You're right. Growing up with PCs I took for granted the fact I could download any OS and install it easily. It's so incredibly different to the closed off world of tablets and phones, where getting any non-OEM code to run is a huge undertaking. A few years ago this seemed OK, because the phones and tablets were low powered utilities. Today they're rapidly becoming our PCs and so we're quickly moving towards a world in which our primary PCs are completely closed devices.
It's remarkable that I could easily dust off my 2002 era desktop and boot a modern Linux distro, but that trying to get my 2013 era tablet to boot anything other than the Android 4.4 that it shipped with would be a huge struggle. It's such a shame things are going this way.
It's remarkable that I could easily dust off my 2002 era desktop and boot a modern Linux distro, but that trying to get my 2013 era tablet to boot anything other than the Android 4.4 that it shipped with would be a huge struggle. It's such a shame things are going this way.