Phones started out on a very different path than computers did. The first phones where simple electronic devices and remained more or less the same for decades. By the seventies electronics became cheaper and cheaper, and phones started to incorporate electronics in them. Then came mobile phones, which started out really as just fancy two-way radios with a familiar interface. Somewhere in the ninties, something different started to happen: mobile phones slowly started becoming computers.

There were special low-power processors designed for them, small high resolution screens started to show up, and flash memory got ever cheaper and easier to use. Without most people noticing it, their handset had morphed into a pretty powerful computer. The handset manufacturers and telecoms took advantage of this and started offering more and more features. They could always sell more handsets and services as people started using their phones for more than just simple phone calls. Since most people didn’t think of their phone as a computer, they didn’t really think about being able to upgrade the operating system or install new software, things we all take for granted on our computers.

The vast majority of mobile phones completely block the possibility of upgrading the operating system at all. They even successfully lobbied to make it illegal for people to do it themselves. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes it illegal to unlock built-in features or try to circumvent their blocks in order to upgrade the operating system. Thankfully, the Library of Congress was given the power to issue exemptions to the DMCA restrictions [1]. And they did just that, so now people are allowed to fully own their devices, and upgrade their software, or unlock features.

Mobile companies do their best to continue this myth that phones are by their very nature fixed devices. Their business models drive them to tell their customers that they are only consumers, the telecoms will magically provide software on their phone.

It is now quite clear, mobile phones ARE PCs, they have fast CPUs, memory, and storage just like PCs. They are even started to have graphics processors like PCs. The ARM CPU architecture is as ubiqitous in mobile devices as the Intel x86 architecture is on home computers. All these mobile and embedded devices are almost as generic as the generic PC. Now, if computer manufacturers started treating their customers as telecoms treat theirs, there would be widespread revolt. “What do you mean, I can’t install my own software?”; “Are you seriously telling me that I can never upgrade my OS?”

The world is now at the point where most people will only ever experience computing with a mobile phone. In the developed world, we are shifting more and more things to our mobile devices. The PC unleashed an amazing explosion of innovation and growth, are we ready to give them up just because the mobile industry is built upon faulty business models which are protected by the monopolistic behavior of massive corporations?