Locked-Down Devices

Why should society accept general purpose computing devices being arbitrarily locked down?

Please point me to the smartphone that I can freely do whatever I want with. For all Apple devices, it's non-existent. For Android there's only a few limited options left that ship with a bootloader that can be unlocked.The point is that this isn't 1986 anymore and when everyone's devices are locked down it prevents competition because there's no distribution method for homebrew software. If there was no ability to install custom OSs on IBM and IBM-compatible machines

Its a self created problem of locked down user hostile devices. Operating system and software upgrades are not locked to the hardware manufacturer in the laptop world (not yet, for the most part). It is a pipe dream of mine that someday these attacks are used as an excuse by some government perhaps the EU to force opening up devices for install of other operating systems, maybe forced to open sourcing firmware etc.

Not a single device you own gives you full control. If you have a wifi or LTE modem attached to your device, chances are it runs some firmware you cannot override for legal reasons as you would be at risk of breaking some laws by doing so. It feels like folks draw the line based on what runs on the primary CPU (in particular the kernel), but this is strangely arbitrary. There are all sorts of technologies that will slowly make this appear to work while simply shrinking what you are capable of do

Regardless of whether we expect manufacturers to let us run any code on the device, we should not restrict people from attempting to bypass the manufacturers limitations. That gives the manufacturer freedom to try and lock the device down but also the owner freedom to break those locks. Otherwise it worsens situations like the FutureHome scandal.

Maybe because the same user who broke things on the computer is locked out on the phone/tablet so they can't break things. If it's broken it'll either be hardware issue or a firmware/os/app problem that has to be solved by the maker/developer.In my experience supporting users of PCs, Macs, and Android and Apple phones/tablets, very few users have any desire for root access or any idea what to do with it when they have it. Their device is going to belong to others no matter what, maybe it's b

You should stop supporting Apple or hoping they would change. Lock-down is their approach to everything. Microsoft is behind but following the same direction. GNU/Linux smartphones and tablets do not restrict what you do and run desktop OSes. Connecting a keyboard turns them in full laptops.

The argument is "it's an allowable trade off for a hardware product to be locked down and for consumers to decide whether they still want to buy it given the restrictions" not "all hardware must be locked down and all software approved by corporations/government"- the latter is clearly not OK.

1) When the user owns the device it is up to him to decide what to do with it and not the manufacturer. So while they may not have the need for it, they definitely have the right to it if they so desire.2) No you cant. You must use exploits/vulnerabilities usually. The only vendor that I know of that just sends you unlock code on request is HTC.3) Yesterday I played Diablo 1 on my windows 8 machine. 3 months before that - Lotus (the game). That is measured in decades. How backwards capabil

it is the reality for mobile.on iphone you can't even install software that apple doesn't explicitly allow.they would love to extend this to all computing devices to remove control