After all that rambling and ranting about the iPhone, let's focus on
something more positive.
What would the ideal smartphone look like for me?
In essence, it would be a miniaturized portable PC.
What I mean is something that can replace my desktop PC and my laptop.
Something that can run the same software as my PC. I can freely choose
between operating systems. I can easily write my own software. All the
hardware parts are replaceable.
Of course, tasks such as "writing software" are a bit difficult if all
you have is a touchscreen (my hypothetical phone would be built like
today's smartphones, so it just has a touchscreen, not a builtin tiny
keyboard or something like that). So my ideal smartphone would come with
a dock where I can connect an external monitor, keyboard, mouse,
ethernet, everything. When connected to this dock, the "smartphone" acts
like a normal PC. Really, it's just a smaller version of a laptop and it
just happens to have cell phone capability.
Actually, this "docked mode" would be the main mode of operation. I'd
use this thing as my main machine. Then, when I leave the house, I
disconnect the "smartphone" from its dock and now it temporarily
switches to "smartphone mode": The builtin touchscreen turns on and it
works more or less like today's smartphones. Big icons, big buttons,
simplified UI (because you can't use a "real" UI with a touchscreen).
The point is that I'm now able to have my actual "PC" with me all the
time. And *that* is what would make it really interesting. I have this
one device, it's my main machine, I can carry it everywhere -- and once
connected to a dock, it turns back from "smartphone mode" to "PC mode".
I can do everything with it that I can do now on my PC.
I'm not sure if I can get my point across here, because today's
smartphones already do just that for many people. Some of my relatives
rarely use their PC or laptop anymore -- their smartphone can do
everything they want to do. Sadly, that's not the case for me. A normal
smartphone as of 2021 feels like a toy and a cage to me. I can't "work"
with that. I need the full "standard" PC experience.
Again, my goal would be to get rid of my actual PC and my laptop. Just
this hypothetical smartphone. What a dream!
Around 2010, "netbooks" were popular and they almost fulfilled all those
requirements. They were just a little too big and too clunky to really
take them everywhere you go. Today's smartphones, though, fit in your
pocket, and their battery lasts much longer than that of a netbook.
Now, the interesting part is: I've seen some reviews of the PinePhone
and it actually comes pretty close! It even comes with a dock! I don't
know if it's *meant* to be used like I described it ... I somewhat doubt
it, because people are so used to the current way of using smartphones.
I get the impression that people don't want the same thing I do -- or
that today's smartphones already fulfill their requirements.
(Let's ignore that the PinePhone as well as my hypothetical smartphone
are neither Android nor iOS, which poses quite some problems in real
life, as those are the only two supported platforms for a lot of stuff.)
Maybe I should order a PinePhone? It's still very early and still marked
as "Beta", but since I don't want a "standard smartphone experience"
anyway, it could be worth a shot.
