[JohnR]

OK, fair enough, I'm mixing two things up. I was assuming that a shell on Linux means ssh but of course it doesn't. It used to be that you had to jailbreak an iphone to get an ssh app on there, but perhaps that is no longer the case.

[skunark]

OK, fair enough, I'm mixing two things up. I was assuming that a shell on Linux means ssh but of course it doesn't. It used to be that you had to jailbreak an iphone to get an ssh app on there, but perhaps that is no longer the case.

Client SSH apps have always existed on the iPhone (and assume on Android), but a client SSH app doesn't give you shell access to the phone, think of it as a remote desktop application like VNC.   BTW, several webhosts offer clients for the iPhone that provide basic tasks like to bring a host offline, etc.

BTW, you don't need to be "root' to install applications, MAC OSX only requires root password if the installer needs to add "common" libraries or tweak a setting on the mac.    Linux you can install the application in your home directory or common directory that you can then share if needed.   Windows 7 is the same assuming you don't need to modify the registry or whatever it is today.   Since Apple and Android sandbox the applications, there's little to no need to have root access to install them.

[wilsynet]

So I struggle to understand the straightjacket iPhone system at times.

Let me go back in history to take a stab at this.

The straightjacket iPhone is perfectly consistent with the Steve Jobs vision of computers as consumer electronics.  Most of the history of the Mac, from 1984 - 2001, the Mac did not have a command line, was not easy to get under the covers etc.  There weren't even expansion ports on the 1984 Macintosh, and the only way you could add memory was by soldering.

The Mac, unlike the Apple II, was not a hackers machine, was not a machine for a geek.  It was really thought of as a layperson's machine, not a computer for an enthusiast.

Mac OS X traces its lineage back to NeXT, where they were creating a machine for math and science oriented academics.  And back in 1989 when NeXTStep was first released, a Unix-like operating system was what the market was asking for.  Shipping a souped up Mac would not have meet the needs of academics and researchers, so they went the other way.  They chose the Mach microkernel (because it was elegant) and they chose a BSD subsystem because it was free, BSD based systems were gaining popularity, and they'd be able to leverage all the  tools that people had built or ported to BSD.

By the time NeXT is acquired by Apple in 1996, the NeXT hardware business had floundered, the OS made little to no traction and they were actually focused on WebObjects, an early web application building framework that today would compete with Tomcat, JBoss, etc. 

They shut down the WebObjects business, transformed NeXTStep (or OpenStep as it was later rebranded) into Mac OS X, and kept the Unix and NeXTStep underpinnings because by then there were a small number of user applications that ran on NeXTStep and appealing to the Unix geeks was an easy way to get some market share for Apple.  It would have been considered suicide to release an operating system with no native applications, and it was fairly easy to get guys like Omni to port their apps to Mac OS X.

I suspect that in Steve Jobs heart he understood that Unix is a beautiful thing, and if he could build tools for Unix guys like me that this would be a good thing.  But everything since 2001 Mac OS X has really been about consumer electronics in a broad sense -- iPod, iTunes, iTunes Store, iPhone, iPad.  Things not for computer geeks but things for the public at large.

So really, the 2007 iPhone straightjacket really isn't all that different than the Mac straightjacket from 1984.

As a developer, it's frustrating for me.  I think the iPhone is not a particularly interesting platform.  There are all sorts of things you can't do as an iPhone programmer that you can do on a real computer.  Sure, you can build all kinds of social applications, media applications, etc. but really core technology stuff, you can't do it on an iPhone because of its security model and policy.

Having said that, there are advantages to the iPhone straightjacket.

All other things being equal, battery life is typically better on an iPhone.  Applications cannot truly run in the background, they have a very limited and constrained concept of a background task.  This means that when you've switched into another application that the previous application you were running does not continuously run and drain your battery.  Oh, and the phone doesn't get super slow because I've got 3 apps running in the background eating up processor time.

Denying applications rich access to internals and a stringent application store acceptance policy means less opportunities for malware.  If you compare the amount of malware on an iPhone versus malware on Android, you'll find that iPhone is by and large clean as a whistle.

Searching on Google for "Android malware" will give you a number of articles talking about the latest malware on Android.  Searching for "iPhone malware" will give you articles that talk about how there is little need for malware detection on iPhones right now (although warnings that the need may come one day).

But let me not close with malware.

Back in 1977, the Apple II was released by Apple and Apple's chief engineer at the time was Steve Wozniak.  By the time you get to 1984, Wozniak had given up many of his day to day responsibilities, and the two driving forces of the Macintosh system software were Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson, both as much graphics and UI guys as they were systems guys.

In 2001 when Apple released Mac OS X, the VP of Engineering was Avie Tevanian, who hailed from Mach kernel development.  By 2006, Avie had left Apple, and the current software leader at Apple is Scott Forstall, who also brought us the Mac OS X Aqua interface in 2001.

[skunark]

Lion server offers some interesting features for the iPhone and iPads. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the Lion Server though, time-machine server is a POS when you have more than one client.  There's no way to allocate space per user in the GUI and i haven't taken the time.   I've been attempting to utilize the VPN server lately but I think my ISP is blocking the port.   But you can now wireless backup your phone, provide vpn all when you are out in the wild.

http://www.wegotserved.com/2011/09/13/os-lion-home-server-part-9-profile-manager-ios-devices/

[wilsynet]

OS X Lion Server seems only useful for providing a set of configuration and management services for Mac OS X desktop deployments.

Given that Apple doesn't even make a rack appropriate machine these days, there seems to be little effort to run an Apple operating system in the data center.  I can't say I blame them.  Between Linux and Windows, there isn't a lot of room right now for yet another server operating system.

[JohnR]

So really, the 2007 iPhone straightjacket really isn't all that different than the Mac straightjacket from 1984.

Thank you for the long and detailed post, that was very helpful for me, and made me really think more about the Apple "ecosystem"/"straightjacket"

[JohnR]

Client SSH apps have always existed on the iPhone (and assume on Android),

Hm, in that case I don't know why I never installed an ssh app on my iPhone. It must have been some other reason.

[JohnR]

There's been a lot of press about the lack of SW updates for Android phones. Just looking at the wikipedia you can see the fragmentation.   Here's a pretty eye-chart that details the issue even further.     Bottom line, don't expect to get a major software update, which will could lock you out of updates or new apps.

Thanks for that, it's very enlightening. It's been awhile in this thread, but (I think?) it reinforces my point that a phone is not / should not be like a computer. In the sense that it is what it is when you buy it. "Upgrades" are a bonus. Honestly, the delta up to iOS5 on my 3gs is fairly marginal, and I'm not entirely sure that it's not actually a step backwards (hard to tell given the physical issues that phone is having).

The system set up by the telcos whereby most people renew a contract and get a new phone every two years works against this as well. Why do upgrades matter if you're just going to chuck it and get a new one?

Wanting out of the contract treadmill though, you can get good plans with BYO phone for a paltry $11 per month here in AU. So I embraced all of the above and bought a used Nokia N9 for around 40% of the "equlvalent" iPhone. Should be getting it soon, a linux pocket rocket. We'll see, more later.

[wilsynet]

You're going rather against the tidal wave of market forces.

Why get an update?  Because new updates mean ideally (not always) more features and more stability.  If you needed to wait for a major hardware rev before you got a new software version, we'd need to wait years for better versions of things.

Oh, want a bug fixed?  Wait 2 years for the next hardware rev.  Oh, and it would probably take 3 years for a new hardware rev, because they'd need to spend another year testing the software before they could release it because they can't update it after it goes out to manufacturing.

In some cases, you'd never get a new application because app developers would see this incredibly small market size for their apps because it would take 2 years before any significant adoption could conceivably happen.

I like having email and a browser and apps.  Yes, I want apps.  If everyone had to wait for a new version of the iPhone before Skype could be supported, the Skype guys would be wondering how they're ever going to get Skype in people's hands.  Wait 2 years for everyone to cycle through and buy a new phone, or just wait for the software update which supports VOIP applications?

Technology has gotten complex.  But rapid iteration and the infrastructure that exists to enable rapid iteration has meant that you can get more things to more people faster.

Do you need to be an IT person to have a smart phone these days?  I don't think so.  It used to be you needed to be a nerd to have a computer.  Now, not so much.  I think the same thing is true of phones.  It's amazing what our young people are able to do.  And they're voting with their pocket books.

But it's not quite clear to me what the foundation of your thesis is -- why is it that a phone should not be like a computer?

[wilsynet]

It used to be that you had to jailbreak an iphone to get an ssh app on there, but perhaps that is no longer the case.

It used to be the case because there was no app store in the first year of the iPhone and then it took some time for people to write an SSH app for the iPhone.  But if there were no software updates that enabled an app store, and if there was no app store, then you'd need to wait for Apple to give you an SSH app.

Instead they let anyone write an SSH app.

Aren't software updates terrific?

[skunark]

Thanks for that, it's very enlightening. It's been awhile in this thread, but (I think?) it reinforces my point that a phone is not / should not be like a computer. In the sense that it is what it is when you buy it. "Upgrades" are a bonus. Honestly, the delta up to iOS5 on my 3gs is fairly marginal, and I'm not entirely sure that it's not actually a step backwards (hard to tell given the physical issues that phone is having).

The system set up by the telcos whereby most people renew a contract and get a new phone every two years works against this as well. Why do upgrades matter if you're just going to chuck it and get a new one?

Wanting out of the contract treadmill though, you can get good plans with BYO phone for a paltry $11 per month here in AU. So I embraced all of the above and bought a used Nokia N9 for around 40% of the "equlvalent" iPhone. Should be getting it soon, a linux pocket rocket. We'll see, more later.

That's news...  I didn't know you had both an iPhone 3GS and Android in your possession.   I think you will fine that the 3G and 4 have better battery life over the 3GS and 4S.

It's actually more important for a smart phone to get security updates than ever before.   I don't think you have really thought this through, but more or less have the desire to use it as an appliance instead of a computer.  The smartphones are indeed a computer by any definition you can come up with. 

There's already been issues with Android apps and virus, there's even been bad behaved apps on the iPhone, which for most cases there's an update to address this.  For the 'open' and 'jailbroken' systems it's more up to the user to manage issues and for the 'ecosystems' it's pretty much entirely managed for you.    So do you purchase a phone for $200 w/2 year contract where one, you most likely won't ever see an update even if there's a security issue, and another where you will get about 3 years of content update and security updates for a short while after that.

[JohnR]

That's news...  I didn't know you had both an iPhone 3GS and Android in your possession.

The Nexus isn't mine but I've had a pretty good play with it. I might borrow it for a few hours next weekend and do a write up on it. It's really slick, very fast. Better get one while you can though, Apple might be successful this time:

http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/apple-raises-stake-in-samsung-patent-war-20120214-1t2py.html

I don't think I'm going to buy any more Apple phones.

This is a good discussion, more later

[wilsynet]

Are you going to not buy any more Apple products because they're asserting their intellectual property rights?

[JohnR]

Do you think "slide to unlock" is a fair patent? And have you used "slide to unlock" on an Android ICS phone?

[wilsynet]

I had never seen "slide to unlock" on any other phone before I saw it on the iPhone.  I generally find software patents distasteful, usually because the intellectual property being protected is frivolous and trivial.  But given how astonished I was when I saw the slide-to-unlock feature in the 2007 iPhone demo, in all honesty, I don't think this is one of those frivolous patents.  So I'll let a court decide if it's a legitimate and enforceable patent.

This isn't a case of a big guy picking on a little guy.  These are two titans going at it.

It's not like Samsung is a particularly innocent company here.  For example, Samsung pled guilty to criminal charges of price fixing in 2006, helping to defraud consumers of hundred of millions of dollars.

[JohnR]

Well, it seems that everybody is suing everybody, that's true. This diagram is now "old" but it indicates what's going on...

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/whos-suing-whom-in-the-telecoms-trade/

A Dutch (I think it was) court ruled slide to unlock invalid, because there's prior art in a Windows phone. I don't see how your astonishment has any bearing... ! But if "slide to unlock" is valid, then Google should take out a "slide to answer" patent. I mean, I don't think we have much choice other than to "let the courts decide" but we can modify our own actions. You may laugh, but I don't think Apple is playing fair.

[wilsynet]

I don't know how you can take a moral stand against Apple for filing a civil intellectual property lawsuit but not against Samsung for criminally defrauding consumers.

[JohnR]

Hm. You're rather overstating my thoughts on this, but I suppose that could be yet another reason not to buy an iPhone, since Samsung makes the memory in it.

 

[Crimson]

I had never seen "slide to unlock" on any other phone before I saw it on the iPhone.  I generally find software patents distasteful, usually because the intellectual property being protected is frivolous and trivial.  But given how astonished I was when I saw the slide-to-unlock feature in the 2007 iPhone demo, in all honesty, I don't think this is one of those frivolous patents.  So I'll let a court decide if it's a legitimate and enforceable patent.

I agree. When the first gen iPhone was released, that first slide to unlock was 'new'. No sequence of keys to hit, so simple yet there it was.

The next phone I saw it on was a pre-android Samsung something or other. My first impression was literally: an iPhone rip-off.

[JohnR]

Well, as I already pointed out, it wasn't actually new.

Still, why is it that Apple is only seeking an injunction on the Galaxy Nexus, and not on every Android phone?