Re:What I learned from watching my iPad's slow death
by squarefoot on Wednesday February 07, 2018 @08:47AM
(#16324316)
"For what it's worth, PCs are subject to the exact same slow decline"
PCs have a much broader choice of operating systems and software to install whilst maintaining compatibility. Take Voyage Linux as an example (http://linux.voyage.hk); it's a stripped down Debian system for embedded devices which can fit down to 256MB of storage, but nothing prevents you from apt-getting more software and make it grow to a full featured desktop system depending on the underlying hardware capabilities. Mobile devices as of today cannot even dream a fraction of this modularity, but we already know why: they're black boxes intended to be consumed then thrown away, and their OSes reflect that nature. Mobile manufacturers should be forced to publish all hardware source code after a reasonable time (say after 3 years) so that "old" devices can be repurposed instead of being littered into landfills.
PCs have a much broader choice of operating systems and software to install whilst maintaining compatibility. Take Voyage Linux as an example (http://linux.voyage.hk); it's a stripped down Debian system for embedded devices which can fit down to 256MB of storage, but nothing prevents you from apt-getting more software and make it grow to a full featured desktop system depending on the underlying hardware capabilities. Mobile devices as of today cannot even dream a fraction of this modularity, but we already know why: they're black boxes intended to be consumed then thrown away, and their OSes reflect that nature. Mobile manufacturers should be forced to publish all hardware source code after a reasonable time (say after 3 years) so that "old" devices can be repurposed instead of being littered into landfills.