Re:Android overtakes Windows as the internet’s most used ope...
by rsync on Monday April 03, 2017 @02:54PM
(#14025910)
"What would make a phone hardware able to install anything that compiles to its CPU architecture the same way a PC can?"
The reason your question is "stupid" is because you think your phone is just one computer.
In fact, you can do just what you describe - and it wouldn't be that difficult - but it would only be for the application processor and you would end up with a nice PDA.
In order to make phone calls you would also need to control the other two, fully functional, general purpose computers inside of your phone: the baseband processor and the SIM card.
Currently, there is no way for you to control either of those in any meaningful way.[1]
There are deeply entrenched economic and technical forces standing in the way of controlling your own baseband processor and we are nowhere near to doing it.
[1] Osmocom on 2G phones is not meaningful, no matter how impressive and interesting it is.
The reason your question is "stupid" is because you think your phone is just one computer.
In fact, you can do just what you describe - and it wouldn't be that difficult - but it would only be for the application processor and you would end up with a nice PDA.
In order to make phone calls you would also need to control the other two, fully functional, general purpose computers inside of your phone: the baseband processor and the SIM card.
Currently, there is no way for you to control either of those in any meaningful way.[1]
There are deeply entrenched economic and technical forces standing in the way of controlling your own baseband processor and we are nowhere near to doing it.
[1] Osmocom on 2G phones is not meaningful, no matter how impressive and interesting it is.