• Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone
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    8 hours ago

    Before phones that was the only way to install apps though.

    Maybe we should have a term for the inverse, like ‘wallgardening’, or ‘bootlocking’, or ‘corputing’, or ‘inshilling’? 🤔

    • Saapas@piefed.zip
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      8 hours ago

      Before phones

      But the discussion is specifically about phones…? I’ve never heard anyone use sideloading in a different context

      • grandma@sh.itjust.works
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        4 hours ago

        Phones are just computers except they fit in your pocket and have a cellular connection. Distinction without a (meaningful) difference

        • Saapas@piefed.zip
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          4 hours ago

          Phones are a specific type of computer. I wonder if some madlad hates the term “smart phone” so much that they’re out there calling them computers and confusing everyone.

          • ‹Hexa«Back›@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            38 minutes ago

            smart phone literally means phone with computer or computer-like abilities, contrary to popular belief, smartphones existed before the iPhone and in fact didn’t have to be a locked down slab of glass

      • Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone
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        7 hours ago

        Yeah, it’s about phones because they changed established practice, but then why use a new word for what was established practice and not the ‘new’, phone-specific, practice of limiting app availability?

        • Saapas@piefed.zip
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          7 hours ago

          Sideloading is a more specific term than just “installing”, it’s more about where you got the software, the process of installing it. So people started using a more specific term to distinguish it from other types of installing.

          Why people choose to adopt one word or another, I dunno. We just started calling it sideloading and that’s been the term for as long as I remember (though very early on I didn’t read or write much in English)