The phone having more apps is just objectively untrue isn't it? In the last 50 years of personal computing, there have been pieces of software so diverse that you couldn't even put everything that was built in a book you could hold. There pretty much wasn't a productivty task, entertainment task or a part of your computing experience that you couldn't somehow customize and speed up by some piece of tool someone built.
If anyhing, *huge part* of that software cannot be replicated on your phone because the golden cage owner decided that you're not allowed to have it until they monetize it on you.
Objectively, the phone has had more software. Google Play even now lists 1.6 million apps. Apple has 1.8 million. This does not include delisted apps, or LOB apps, so the only relevant comparison is publicly available Windows and Mac apps currently on the market. For context, Steam has around 0.1M. And if you go by sales volume from app stores, Steam had $10B in revenue, Apple had $85B. Apple makes about 4x as much profit from the gaming market than Steam. (Yes, Steam is actually a gaming market minority.)
> If anyhing, huge part of that software cannot be replicated on your phone because the golden cage owner decided that you're not allowed to have it until they monetize it on you.
Objectively, most people have no desire for old software. Nobody wants a 10 year old video editor. Even retro video games, the most heavy market for retro software, is a drop in the bucket.
Terrible example. Many professionals, hobbyists and casuals do, actually. The only reason I still have a Mac is running ancient versions of CS and Premiere..
The only things Im really missing are codecs and, well, running it on a modern OS. Still prefer it over the cloud crap. I guess you think Im a “nobody“.
A law firm I worked for had some elderly senior partners who still used typewriters for documents they submitted to court. While they could have had a paralegal type everything in for them, they'd been using their typewriters for probably close to half a century. Muscle memory and a well-established workflow was more important to them than having their documents in a CMS.
> Objectively, most people have no desire for old software. Nobody wants a 10 year old video editor. Even retro video games, the most heavy market for retro software, is a drop in the bucket.
I'm not talking about old software (yet another weasel thing you dragged into the conversation). I'm talking about software that you're not allowed to have at all - software that automates your phone, software that processes your data, modifies how your phone looks or works, software that modifies other software on your phone (e.g. Outlook itself had a massive ecosystem of productivity plugins just byitself to serve the user).
The fact that those whole businesses existed and still exist for decades directly contracticts your "users don't want it" bull coming directly from corporate whiteknighting.
There are multiple games stores fo PC. Next to Steam you have, e.g., GOG and Itch. How many app stores are there on iOS? And the phone app stores have every category of application, not only games. I doubt you'll find, say, Borland Turbo Pascal on GOG. And that's without going into so-called 'legacy' software. There was so much shovelware made for DOS that it almost makes the Apple App Store look like it's not a heinous garbage dump.
Actually now I wonder how many text editors have been made for PC, must be in the thousands.
If anyhing, *huge part* of that software cannot be replicated on your phone because the golden cage owner decided that you're not allowed to have it until they monetize it on you.