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const_castlast Tuesday at 1:19 PM1 replyview on HN

That's not what a general computation device is and you know it. Do not play stupid or bullshit me.

For MOST people, a smartphone is their only computational device. Let me say that again. It is their _ONLY_ device.

Could you live your life using only a PS5? How about you throw away your phone and replace it with a washing machine?

The smartphone IS NOT an appliance. It is absolutely a general computational device. I can't believe this is even up for debate, it's actually blowing my mind.


Replies

divanlast Tuesday at 6:08 PM

You're not even wrong. In your words, a "general computation device" is the device that enables you to "live your life"? How does "being their only device" make it even "general computational"?

I have no idea what your definition of "general computational device" is, but it's very clearly different from mine.

In my worldview, "general computational device" is the piece of hardware specifically designed to run any program you want. Personal computers, desktop computers, servers, and mini-computers are examples of these.

Smartphones - with the exception of a few very niche devices – have never been any of this. They didn't start as "mini-PC", they grew out of telephony – a heavily regulated industry with strict standards around the usage of frequencies, and where compliance and billing matter more than ability to tinker. The ability to "run apps" was never even on the table in pre-iPhone era. iPhone, ofc, changed it by pioneering the app market, and it was locked in from the very beginning - for security and user experience reasons. We can argue whether that was a good decision or not, but that's the short history of smartphones never being a "general purpose computational device". Modern phones are heavily optimized, specialized devices for the "daily life" tasks - camera, navigation, calls, messaging, web browsing – that also have very limited and sandboxed capability to run apps in a way that the manufacturers allowed.

So no, phones are not "general computational devices" and have never been. I'm sorry that your worldview doesn't allow listening to other people's opinions. Debating is indeed very hard without it.

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