Apple basically spearheaded the war on general computation. Before them, phones used to be more or less open, Apple cracked down on that very quickly.
Apple basically spearheaded the war on general computation. Before them, phones used to be more or less open, Apple cracked down on that very quickly.
Well, before Apple, most phones were appliances with fixed software; there was no openness to speak of. That said, I wish they hadn't continued this trend and instead took inspiration from Windows Mobile.
Before iphone mobile phones were running Java applets, which were sometimes even compatible across different phone manufacturers and users even could exchange them over infrared. In contrast first iPhone initially had no support for third party software, only web apps.
Before them, phones used to be more or less open
Wow. Just… wow.
Excuse me while I get permission from sixteen levels of managers inside Cingular, U.S. Cellular, Cincinnati Bell, PrimeCo, and the fifty different regional carriers calling themselves "Cellular One" to offer my app on their networks.
I'm not claiming that iPhones are open to the extent that HN griefers want it to be, but you must have been freshly hatched in the years before the iPhone to think the ecosystem was open.
I say this as someone who developed some of the first mobile phone weather apps. (Before "app" was even a word.)
Or, you know, there's more than one country in the world.
I could flash my Nokia 6210 with whatever firmware I wanted, but I guess that doesn't count, because Nokia and Ericsson aren't American companies.
I may be guilty of the same thing you're mentioning (I'm in the USA), but my Nokia 6210 came with a carrier lock and I wasn't even able to visit websites via the WAP browser unless my carrier approved of them because WAP acted like a sort of mandatory vendor operated proxy that allowed them to see and filter everything the phone did. They would, for example, filter out websites about ringtones to try and force you to buy theirs for $0.99/piece.
My experience with a Nokia 6210 was very much the opposite of what you describe.
That's very much a product of the American oligarchy - with Apple, MSFT and Google at the forefront. Yes, these particular restrictions were the gifts from the US Telco industry. But the corporations in the US behave practically all the same - abuse the customers as much as possible, in every conceivable manner. This is partly due to the fact that these incumbents don't allow smaller ethical competitors to survive.
Granted that there are variations of these abusers in every country. But the US companies are on a whole different level. They practically own the ostensibly democratic government. I'm sorry to break the top commenter's bubble of bliss. But these companies have depleted any goodwill and benefits of doubt a long time ago to deserve any kind mention.
PS: I get downvoted every time I express this sentiment here. That's not surprising, given the strong representation that these rogue players have on HN. Fair enough! But the downvoters would do well to realize that no amount of such anonymous disapprovals are going to reverse the course of the global tech community's steadily souring opinions and hostility towards such companies. It won't take very long for this to hit their markets too, if the boycott hasn't already started in several parts of the world. So they might as well take the message and take the steps to repair their damaged reputation and trust, though it's going to be a long road ahead to recovery.