>I don’t see why smartphones inherently have to be a special case of computer where the manufacturer or OS developer gets to keep their finger in the pie after the sale.
In a pure technical sense, you're right, a mobile phone's computer doesn't have to be locked down such that the manufacturer like Apple controls the subsequent financial transactions on it.
Instead of technical reasons, what happened was Apple taking advantage of historical control of cellphones by the carriers that was in place before Apple flipped the relationship around in 2007:
- (1) before 2007, the cell carriers like AT&T and Verizon controlled what kind of software could be on the Palm Treo, Blackberry, Motorola, etc.
- (2) Apple showed an iPhone prototype to Cingular/AT&T that impressed them so much that they were willing to give up software platform control to Apple. This was the first time a phone manufacturer had the leverage to do this.
Cingular was lagging behind Verizon so that's why Cingular was willing to play ball and relinquish control.
- (3) after 2007, Apple now controls the phone's software ecosystem with their App Store restrictions and it's a power they want to keep. In their mind, they feel justified since they are the ones who spent money on developing the phone and they're allowing more "freedom" of 3rd-party software than the carriers did.
Apple's perspective is that its smartphones are not "open" computers like the IBM PC and Macbooks. Instead, it's the "closed" computers like the Sony PlayStation.
Another "closed" computer is the AMD Ryzen + Linux system in Tesla's infotainment system. There is no "Tesla app store" for it. Instead, a 3rd-party app like Spotify has to forge a formal contractual partnership with Tesla to get integrated into the car's software. Some stories about that: https://www.google.com/search?q=spotify+signs+partnership+wi...
Likewise, is there any technical reason why Tesla can't let you sideload any app on the car? No. But Tesla doesn't let you.
I had a Palm Centro back in those days; you could install anything you wanted on it, and as far as I know the WinMo devices were the same. The situation you describe was the case for "dumbphones" or "feature phones", but Apple is the one who extended it to smartphones.
Of course, Apple are also the ones who extended smartphones to a mass-market product, as before then devices like the Centro were very niche.
While there were certainly closed phons prior to iPhone, there were also open platforms like Windows Mobile. You could run whatever app you wanted to on Windows Mobile.
The relationship between phone manufacturers, OS providers, and careers was pretty complex that nearly every combination of openness and restrictiveness was part of the market before 2007.
But if it was a smartphone then it allowed third party apps to be installed without restriction. However, the OS itself might have been heavily controlled and/or modified by the carrier. It was common that say, Microsoft, would release an OS update and then that OS update goes to the carrier for testing and modification and then sometime later you get it. Apple, of course, was not interested in participating in that system.
Part of the early success of Android was that being an open platform meant that carriers retained a huge amount of control and they would release heavily customized carrier-specific phones.
> it's the "closed" computers like the Sony PlayStation.
PlayStation is seen by most people as an appliance for playing video games. Phones, on the other hand, are explicitly general-purpose computers. The iPhone is literally the only case of a "closed" general-purpose computer in this entire universe.
> Likewise, is there any technical reason why Tesla can't let you sideload any app on the car? No. But Tesla doesn't let you.
Cars are effectively bullets, they can kill people, so you can't just install anything in a car. I'm sure there's plenty of laws requiring Tesla and other car manufacturers to lock down car software.
(Just like there are laws requiring phone manufacturers to lock down phones - you can't just install an app that lets you override the GSM protocol and mess with the spectrum, not even on Android!)
Well, if you have a desktop/notebook with any kind of wi-fi chip you also cant override the protocol as not to mess with the spectrum, but you still get free reign over the rest of the machine.
All that to say that if things are properly compartmentalized there is no danger in letting the user install any software he desires.
This is a really nice well-researched take that rhymes with a lot of stuff I used to read back around 2007-2009.
But it's 2024.
I grew up on the App Store, maybe I'm just old and cranky at 35. But my guess is 95% of people cry in pain when they see a wall of text about how Verizon charged for J2ME apps in 2004, therefore iPhones iPads Apple Watches Vision Pros are special exemptions and Apple should be able to bill "$0.50 per install per year." whenever a binary is installed on a device you paid for. There's 0 reason for it.
Indeed this is something that has bothered me for 20 years, though significantly more so as phones have come to resemble general purpose computers more than just phones. Back then, I explicitly bought a Cingular phone instead of Verizon, because it ran a stock flavor of the Motorola OS, rather than the custom whatever that Verizon models shipped with which didn't let you install mp3 ringtones or j2me games.
In a pure technical sense, you're right, a mobile phone's computer doesn't have to be locked down such that the manufacturer like Apple controls the subsequent financial transactions on it.
Instead of technical reasons, what happened was Apple taking advantage of historical control of cellphones by the carriers that was in place before Apple flipped the relationship around in 2007:
- (1) before 2007, the cell carriers like AT&T and Verizon controlled what kind of software could be on the Palm Treo, Blackberry, Motorola, etc.
- (2) Apple showed an iPhone prototype to Cingular/AT&T that impressed them so much that they were willing to give up software platform control to Apple. This was the first time a phone manufacturer had the leverage to do this. Cingular was lagging behind Verizon so that's why Cingular was willing to play ball and relinquish control.
- (3) after 2007, Apple now controls the phone's software ecosystem with their App Store restrictions and it's a power they want to keep. In their mind, they feel justified since they are the ones who spent money on developing the phone and they're allowing more "freedom" of 3rd-party software than the carriers did.
Apple's perspective is that its smartphones are not "open" computers like the IBM PC and Macbooks. Instead, it's the "closed" computers like the Sony PlayStation.
Another "closed" computer is the AMD Ryzen + Linux system in Tesla's infotainment system. There is no "Tesla app store" for it. Instead, a 3rd-party app like Spotify has to forge a formal contractual partnership with Tesla to get integrated into the car's software. Some stories about that: https://www.google.com/search?q=spotify+signs+partnership+wi...
Likewise, is there any technical reason why Tesla can't let you sideload any app on the car? No. But Tesla doesn't let you.