I remember when I was younger, and I felt this odd moral imperative to having root on any device I had that I knew ran an operating system of some sort. Once I succeeded, then... well, nothing. It was pointless. Oh, wow I got Linux running on my PlayStation 2! Root login, baby! Look, it’s X Windows!! I have harnessed the power of the machine and am finally that much closer to..... well, nothing a PC can’t already do better.
Notable ones I remember where:
1. SBSettings, basically control center before Apple added the control center.
2. Flux, before Apple added Night Mode (or whatever they call it)
3. Winterboard, for theming the phone in ways
4. Gameboy emulator, though now I think this can be done without jailbreak.
5. Unlocking the carrier.
6. File explorer
I'm sure there was more too.
For me jailbreaking is partly a philosophical goal, but also I just like seeing all the stuff people come up with when they aren't restrained by the walls of the garden.
If you read above you'll see most of the good jailbreak tweaks were brought into stock iOS at some point, which is great too. Let jailbroken users/devs try new things and if they work well bring them in with some Apple polish.
Can't remember who did it, but seemed like the consensus at the time was that all you end up with is the worst of both worlds.
Hybrid devices only rarely end up successful it seems.
https://www.samsung.com/us/explore/dex/
It's actually really good. I can wirelessly turn my TV into a 4K Android tablet, and with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, it turns into a computer.
Same with a USB cable plugged into my desk's monitor to HDMI. If I didn't require a computer for development, I would not buy computers any more.
Wireless Dex is limited to 1080p and wired one goes to max 1440p
The Samsung DeX Station (https://www.samsung.com/au/galaxy-s8-accessories/dex-station...) is no longer manufactured which is a massive let down. It does however still work with the S10+, and I presume the S20. The ability send a network cable straight to the phone was pretty handy for a few situations.
My mom refuses to use dex, I found it to be great as a basic workstation. Definitely removes the need for eg a chrome book. Does not replace your power user machine however
Australia: https://www.samsung.com/au/findastore/
US: https://www.samsung.com/us/samsung-experience-store/location...
Samsung's Dex dock thingy still exists and can be useful when travelling - most hotel rooms you can plug into the TV with HDMI, so a phone and keyboard is less trouble than carrying a full laptop. If you could rely on finding a keyboard (even just a USB one) in any hotel room it would be a lot better. And hopefully with apple shifting to ARM there'll be a lot more desktop software that runs properly on phone processors.
I think Samsung may have also given it a go.
Of course (as I wrote here three years ago¹), a non-programmable dumb/feature phone without updateability would also be adequate for my personal needs for what I need a phone for.
Application could be very basic (calendar, address book, calculator, alarm, etc.) - by default. Or users could make their own simple apps - nothing fancy, Arduino like cooperative multitasking, simple screen drawing, maybe a few widget helpers.
I can imagine this being a fun thing to use & play with. :)
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Nokia-8110-TA-1067-2-45-inches-Unlock...
Still, being able to write your own apps for it would be nice. Even if very low level APIs & you would have to handle distribution yourself if you wanted to share them would be fine. But I don't see any information about that after quickly checking their page.
BTW, a simple mobile terminal with cellular connection that you can program could be preatty useful in comparison to hacking a regular Android phone to only do what you need could be useful as well. For stuff like single use online terminals to give to field crews.
Making a smartphone that does not behave as a general purpose computer is stuping and not to mention dangerous (as the manufacturer can always use it as a general purpose computer for its own nefarious means).
> as the manufacturer can always use it as a general purpose computer for its own nefarious means
I can imagine as a thought experiment an ASIC or FPGA based phone that implements a very high level application processor, while what we normally call firmware, OS and libraries are implemented in "pure hardware".
(I agree with your sentiment, but somewhat disagree with your apparent conclusion android phones are any better if you're worried about bad actors -- the baseband and DSP from Qualcomm are processors running code we can never touch underlying the entire hardware. Similarly, almost all other computer hardware have separate CPUs inside the main CPU where the mfc. runs their own secret code which cannot be tampered with or even directly seen sometimes)
What I meant is that on Android There is less being done to actively prevent their usage as a self hosting workstation (though some recent "security" changes communig from Google related to running code that does not come from an installed APK might be a reversal of that trend).
I disagree with your argument that smartphones should be general-purpose computers. I don't think that having a smartphone be a general-purpose computer provides a significantly improved amount of control for 99.9% of the population.
How about being able to not run any code that you don't want your device to run? No DRM, no nag screens, no tracking, etc etc...
A non-rooted phone very much is a general-purpose computer, just not for you.