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I was just thinking along these lines. My parents have pretty much switched to using iPads for everything. They treat them like laptops, and it’s honestly not like they aren’t as functional for what my parents need.
And, Microsoft aside, there is a big corporate interest in encouraging that. Buy a disposable, planned obsolescence-driven single device, stay within the ecosystem.
People have been mad at Windows for so long they forget the reason we're supposed to be mad is it drifting closer to that in the first place.
There is corporate interest to that, but I don't understand how it isn't profitable to make a device killing it.
An ARM PC in tablet form with Linux and Gnome, with open everything, receiving updates.
BTW, ecosystem is an interesting word. It means a stable system with a hierarchical food chain. Specifically designed to extract value again and again for the same service which isn't even unique, in a controllable and predictable way. Maybe the Matrix with human farms was more of a prophecy than people tend to think.
For one thing, nobody cares about it and they will never care about it.
Usability and convenience trump those concerns 100% of the time.
The point of a device killing it is you have to compete on usability and convenience as a trojan horse for your political stance on those issues.
The problem is how you get there given the extreme costs of hardware development (let alone of matching the Google components of Android) and the massive incentive to... you know, make money. The few things that meet that description are hard to use, clunky, underpowered and unappealing.
That's the problem someone needs to fix. I just don't see anybody even seriously trying, beyond niche products for techheads.
I'd lower the bar TBH.
No need to have something powerful. No need to have three cameras almost good enough for professional purposes.
Hardware development is not that extremely expensive in this case, it's not an iPad, we need to fit something like RPi with Linux and Gnome into a box with a battery, a few antennae and peripheral devices. Make microphone and camera with a hardware switch. Maybe even a GPS antenna with that.
It has to be marketed accordingly, as something less. The box shouldn't be thinner than an iPad or cooler than an iPad, just convenient enough to hold. Ergonomic tests are not that hard. I mean, hiring people to do them costs something, yes.
What matters in marketing when you're the underdog - is being precise. When you're the overlord, you are teaching the consumers what to expect, so you can misposition a product. Here, I think, you can't.
So if you can't compete in the same niche, make a slightly (but clearly) different niche and make it clear that you are aiming for that, and make a device for that.
And make (like Apple does) a few scripted ways of using the device. Thoroughly checked to be workable.
I guess this adds up to some expense, but not nearly what those companies spend trying to make their things thin, sleek and hard to repair, and appealing to blonde girls.
Ah, like a chromebook!
Didn't go super well though
No, the opposite. To have a normal Linux and an open hardware system. And no Broadcom.
Actually a reimagining of olden ThinkPads with proper screen ratios and keyboards and everything would be nice too.
Refurbished ones have a few downsides.
An iPad is already not convenient enough to hold.
This just doesn't work. There is no "smaller niche" for mobile phones and tablets. They are already commodity products. Commercial phones start at 100-200 bucks and are very competent these days. 300-400 are insanely good for the price. And current FOSS-focused options are more expensive and have worse usability.
Giving the FOSS space an out on competing on features because it's a different proposition is not going to work. People are fine with the current proposition, which is why they all already own a phone and probably have access to a tablet. They don't need what you're offering. They need something that does the same thing as their current device AND has an extra advantage on top of that. Ideally a sexy advantage that looks good in a keynote and gets a ton of tech influencer hype and looks good in ads.
It's not about less expensive, it's about not too expensive to try. Say, most Linux phones I can think of start a bit higher than I'd wish.
I think we'll see a time the general public becomes more conscious of the risks. The world is changing, and has already changed enough.
I don't see an indication of that anywhere.
I think there's an awareness of being screwed over on a societal level, but it's on a climate change-like "I know it'd bad but don't see intuitive links to my actions" way.
People will enjoy the "FOSS" label on something the way they enjoy a "Vegan" or "Organic" label in their food. It's nice if it's there, but it won't trump any other considerations for convenience or taste.
So in that sense, people will try a phone if it costs the same, looks the same and has all the same features, but won't take any inconvenience for the sake of privacy or control. So what you end up with is stuff like Nothing phones, Fairphones or Framework laptops that are still fundamentally Android or Windows commercial devices with some concessions to leftie techhead posturing. And even then those are niche options.
No, I don't mean anything like "climate change", I mean the looming promise of full-blown Orwellian world, that is most beneficial for people in power when it's not visible or felt, but they can't prevent it. So over time more and more people will realize that we are already there.
It's the same. World on fire, surveillance economy... both are real world problems that are already noticeable and people generally will admit are bad, but are too detached from individual action to trigger spontaneous mass choices.
The difference is for climate action you probably need regulation, but while regulation will limit what corporations can't do, it won't (arguably shouldn't) enforce a FOSS-driven ecosystem.