Imagine your phone with all of the computing power of your current desktop or laptop, with all of the same software too. If you want to work at a desktop, you could have a wireless keyboard, mouse, display, and power. This is all possible today, but the phones aren't quite there, yet.
If you don't need specialised tools, I personally think a tablet is much nicer than a laptop. A phone is basically just a smaller tablet.
That's an interesting perspective. I've always thought of phones and tablets as being mostly collections of tools that are either specialized or focused on remote access. Almost everything that I do on my touchscreen devices relies on network access, to some degree or another.
What I wish I could have is a phone that I can copy an arbitrary python script to, then execute it. No "Android Studio" or "Xcode" monstrosity to create and load software. Just my text editor and a shell.
You can already do this on Android no problem: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31564123/run-python-in-a...
The underlying problem with android, as touched on in the article, is that your hardware vendor is the administrator of your phone.
Security on Android relies in the idea that who ever built the OS signs it, and any changes to system libraries, with a secret key. That's a lot of control. Couple that with lack of root and its not your phone.
Termux is like saying... 'I wish I owned my flat so I could remodell it how I want " "it is possible to redecorated your rented flat if you only put plasterboard over the walls"
Will solve thier problem, doesn't fix the insidious loss of power over our computerised lives these platforms (Android, Web applications) lead to.
And since Android 7 has a split screen feature I can have a YouTube video playing while I'm surfing the web. So multitasking isn't just a PC domain anymore.