Comment by ahartmetz
2 days ago
Android and iOS increased security, but at the cost of much flexibility and user agency. It's some kind of progress, but I certainly wouldn't want them for Real Computers.
2 days ago
Android and iOS increased security, but at the cost of much flexibility and user agency. It's some kind of progress, but I certainly wouldn't want them for Real Computers.
Android is just Linux running a Java VM and a funky userland. iOS is just MacOS apple decided you can't do real work on. Both are still unix clones (as contrast to a unix-like like plan9 or haiku)
The kernel is obviously close to vanilla Linux, but one could also define the OS as "which lower-level services and interfaces the applications see and are programmed to use" - so the stuff on top of Linux matters.
There are more interesting, general, and lower level innovations out there - sure. But the mobile OSes do have improved security from some kind of permission system, VM (only partially because native components are common), one user account per app (IIRC) and such.
Right but what I'm trying to say is that the core architecture hasn't really changed since the 90s. All the improvements you mentioned are non-applicable to my statements. One user account per app is just a hacky way to use unixes timesharing origins for increased security, VMs and containers slap a bandaid on the problems, and permission systems like android and iOS have are just a hack that works nicely since they use sandboxed software. Plus, these are all security based, which while the topic of the discussion overall, wasn't what I meant when it came to OS innovation in general (an important part, though)