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Comment by sublinear | Hacker News Reader

No, everyone knew what they were getting into with Android. It wasn't taken lightly by the power users of the time either. I still have a phone somewhere with Ubuntu Touch on it. I really was hoping that would be my phone OS by now. Not that Canonical isn't capable of similar, but that it would bring about acceptance of Linux phones.

I think we're all more surprised by how long it took for Google to make these bad moves. For a period of time in the 2010s we actually started thinking maybe Google was alright.

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It wasn't Canonical's limitation. Mozilla can confirm: the barriers to enter the phone manufacturing market are immense. Samsung, Ericsson, Sony, LG, etc, all had solid control of the deals with the network operators worldwide. It's a highly regulated market, you can't get in without Verizon, att, Vodafone etc to let you in. Canonical, Open Moko, Mozilla... Didn't have the strength to push through. Google and Apple did.

It's operators that have grips on manufacturers. Phone OEMs don't make any without the sales networks and financing structures of cellular carriers.

This is to extent that some carriers still insist that they design phones and phone manufacturers are just factories. People need to understand that power dynamic before blaming those "mere factories" for not making Linux phones.

There has to be like an SVP of SoandSo Wireless pushing like three pillar approach of iOS, Android and Linux. Otherwise the pitch decks for any alternative phones just go straight to trash(or into a motorized shredder if it is still physical).

>It's operators that have grips on manufacturers

Only in the USA.

In quite many more countries than just USA. A lot of people would still buy phones through carriers even where they come unlocked.

Worst case we can buy phones and physically replace their Application Processors with liberated ones.

No, not really. It would be easier to build one from scratch.

With a cell modem desoldered from another phone. Remember we're talking about the hypothetical case where cell modems are only available to approved phone manufacturers.

Apple didn’t initially - they shopped around before they found a small carrier (Cingular) willing to accept their demands. Their popularity forced all the other carriers to gradually come around.

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