Not sure why I thought about this, but figured it might be of interest to people out there. Back in the early 2000s, I was writing system software for mobile devices. The code quality was okay, but the feature set was horrible. Me and a couple other folks thought it would be a decent idea to build our own mobile phones out of telematics modules so we could put our own software on them.

Fortunately, shortly after this was taped Google announced they would let people write apps for their upcoming Android phones. Apple was (I believe) shamed into doing the same and quickly discovered they could make money selling apps (this wasn't obvious at the time.)

Hard to believe, but there was a time when Apple and Google didn't think it was worth it to open the mobile ecosystem to ISVs. Also sort of hilarious that MSFT at the time, who made their first fortune with a DOS that enabled ISVs in the 1980s completely misunderstood what the app economy would eventually evolve into. But to be fair, that might have been the fault of the carriers who (even to this day) really only view mobile handsets as a narrow plastic money trench.

The "Homebrew Mobile Phone Club" sort of fizzled after the app economies established themselves, but with the widescale enshittification, maybe it's time to start the DIY mobile club back up.

very interesting.

i was thinking down that path over the last week or so, mentioned it to a friend who then told me he had been starting to think about it as well.

at a very basic level, i think people could become more interested in the topic due to the increased ability for even non-technical people to (in theory) whip up very niche apps for themselves.