Even with android custom ROMs like Lineage, support eventually ends. Meanwhile, you can just slap on linux onto any old computer and its still getting the latest updates. 🤔
Why not just do the same thing with phones? Forever phone updates? 👀
Even with android custom ROMs like Lineage, support eventually ends. Meanwhile, you can just slap on linux onto any old computer and its still getting the latest updates. 🤔
Why not just do the same thing with phones? Forever phone updates? 👀
Because IBM built the PC as a side project out of mainly off-the-shelf parts, except for the BIOS, never intending it to be more than one of many personal computers in the market… and then Compaq and Columbia Data Products reverse engineered said BIOS making PC-compatible clones a possibility.
Open BIOSes and a personal computer made of essentially off-the-shelf parts led to everyone and their aunt making PC-compatible machines, and the personal computer boom, and most personal computers being able to run mostly the same software.
IBM tried to lock it back down with the PS/2, and Microsoft also later tried to lock it down to Windows with some shady schemes like ACPI, but all attempts ultimately failed because by that point the PC ecosystem was so large that any attempts at lockdown were sidestepped by other vendors, or eventually reverse engineered or bypassed.
Sadly the same never happened with phones. The PC thing was a serendipitous fluke to start with, phones aren’t made of off-the-shelf parts, and manufacturers were wise to the “risk” and made sure to keep as much control as possible.