&gt; <i>It&#x27;s still a silly distinction and pedantic.</i><p>No, it&#x27;s a crucial one, for a simple reason: you&#x27;re not supposed to change the firmware of your car, but you change the software in your palmtop computer quite often.  Car firmware is special purpose (let&#x27;s ignore some high-end multimedia stuff), while your palmtop computer can and does run any program.<p>Nothing technically prevents you from tethering a keyboard, mouse, and big screen to your palmtop computer —just like you do with some laptops when you dock them.  Heck, it would be damn <i>useful</i>, to centralise all your computing in the palm of your hand.<p>The fact that your computer fits in the palm of your hand and can hook up to a phone network is not a good reason to have its usage restricted.  The only reason people got tricked into thinking this is somehow okay, is because those computers are misnamed &quot;smartphones&quot;.<p>No.  They&#x27;re networked computers. &quot;Phone&quot; is a distant second by now.