What even is an OS now?

The phone described in this essay is meant to build applications on demand rather than run fixed-function apps: the author writes that it will build apps for its owner on the phone whenever asked. The premise is that AI lets people create software in plain English, so many programs will serve only one or two people, such as a tool for deciding which road to take home.

From that premise the author argues that strangers will stop supplying finished apps and will instead ship building blocks, and that an operating system's central job of partitioning applications from each other matters less when the software comes from one source. This is a proposal by the author, who says they are building the phone, and the essay withholds technical details, so how it would handle isolation or security is unknown.