I don’t off hand, but it is an excellent question.
An obvious area that iOS and Android are more mature than the FOSS alternatives is accessibility. You could easily spend 10 years just marshaling a project in that area.
Another obvious area is data persistence across devices. I’m sure there is a better name for this, but what I mean is that signing in to an iOS device is pretty much all that is needed for my data to start appearing. Apps and data will be populated from the cloud, whether it is from iCloud Drive or from a backup. Losing, upgrading, or adding a device has very little impact on workflow other than the cost of hardware.
This is an extremely valuable and sticky feature, and is part of what makes these devices into consumer ‘appliances’ rather than traditional computers.
The architecture to achieve this in Apple’s case is exactly where most of the complaints are targeted. E.g. the App Store, iCloud backups, and other services like photos.
The challenge is to engineer a set of alternatives that yield similar end-user benefits, but without creating dependence on a trusted (or distrusted in Apple’s case) central actor.
This seems to me like another area where many people could spend 10 years working.
An obvious area that iOS and Android are more mature than the FOSS alternatives is accessibility. You could easily spend 10 years just marshaling a project in that area.
Another obvious area is data persistence across devices. I’m sure there is a better name for this, but what I mean is that signing in to an iOS device is pretty much all that is needed for my data to start appearing. Apps and data will be populated from the cloud, whether it is from iCloud Drive or from a backup. Losing, upgrading, or adding a device has very little impact on workflow other than the cost of hardware.
This is an extremely valuable and sticky feature, and is part of what makes these devices into consumer ‘appliances’ rather than traditional computers.
The architecture to achieve this in Apple’s case is exactly where most of the complaints are targeted. E.g. the App Store, iCloud backups, and other services like photos.
The challenge is to engineer a set of alternatives that yield similar end-user benefits, but without creating dependence on a trusted (or distrusted in Apple’s case) central actor.
This seems to me like another area where many people could spend 10 years working.