Having non-tech-savvy relatives throw out their phones, buy thousand dollar hardware and swap to an operating system they are unfamiliar with is an absolutely terrible solution to the problem.
Hyperbole of this comment aside, what else do you suggest then?
It's a fundamental tradeoff between allowing multiple ways for apps to be installed or forcing everything through a single installation workflow (a la iOS and its App Store).
On the other hand, iOS is popular because of quality issues like this. Android is only as good as it is because of the competition from Apple.
Before the iPhone you couldn't even get the "cool" phones in America, Japan had so much better things available and everybody envied what wasn't available here.
The reason we have any control from the carriers was the power Apple had and the stubbornness of Jobs.
A lot of the battles being lost by Apple are being won by groups who will make the ecosystem worse.
Take the hourly billing for those of us who work that way. Multiply by family tech consulting time. It's probably cheaper to buy an iPhone for everyone!
At least this used to be true in the halcyon days when iOS was simple.
The only walls that need to be in place to prevent this are against malicious carrier app stores. There's no need to restrict users here, which is what people complain about.
Stopping carriers from ruining phones is quite popular on HN from what I've seen.
margalabargala|4 months ago
alfalfasprout|4 months ago
It's a fundamental tradeoff between allowing multiple ways for apps to be installed or forcing everything through a single installation workflow (a la iOS and its App Store).
colechristensen|4 months ago
Before the iPhone you couldn't even get the "cool" phones in America, Japan had so much better things available and everybody envied what wasn't available here.
The reason we have any control from the carriers was the power Apple had and the stubbornness of Jobs.
A lot of the battles being lost by Apple are being won by groups who will make the ecosystem worse.
lukev|4 months ago
FredPret|4 months ago
At least this used to be true in the halcyon days when iOS was simple.
Nifty3929|4 months ago
Dylan16807|4 months ago
Stopping carriers from ruining phones is quite popular on HN from what I've seen.
ChrisMarshallNY|4 months ago
Geeks don’t like it.
But Apple is a three-trillion-dollar corporation, because most folks aren’t geeks.
unknown|4 months ago
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