i had a very similar experience and it is infuriating. i can’t believe nobody makes a smartphone that is just a computer. android is closer but its only a half step.
Android with termux is a pretty good approximation to a handheld GNU/linux machine. You can access the files created by other apps on the phone, so it's easy to cat text files in your Dropbox area, etc. you can wget files from other machines. You can ssh into the phone from your desktop machine, and then work on the phone with a real keyboard. GNU compilers work on the phone. About the only complaint I have is that I have not found an X11 server app for Android that is useful, and it's not been for lack of looking.
A smartphone that's "just a computer" is probably gonna be pretty bad for most people. Even the more-restrictive Apple App Store has to be constantly on guard against apps trying to get around the rules and spy on users and eat battery for no good reason and other undesirable junk—and not just little fly-by-night scamsters, but Facebook and such. Take away any effort to keep that under control and the experience for most of the non-HN crowd would be awful.
