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Comment by charcircuit | Hacker News Reader

>Installing applications on your computer is the normal state of things.

It really wasn't. It wasn't normal to install arbitrary applications on the computers in your fridge, dishwasher, game consoles, flip phones, washing machines, etc. Platforms have varied over time in how open they are to having other people developing for them. iOS is an example of a more closed platform and has shown that closed platforms can be successful. You can see Windows as a more open platform in comparison which was also successful. How open a platform is comes with different trade offs.

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The question is which of these is a general purpose computer and which isn't. IMHO if what people tend to do on a platform is the same as what they do on a PC then that platform should also be forced to be a general-purposed computer and allow (in some roundabout way) arbitrary application installation.

For example, a smartphone replaces a PC for a lot of people. I even know some people in their 20s that don't own a "normal" laptop/desktop and they do most of their general purpose computing on their phones. In the meantime, nobody uses a Nintendo Switch or their dishwasher to do a quick edit of an excel sheet or access their bank account even if they are technically capable of doing so.

What is your definition of "general purpose computer." I would disagree that PCs should allow for arbitrary application installs. Take for example chromebooks. They are one of the most secure PCs out there partly due to not allowing arbitrary apps to be installed.

But they do allow arbitrary code execution inside the Linux VM. You can also write your own extensions which is not arbitrary code but pretty close. Maybe arbitrary userland code is the correct term here.

> iOS is an example of a more closed platform and has shown that closed platforms can be successful.

It is successful despite being closed, not because of it.

Do you have any evidence backing this idea? It is reasonable to believe that the closed platform allowed for the platform to be more trust worthy making it grow faster due to more people seeing it as a platform they can trust. Or maybe an open platform would have led to mass piracy of apps meaning there is less motivation for developers to make apps.

> Do you have any evidence backing this idea?

First search in Google.

https://source.sheridancollege.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...

Also, from my own discussion over the years with different people, security topic popped up only when iOS fans tried to diss Android users.

This paper does not show that being closed was negative to the success of the iphone.

It does mention that "perceived security" was a factor.

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