[gwu78]

How about we produce an enclosure that looks about as good as an iPhone or iPad (as some are already doing; hello Samsung). Inside we put cheap electronics, but with no barriers to what software can be run (hello Apple) and no barriers to inspecting each and every line of software code that will be running on our device that we own (hello, Apple). Finally, we install our own open source OS (say, UNIX). That UNIX might be so simple that we could, if desired, compile it ourselves from scratch. Maybe even the compiler itself. No better route to security, if there is such a thing.

If iOS is so great and there is demand, Apple can sell us a license to run it on our device. My guess is that few would pay for this. More likely, the market would demand a windowing GUI, not an entire OS (e.g., one borrowed from CMU, FreeBSD and NetBSD; hello again Apple). Could developers respond and deliver one?

UNIX can do lots of things well. And well enough. That's probably why iOS relies on UNIX and not some other OS. But iOS won't let you do all the things that UNIX will let you do.

Conclusion: iOS is inferior to other, more open, more traditional UNIX alternatives. Apple does make a nice windowing GUI. And some very nice enclosures. Each worth a price, no doubt. But UNIX, the code that does the important stuff, has always been free.

[alanctgardner2]

There is no barrier to what software will run on your nexus device. For example, I could put android, or Ubuntu on my Nexus 4. Doesn't that meet all your requirements? The hardware is even sold near cost, by a well-known manufacturer.

[gwu78]

It might meet some. Does it boot from external media? Can I use my own bootloader? Android or Ubuntu are both Linux. What about something like BSD or Plan9?

To be truthful, my "requirements" include first and foremost, a great looking enclosure. There is a reason for that. I want be able to buy the enclosure separately. This is important.

In my vision, there would multiple sources for boards that might fit inside. Not every user might want or need the same computing power or peripherals.

Imagine, to take an example, if there were multiple RaspberryPi-sized boards. Then you could mix and match different available enclosures[1] with different boards.

1. We are seeing the market respond with many, varied enclosures for the Pi.

There are lots of development boards for sale to consumers, and there are dedicated people porting UNIX OS's to run on them.

What I don't see, generally, are reasonably-priced and attractive enclosures for these boards. The RaspberryPi may be changing this state of affairs, as the Pi enclosure market continues to grow.

Separating out the parts of the device, from the enclosure to the PCB to the OS to the third party software is, you might say, like the UNIX userland philosophy of isolating functions to their own individual utilities. This separation allows more flexibility and more power, in the example of the UNIX userland by allowing the user to filter and redirect output and connect utilities together with pipes.

What are the things Apple does well? Enclosures and graphics, in my opinion. (And controlling their users :) UNIX is not on the list. There are better UNIX alternatives than iOS. My opinion.

Or, as in the article, you can wait and hope that iOS can be improved to be more like those UNIX alternatives.

[alanctgardner2]

While there doesn't exist any project to run BSD or Plan 9 on a Nexus right now, there is literally nothing stopping that from happening (except tremendous apathy from pretty much the whole world).

I don't understand being so hung up on the enclosure. Nothing's stopping you from fabricating new enclosures for Nexus 4s. You could even mass produce them, and repackage new Nexus 4s as a value-added service for people. You could, theoretically, buy up busted iPhones from ebay and repack them as Android devices - although it'd be much easier to buy one of the million fake iPhones from China, which are already basically reference Android devices.

On the UI side, Samsung was on the way to shipping their devices with an iOS clone around the time of the S2. If you want an Android experience which is very similar to iOS, you could even look at MIUI [1], which rips off a bunch of Apple's design philosophy.

In short, everything you asked for is already very possible, it's just that nobody is handing it to you on a platter. You could try to get rich enough to buy 51% of Apple, and redirect their whole corporate focus. Or you could pick an interesting project and start hacking ;)

1. http://en.miui.com/

[gwu78]

Thanks for this. If I can use U-boot with Nexus 4, I will certainly investigate.

[jordanthoms]

Yeah - the only restriction on a Nexus is that if/when you unlock it, you must wipe the data on the phone - which is for completely legitimate security reasons.