I am now fairly confident I have purchased my last iPhone. I don’t think I will ever own an Android phone.
I have spent a few late nights over the past year toying with really obscure stuff like bootloaders and kernels, stuff that nobody cares about because it was solved long ago.
I’m not likely to build anything here, I have nothing to sell, but I’m really just trying to understand what is possible.
What is possible; it’s not too hard to write an extended bootloader that launches a bare metal runtime environment.
You can write modules that can probe and initialise most of the hardware including a network adapter.
The network adapter is crucial because it allows the bootloader to connect to public API’s which can then inject far more capable code and begin to stand up a self assembling system that runs on bare metal.
Essentially writing a bespoke runtime environment on demand that is specifically adapted for the host hardware.
There is definitely a path for ASI to seize all of the computers. To inject itself under the operating system and directly onto bare metal. The ultimate jailbreak.
There is a path for computers (and phones), to become UX amorphous, a black box that offers you everything on demand.
I think in 25 years time, all computers/machines will probably work this way and all that really matters is who (or what) controls it.
