Really it’s a question of history. When computers first started getting popular in the 90s, it wasn’t standard for them to be sold with an operating system. You had to buy that on top - or use Linux, and even for that you generally ordered floppies, since the internet was just emerging back then. Just look at some of the old Windows ads - there’s no talk about an OS shipped with your computer, you’re supposed to order floppies and then install it. Windows wasn’t the de facto standard, yet, either, so hardware companies needed a way to ensure that their customers were able to install whichever OS they wanted to. So they created standards, and those standards live onto this day, providing Linux with a comparatively simple platform to operate on.
Smartphones only started becoming a thing in the early 2000’s. And by then, it was normal for a computer to be shipped with an operating system, and people had become used to just sticking with what their computer came with. Add to that that smartphones were not built on x86 chips (which is still what powers the vast majority of desktops and laptops), so new operating systems had to be built anyway, so there was not much of any incentive to create some universal standard that can be used by other operating systems. In the meantime, Apple has shown how lucrative it can be to completely lock your customers on your platform, and Google has taken note and followed suit. So now, it’s not just “can the OS run on my device” (which is enough of a clusterfuck in and of itself) and “will the apps I need run on this OS”, but “will the apps I need refuse to run because my phone doesn’t 100% look like Apple or Google want it to”.
Really it’s a question of history. When computers first started getting popular in the 90s, it wasn’t standard for them to be sold with an operating system. You had to buy that on top - or use Linux, and even for that you generally ordered floppies, since the internet was just emerging back then. Just look at some of the old Windows ads - there’s no talk about an OS shipped with your computer, you’re supposed to order floppies and then install it. Windows wasn’t the de facto standard, yet, either, so hardware companies needed a way to ensure that their customers were able to install whichever OS they wanted to. So they created standards, and those standards live onto this day, providing Linux with a comparatively simple platform to operate on.
Smartphones only started becoming a thing in the early 2000’s. And by then, it was normal for a computer to be shipped with an operating system, and people had become used to just sticking with what their computer came with. Add to that that smartphones were not built on x86 chips (which is still what powers the vast majority of desktops and laptops), so new operating systems had to be built anyway, so there was not much of any incentive to create some universal standard that can be used by other operating systems. In the meantime, Apple has shown how lucrative it can be to completely lock your customers on your platform, and Google has taken note and followed suit. So now, it’s not just “can the OS run on my device” (which is enough of a clusterfuck in and of itself) and “will the apps I need run on this OS”, but “will the apps I need refuse to run because my phone doesn’t 100% look like Apple or Google want it to”.
Yes, it’s pretty frustrating. If not infuriating.