There is no alternative.

Apple isn't going to let them build on top of iOS, and anything except those two is dead in the water because it'll never have users because it is missing a bunch of critical apps, and will never have those apps because it doesn't have users.

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wolvoleo an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Remember when we thought IE's monopoly could never be broken? Or windows?

Anything can and will go down. Nothing is forever.

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ryan_lane 37 minutes ago | parent [-]

IE's monopoly was replaced by Chrome and Safari's, and Safari only exists because Apple gives you no choice but to use it on iOS. Firefox had a brief spot on top, but it really didn't last that long.

Windows still has the vast majority share of desktop.

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mitxela 24 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Chrome is the outlier there. It didn't come with any desktop OS and still got near 100% market share, even before Android contributed to that. How? It's worth studying.

	▲	unrented7977 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The made the best browser on the planet in Google's Bell Labs era and then they used it as leverage during their "do evil" era.

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wolvoleo 32 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes but that's my point. Monopolies don't last. We have other ones now yes. But that's because the earlier ones died.

And yes we still have windows as the major desktop OS but don't forget, in the 90s/early 2000s windows was equivalent to computing.

These days the desktop OS is much less relevant than it was and many people don't even own a laptop or desktop anymore. They just do everything on their phone. And Microsoft totally and completely lost that race.

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GeekyBear an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> There is no alternative.

There have been several projects like Ubuntu Touch to create an open Linux for smartphones.

That would be an open alternative.

Android is not open.

	▲	an hour ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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yndoendo an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

FuriLabs makes a Linux phone that is designed as a daily driver. Looking at it to replace Android.

	▲	MrDrMcCoy 20 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I have it. It's far too slow to be useful, and it's not the hardware's fault. GTK and Libhybris are bad separately and hot garbage together. This problem won't be going away while the hardware is relevant.