Thanks, that matters a lot to me. I really make an effort to be clear about what I think.
> If your starting point is to argue that NO manufacturer can be permitted to make a handheld mobile appliance (e.g., to phones what Switch or the PlayStation Portable [PSP] are to consoles)
I have no problem with the devices themselves. I have a problem with not being able to run my own software on them.
It was such a problem for me I installed custom firmware on my PSP. Even had my own pandora battery back then. Hell I hunted down and bought a very specific PSP model with a very specific motherboard revision so I had maximum control. Over a decade ago I installed rockbox on my 80 GB iPod so I could have FLAC support.
> these days everything has a computer in it
All the more reason to run our own software on them. We should always have the power to do that. Anyone who doesn't care can just use the manufacturer software.
> But "infinite potential" is a lot of potential to be wasting -- what potential is unable to be met if allowing Apple to offer an appliance alongside others offering general devices?
The potential to do literally anything you want. As opposed of course to the limited set of things the true owners of the platform merely allow you to do.
Thanks to apps like Termux which turn consumer hardware into real computers, I'm able to write software on my phone. I contributed to free and open source software from my phone. I developed a feature for and submitted a patch to GNU coreutils entirely from my phone; if you check their mailing list archives you can find some termux paths in the emails which I forgot to sanitize before sending. I forked and maintained npm packages from my phone. I wrote my own website with my phone. Hell I implemented my own lisp-like programming language with my phone, perhaps the first programing language ever to be literally born inside a phone.
This is the sort of creative potential you miss out on when you accept this "appliance" nonsense. I can only imagine what the next generation will be like, a whole generation raised on these appliances rather than real computers. A whole generation that only knows how to do what their corporate masters allow them to do.
This "fitness for purpose" is complete nonsense. They're computers. They don't have a set purpose. Their purpose is what we make of them. Like an extension of our minds.
I write software on the iPad Pro w/ Magic Keyboard using Blink and Blink Code, as well as Pythonista, committing code to GitHub from both, so I'm not seeing the loss in potential.
https://docs.blink.sh/advanced/code
But back to the argument:
I loved the Radio Shack "kits" when I was young, built all kinds of things from radios to home security systems. It doesn't follow, for me, that radios and home security systems must be all made from kits.
Similarly, most consoles start as dev kits.
I think there's a place for kits, and a place for products.
This is great! This is the actual argument, so the clarity is wonderful.
If your starting point is to argue that NO manufacturer can be permitted to make a handheld mobile appliance (e.g., to phones what Switch or the PlayStation Portable [PSP] are to consoles) as a market alternative to mobile general computing devices, then, 100% agree that means there's no place for iPhone or iPad.
But then this seems weird, because these days everything has a computer in it, digital machinery to go along with mechanical machinery, and it's not clear why we get mad at Apple about "right to tinker" (that's not a real thing even though competitors attack competitors by gaslighting about it) without getting mad at all of these things.
It's not clear to me nobody should be allowed to fully integrate software and hardware (which are "just" different amounts of machinery or logic permanence embedded in one user experience), whether they allow "apps" as pluggable cartridges or not.
To borrow a non-computing utility tool metaphor: I consider the iPhone like a Leatherman™ tool. The maker works with people like me to decide an ideal mix of tools a Leatherman™ should be, perhaps offer me a few different tool mixes or sizes. I choose a known-good configuration I want, then I don't expect or need to be able to plug random third party accessories to the Leatherman™.
I find it anti computing freedom (as well as anti-libertarian and anti-capitalist) to forbid Makers™ from using their computing freedom to offer the marketplace an appliance that can take pictures or make phone calls or plug in apps. The computer form lets you invent new configurations (like a box of Legos turned into a model), then the appliance form lets others use it (like 3D printing the model). That should be OK.
So we disagree on the real argument, and that's fair.
I have a question though, what does this mean:
> Infinite potential, wasted.
I find dedicated gaming PCs far more wasteful of time and materials than consoles: wasteful of materials to have a predictable gaming experience, wasteful of time between wanting to be able to play a game and playing them, wasteful of time on an ongoing basis maintaining the ability to play a game.
(I say this as a person who made a living building and selling "beige box" computers in college, and who values understanding how to build a computer from parts.)
I'd argue that for casual gaming, consoles -- which also use fewer non-renewable materials than an equivalent power PC -- saved far more time and materials "per gaming-hour" than they wasted.
Yes, some of us have to learn to build tomorrow's consoles, but most just want to play a game. As in my opening remark, I believe our job as engineers is to learn, build, and deliver the "capability" to game, tailored to and fit for purpose.
But "infinite potential" is a lot of potential to be wasting -- what potential is unable to be met if allowing Apple to offer an appliance alongside others offering general devices?