Yeah, it’s not like an open phone ecosystem couldn’t be created, that’s for sure. If the whole industry would come together they could clearly make an open-standard system that would work just as well with custom OSes as x86/x64 does.
My point was that right now in the current setup that exists, someone like Valve couldn’t just waltz in, create their own Custom ROM and expect that it just works on all phones.
The point (that you made, that) I want to emphasize is: Valve is a hardware manufacturer now.
And I would absolutely buy an AARCH64 Steam Deck that could replace my Android.
That would be the only viable way that something like SteamOS would make it onto phones. Either first-party manufacturing by Valve (like the Steam Deck) or partnerships with other first-party manufacturers.
Sounds we are very much on the same side of this discussion.
The main issue with a non-Android SteamOS phone would be the apps. It would be amazing for gaming, but if it doesn’t run Android/iOS apps (with the latter being extremely unlikely), it will likely suffer the fate of all the other smaller phone OSes. The main issue I see there is that if I would use a SteamOS-phone, I’d still have to carry a regular Android phone for all the apps I need (2FA/Authenticators, government 2FA, banking app, public transport, messaging, …). The only use case that would really benefit from a SteamOS phone would be gaming. So in the end, a better device to fill that use case would be a small handheld gaming device with a built-in controller. Basically a Switch Lite Steam Deck.
Yeah, it’s not like an open phone ecosystem couldn’t be created, that’s for sure. If the whole industry would come together they could clearly make an open-standard system that would work just as well with custom OSes as x86/x64 does.
My point was that right now in the current setup that exists, someone like Valve couldn’t just waltz in, create their own Custom ROM and expect that it just works on all phones.
That would be the only viable way that something like SteamOS would make it onto phones. Either first-party manufacturing by Valve (like the Steam Deck) or partnerships with other first-party manufacturers.
Sounds we are very much on the same side of this discussion.
The main issue with a non-Android SteamOS phone would be the apps. It would be amazing for gaming, but if it doesn’t run Android/iOS apps (with the latter being extremely unlikely), it will likely suffer the fate of all the other smaller phone OSes. The main issue I see there is that if I would use a SteamOS-phone, I’d still have to carry a regular Android phone for all the apps I need (2FA/Authenticators, government 2FA, banking app, public transport, messaging, …). The only use case that would really benefit from a SteamOS phone would be gaming. So in the end, a better device to fill that use case would be a small handheld gaming device with a built-in controller. Basically a Switch Lite Steam Deck.