Arguably the Steam Deck is a video game console with that open model. It gets fuzzy though because an open video game console looks like a general purpose computer.

‘Looks like’ is a bit of an understatement ;)

Really? There are tons of ways to get apps on an Android device that don't involve a store charging ridiculous fees.

And how many people are going to actually do that?

Samsung phones come with a Samsung store in addition to Google Play for instance. All of Samsungs software go through their own store, and they also sell apps on it.

So instead of "opening up" the iPhone if customers really care about the multiple app stores feature they could buy the phone with that feature correct?

It's not really any different in my mind than phones with more battery life, a better camera, or any other product mix.

In general I agree with you, I don't want my phone to be a general purpose computer.

But the situation here is that there is now an actual law mandating that no, you're not to allowed host an app store on your phone OS without allowing alternative app stores.

For an exaggerated analogy, you can't make a car without seatbelts and tell consumers that if they value safety they should purchase a different brand of car.

>>I don't want my phone to be a general purpose computer.

Too late. It already is. Which makes all these restrictions on what you can and can't do with it stupid especially if its gonna sell for an amount of money nearly equal to reasonably spec'ed laptop.

Every single child who plays Fortnite in Android does it. You can't install Fortnite through the Play Store anymore after the payment processing lawsuit stuff.

Certainly, but how many software businesses are built on non-play store android apps? There just isn't that much of a market there.

Contrast with, say, Adobe, which makes computer software not distributed through any App store and is a $278 billion company.

Android... before that, PalmOS...

You are right, the smartphone industry is a monopoly and should be regulated as such.

> The problem is no one has made a smartphone with that open model.

Android is fully open. No one is making you use Google services. You can, in fact, buy a Pixel and simply uninstall the Play Store. As a developer, you can distribute your app without any Google involvement whatsoever.

Well, it's important to make the distinction between the Play Store and Google Services (the software). Plenty of things _depend_ on Google Services, some of them you have no option, like bank apps.

It's true however that you can use microG to replace Google Services, but even then some banks will block your account upon doing that (happened to me).

Granted, this really is a completely different point to what you were discussing, and I do agree with you. But, if we want truly open ecosystems, we need standards that ensure the authenticity of the user. Unfortunately, that gets distopian fast.

I really don't know what to think of all of this.

GNU/Linux phones exist: Librem 5 and Pinephone. They're based on free drivers and don't prevent you from installing any OS.

I hope those get more mature and stable, I do have one but it's kind of a mess to have things not break on you. Updates corruption and all.

This is on the Pinephone Pro btw.

Pinephone software is written by volunteers. Librem 5 is more stable: https://forums.puri.sm/t/librem-5-daily-driven-in-profession...

There's also Ubuntu Touch which I hope gathers steam. I installed it on an old Pixel 3a I had lying around mostly for fun, in much the same way I did for GalliumOS install on an old HP Chromebook.

I personally prefer SXMo.

> There are some devices for sale which allow this. But they're enormously unpopular.

> The problem is no one has made a smartphone with that open model.

> don't prevent you from installing any OS.

That you then can't really do anything with either because of the super limited HW support (due to only using "free" drivers) or because they're so slow you just give up in frustration. Or lack of apps.

At least in the case of the Librem 5 its wildly overpriced for what you actually get (if you ever actually get it that is).

How is the limited hardware support connected to the free drivers? You can install Mobian, postmarketOS on a Librem 5 already. Pinephone is supported by 15+ operating systems.

If you think the hardware is slow, have a look at SXMo.

> if you ever actually get it that is

They've been delivering the phones within 10 days since a long tome already. Sent from my Librem 5.