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People are using iPad OS features on their iPhones

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180 points K0IN | 4 comments | 17 Nov 25 02:39 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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tekacs ◴[17 Nov 25 06:18 UTC] No.45951235[source]▶
This is kinda wonderful to see - a peek into a world where we get to see the 'other side' of what would have been possible had Apple not locked our devices down beyond belief.

Jailbreak stores have never felt like a particularly strong illustration of what's possible due to their tiny user market - I'd love to see what developers would do if even for a period we could use these devices to anything remotely like their potential.

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frfl ◴[17 Nov 25 06:28 UTC] No.45951276[source]▶
There was a comment few weeks ago - I forget the topic, maybe it was the new M-series release or something - that was talking about how freaking fast these things are. And the comment was pointing out how locked down everything is and most of that power is pretty useless - I mean sure on device "AI" and faster apps...OK I guess. I'm not the target demographic for these things anyway, so my opinions are whatever.

But really, imagine how much power these things have and if you could actually run a free (as in freedom, in the GNU sense) OS on them and really get access to all that power in a handheld device. Only if.

I have an M1, which is like N-times faster than the laptop I write this on. Yet it collects dust because I'd rather continue to use this old dinosaur laptop because that M1 macbook is a locked down, very fast, shiny Ferrari, but I just want a Honda Civic I can do whatever I want with.

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LeoPanthera ◴[17 Nov 25 06:31 UTC] No.45951289[source]▶
> But really, imagine how much power these things have and if you could actually run a free (as in freedom, in the GNU sense) OS on them and really get access to all that power in a handheld device. Only if.

Could you elaborate? What specifically would you do? Because I'm finding it hard to imagine what I'd do with an "open" iPhone that I can't do now, but it's extremely easy to imagine all the horrific security risks that would emerge in what today is most people's primary computing device, storing data about literally their entire lives.

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frfl ◴[17 Nov 25 06:42 UTC] No.45951326[source]▶
My usage of "handheld" was vague. I meant any portable device (laptops, but also including phones/tablets).

If you're finding it hard to imagine what you can do with a device that _does not_ restrict what you can do with it, then you're likely fine in the Apple ecosystem, that's fair and okay. Some people aren't, you'll just have to take my word for it, I don't wanna write an essay here and you're probably not interesting in reading all that.

Security risk is a common one that comes up. Google used that to justify locking down sideloading recently. Let me take the risk. I bought this device, I should be allowed to make adult decisions right? I'm not downloading stuff off Limewire or a shady website. I'm downloading stuff off of Linux distro repos or F-Droid.

There's a lot more to be said about all this. Including the amount of e-waste created because a device is too old to be supported by manufacturers, yet people run decade(s) old laptops/desktops using free OSs because they can.

Just my 1AM rambling thoughts. Hope some of it makes some sense.

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1. F7F7F7 ◴[17 Nov 25 19:29 UTC] No.45957211[source]▶
I'm a heavy Terminal user and run everything from local LLMs to full stack dev (react/python). I dibble and dabble in Blender, Unreal, and Logic Pro. I aimlessly browse the web looking for recipes, 3d printing files, shopping, HN, whatever. I'll occasionally spin up Age of Empire II locally or play some quick games via GeForceNow. I'm in full control of my Synology and Qnap NAS servers and the shit ton of media that's on it.

And I do all of that on my Mac. My 4090 rig is strictly for gaming with my son and my Proxmox Linux retired thin client rigs are for running my household on HA.

Please tell me what I'm missing out on by using a Mac OS device as my daily driver.

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2. frfl ◴[17 Nov 25 20:45 UTC] No.45958063[source]▶
You're probably happy. That's great.

If you read the rest of this thread you'll see specific examples others point out.

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3. chipotle_coyote ◴[18 Nov 25 01:35 UTC] No.45960419[source]▶
The specific examples in the thread, AFAICT, are about iOS, not macOS, and the person you're responding to specifically mentioned Macs. It's very hard to find examples of "things you cannot do on an Apple Silicon Mac due to Apple-imposed restrictions that you can do on a PC" that aren't pretty esoteric. (Unless you want to argue that the inability to plug in a better third-party GPU is due to Apple-imposed restrictions, which is debatable but defensible.)
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4. frfl ◴[18 Nov 25 03:53 UTC] No.45961200{3}[source]▶
If you read my other comment, you'll see Mac specific examples. Examples from my own experience over multiple years.