’re buying airplanes that also happen to serve food.

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fluoridation ◴[] No.45089818[source]
>I also don’t see Apple or Google as merely companies that assemble parts and selling us "hardware". The decades when hardware and software were two disconnected worlds are gone.

That when you buy a phone you're also buying software components doesn't change the fact that the phone is owned entirely by you. You're not entering into a partnership to co-own the phone with anyone else, it's entirely yours. No one should get to decide how you use it but you.

>But we’re not buying pans anymore — we’re buying airplanes that also happen to serve food.

So the argument is that by taking a piece of electronics I paid for that is running on electricity I pay for, and making it run some arbitrary piece of software, I'm putting people's lives at risk?

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arccy ◴[] No.45090869[source]
that has never been true, your phone contains a radio, governed by the relevant laws of your locale.
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1. philipwhiuk ◴[] No.45092048[source]
My pan is also governed by the relevant laws of my locale. I can cook what I like, but I can't legally beat someone over the head with it.