It would be a challenge to gain a foothold for sure. I suspect the way in would be to have a way to support Android apps (I believe windows phone was doing this for a while?)
As far as malware, I’m not sure why it would be more of an issue on an open platform than it would on Android. I use Linux as a daily driver, and as long as you’re getting software from trusted sources, it’s not much of a concern. I don’t see why it would be different on mobile.
And with regard to you comments about ease of use, I’m not saying an open phone OS should be the only option, or that it should even be the dominant platform. For most people it probably makes sense to go with a widely supported platform which is safe and easy to use. But it would be nice if there was an alternative available for power users, and people who want to experiment with radically different concepts of how to use a smartphone.
Smartphones are basically the main computers people use nowadays. It’s just kind of a shame you have to go through a corporation to use one.
I think you're missing one point. The PC market is open to OS developers and users, there's a well known spec and the user can install any OS he wants, but that's not possible (with some minor exceptions, and you may depend on Android) in the mobile market.
Until the OS is reasonably independent of the device, I can't see how Ubuntu, FirefoxOS, or Tizen could compete if they can't access to users (even if some, like Mozilla, have deals with phone companies; do I need to buy a specific phone to run their OS?).
Even though that's kinda sad, I don't expect to see any (relevant, mass-market, used by the general public) truly open alternative in the foreseeable future. The market just doesn't seem to be there for it.
On PCs, already pretty much no one uses Linux outside of tech bubbles (and even there, seems like it's behind both Windows and macOS [0]), apparently somewhere around 1-2% [1] among the general population; in practice, it feels like it should be even less, at least based on what mainstream websites I'm familiar with see. And this is for general-purpose computers, where an open OS might have tangible benefits for the general, non-developer/ops public (not sure which, but I guess such a case could be made) – but phones don't seem to be general-purpose computers for most; it seems they're used for media consumption, taking photos, communication, maybe some light gaming, and not much else – all thinks where the existing walled gardens offer a very compelling experience with assurances for security and quality that open platforms might have a hard time delivering.
A truly open smartphone platform would probably face an even harder uphill battle than desktop Linux, and that's already failed to gain traction time and again. You'd need compatible apps for it to gain traction, but who's going to make those? It'd have to offer a really polished UX, I don't see many people picking a clunky, ugly, bug-ridden phone based on GPL vs. proprietary – lots of people (including me) buy iPhones in part because they enjoy their design and UX. How do you make sure apps aren't scattered across lots of malware-infested app stores? How do you make sure people don't inadvertently shoot themselves in the foot all the time if you don't wall them off from choices that might lead to that? But how do you wall off people on a platform that is truly open? And so on, and so on. Unless some tech giant decides their interests align very much with a truly open and relevant mobile OS, I have a hard time seeing it happen – and even then.
The current tech world is much different from when the major desktop environments solidified; this time around, the vast, overwhelming, huge majority of computer users are not enthusiasts or IT professionals anymore like in the 90s, but completely uninterested and uninvested in the tech apart from having it work for them to do relatively simple tasks, similar to what most people outside of the relevant enthusiast bubbles feel towards cars or stoves. I don't want to run Emacs on my stove and maybe blow myself up in the process, I want it to work reliably and safely and just heat my food. I'd actully like no one to be able to tinker at will with safety-critical software in their cars, because their segfaulting Formula 1 brake patch they got from some Facebook page might mean they plow into me and I die.
All of this assumes that Android is Windows and that another open source platform, such as Firefox OS or Ubuntu Touch, wouldn't be available to pose any challenge to Android. The mobile sphere is probably dynamic enough to support such changes.
If the FOSS projects in mobile work hard enough now, they can eat into Android's market share, at least in the developing world. We shouldn't consider Android's position to be unshakeable.
My hope is that as smartphone hardware gets commoditized we'll see a meaningful third-party alternative. Linux on desktop, for example, may not have the marketshare that matches commercial offerings (like MacOS, Win, ChromeOS) but it is viable, and it is there for people who want it. I want to see something like that for phones.
The openness of the PC platform was something of an accident. The home microcomputers and the early Macs had their OS in ROM. There were competing PC operating systems (DR-DOS, DESQview, OS/2, etc) but Microsoft managed to kill off all the commercial competition.
But that was all pre-"web 1.0". Once computers started becoming routinely networked, we ended up with the malware problem which has driven us here. The user is in no position to accurately assess the safety of software, so as you say it's not such a bad choice to pick a locked platform to avoid malware.
The situation is an uncomfortable duopoly between the semi-open Android and locked-down Apple ecosystems. How long will this remain stable? I don't know.
Never say never, but I'm not optimistic for it. The biggest issue is app compatibility. Even with a huge budget and namesake like Microsoft Windows, you can see how Microsoft's mobile OS projects have essentially disappeared when trying to compete against iOS and Android. Maybe someone will get Android apps running natively on a Linux distro, but then you're still missing the unlicensed framework around Google Play that breaks many existing popular apps.
We also don't even have this with desktops or laptops today. CPUs are still proprietary and running closed-source software. On mobile it's even more locked down, where I can almost guarantee you will never have open software running on baseband controller or SIM card on any public network like Verizon.
We'll have to wait and see how it plays out. Being "open" hasn't propelled Linux over Windows. And it should be noted that most people aren't using Android in a way that's more open than the iPhone - people get their programs from the Android Market, OS updates are provided by the handset manufacturer/carrier, etc. In some ways, the iPhone is more freeing since one doesn't have to worry about the carrier or device manufacturer abandoning it for OS updates - as my roommate looks forward to a 6 month wait for an update to his HTC Hero which is now two versions behind!
I think what it really comes down to is who provides the best experience. Freedom is part of that experience - can you use the device how you want. Part of that is open-ness, but part of that is having something that works right. No one would say that anti-virus software enhances the user experience in its own right, but millions use it because it prevents something worse. Likewise, restrictions on what you can install can have two sides.
It's a balancing act. Whether Android or the iPhone will get it right is debatable, but I think it's definitely a balancing act.
I don't think we really need another locked down OS where the vendor will control everything.
The other issue I have is that I don't see Android apps as efficient way of getting my work done, applications that don't need to worry about the mobile form factor will most of the time offer a superior user experience.
You already have a 99% cross platform way to ship an app, you can create a web app.
I don't think we really need another locked down OS where the vendor will control everything.
The other issue I have is that I don't see Android apps as efficient way of getting my work done, applications that don't need to worry about the mobile form factor will most of the time offer a superior user experience.
You already have a 99% cross platform way to ship an app, you can create a web app.
That's a fairly dystopian outlook. There's no (technical) reason mobile operating systems can't be just as open as desktop operating systems. The only reason why mobile platforms are locked down are business interests (we're lucky that IBM lost its iron grip over the PC platform early on, otherwise we'd still be stuck in the computing dark ages).
(apart from that: a filesystem is nothing else than a database, and text files are pretty much the most open data format imaginable, it's not like we arrived there by accident).
I think the barrier to better OS is partially a bad device market. Smartphones are short lived products with specialized hardware and manufacturers do not share generic or reference drivers. There are some other factors, but I don't see how a development would be possible without close cooperation with the manufacturers.
I doubt we would see the development of the personal computer again. The wrong people in business decide the direction here.
I do even think this is ultimately a limiting factor. There is just so much I would ever be willing to share on a device where Apple or Google is the administrator. I mostly degraded my phone to basic communication and nothing else. No auth, special software or utility. If I invest here I very likely will be sorry later.
Device manufacturers decided to go with locked down environment. I cannot really understand people that buy a Samsung phone. The amount of crapware is staggering.
iOS is cleaner, but I also do not want to invest knowledge here either. Not even in the hardware if it could run other OS, even if it is decent.
I still use Android, because... pretty much the only viable options for smartphone OSes are Android and iOS.
There are plenty dozens of phones running Android: Samsung, LG, Xiaomi, Huawei, etc.
And for iOS, well you only have iPhone.
I'd like to see more competitors in the game though: Firefox OS, Tizen, Sailfish OS, etc etc. So far, only Librem 5 looks promising. Hopefully it can gain much commercial and dev support.
Because alternative mobile operating systems cannot compete in the same consumer space due to the duopoly of walled gardens where people expect all popular apps to be available (although I do believe that there is a niche market for a free software smartphone amongst developers).
If you treat a smartphone as a normal computer, you would expect to be able to use a service such as Uber by means of a modern web browser providing a sandbox for their web application, like you do on Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows. Installing someone's stand-alone software only to access an on-line service would probably seem invasive and absurd.
Broadly speaking, on a smartphone people probably accept this because of the trade-off. Apple and Google keep your mobile computer stable, fast, and free from viruses and malware by managing your operating system and vetting the software you can install through their app-stores. For a lot of people this trade-off seems preferable to an alternative.
Competition in the market is a great thing and I welcome more competitors, but you're exactly right. The entire mobile market is completely fragmented. Whether you use iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, or any of the other competitors, you've likely experienced an app you'd love to install but it doesn't exist for your platform. Linux users are used to struggling with a developer to try to get a port when programs were made for Windows only. Now we're at the stage where many great programs are only written for half the market. At least on Linux you can use Wine for many things, or run a VM at worst.
When we made the move to mobile devices, we took a major step backwards in the maturity of technology. Some days I miss the simplicity of only having to pick between Windows Mobile and Palm OS when choosing a mobile audience.
Have you ever tried to create anything with a smartphone? That path has an incredible amount of resistance. More importantly, the arbitrary hurdles cannot be moved.
On a desktop PC, I can install whatever Linux distro I want. That can give me much greater access to a serious development environment than even Windows could dream of. Android feels like a toy in comparison, and iOS is like one of those fake laptops they sell to toddlers.
Even when my Android phone has an unlockable bootloader, it's still unlikely that I will be able to run a desktop-equivalent Linux distro on it. Chances are, I'm left with a less-restrictive flavor of Android. That's the best case scenario, and it's absolutely worse than the average case I grew up with.
It's not entirely about resistance, either. People follow their interests within a reasonable amount of effort. At the end of the day, they balance the two.
What opportunities to mobile computing users have to follow what interests? Social media provides the least resistance by several orders of magnitude.
We can and should change this landscape. We should be minimizing the opportunity cost of creative computing, instead of trying to convince billions of people to throw the entire thing out the window.
On mobile, the only realistic alternative is Android, which is a privacy and security nightmare.
On general purpose computers, Linux is better from the perspective of privacy. But for large parts of the general population, Windows is the only realistic alternative. And we know how important privacy is to Microsoft these days :(.
As far as malware, I’m not sure why it would be more of an issue on an open platform than it would on Android. I use Linux as a daily driver, and as long as you’re getting software from trusted sources, it’s not much of a concern. I don’t see why it would be different on mobile.
And with regard to you comments about ease of use, I’m not saying an open phone OS should be the only option, or that it should even be the dominant platform. For most people it probably makes sense to go with a widely supported platform which is safe and easy to use. But it would be nice if there was an alternative available for power users, and people who want to experiment with radically different concepts of how to use a smartphone.
Smartphones are basically the main computers people use nowadays. It’s just kind of a shame you have to go through a corporation to use one.
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