Can someone ELI5, why the phone landscape is so different from PCs? Why can I take a Linux iso and install it on basically any x86 pc from the last 25 years, but if I want to install anything on my phone, I need an image specially tailored for my specific model.
PCs have a BIOS/UEFI that provides hardware discovery and abstraction to the OS, while phones lack that and need the OS to know what hardware to expect.
20 years ago when the predecessors to modern smartphone hardware were being designed, there probably would have been meaningful costs to adding that kind of flexibility. There probably wouldn’t today, but there’s also no motivation for phone makers to do it.
Can someone ELI5, why the phone landscape is so different from PCs? Why can I take a Linux iso and install it on basically any x86 pc from the last 25 years, but if I want to install anything on my phone, I need an image specially tailored for my specific model.
PCs have a BIOS/UEFI that provides hardware discovery and abstraction to the OS, while phones lack that and need the OS to know what hardware to expect.
20 years ago when the predecessors to modern smartphone hardware were being designed, there probably would have been meaningful costs to adding that kind of flexibility. There probably wouldn’t today, but there’s also no motivation for phone makers to do it.