Apple iPhone: OUT for 2009 on Principle
- Image via Wikipedia
This wasn’t even something I was planning to write about, but I got into a bit of a discussion with Pat Phelan about it over Twitter and thought it’d make a good post.
I am not saying the iPhone is OUT because I’m a Nokia employee and don’t even own an iPhone. That would be like shooting fish in a barrel. I have philosophical reasons for being against the iPhone, namely the way Apple controls what apps can be loaded onto the device.
Only applications found on Apple’s App Store can be loaded onto an iPhone or iPod touch. Clearly, the App Store provides a lot of benefits. It makes it easy for people to find–and buy–applications they want. Nokia could learn a thing or two from the user experience.
The problem is someone–namely Apple–is a gatekeeper as to what apps appear in the store. That’s good–as long as you agree with what Apple is going to choose to allow. They can choose to deny apps on whatever grounds they want, despite publishing guidelines.
It also puts the gatekeeper–in this case, Apple–in a bad spot. When a controversial application comes along, they can’t win with either decision. For example, Pat Phelan thinks that “fart” apps and apps that track menstrual cycles of multiple women are “bottom of the barrel.” In other words, these are apps that Pat thinks shouldn’t have made it through the approval process. Apple loses both ways here: either they boot the apps for an arbitrary reason and get criticized (or even abandoned) by the development community, or they allow these apps and they appear to be “endorsing” programs that are tasteless or worse.
I agree that these apps are not shining examples of human intelligence. However, I am of the opinion that people should be able to write whatever applications they want, sell them, and consumers should be able to buy whatever applications they want and install them on hardware they paid good money for. It’s a matter of principle, and the Apple iPhone is completely incompatible with it.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=0388eb50-e2a2-4190-b1cd-b704d17169d2)
Bookmark with: del.icio.us Digg it Furl iFeedReaders ma.gnolia Maple.nu RawSugar reddit Simpy StumbleUpon
Tags: App Store, apple, iphone, IPod Touch, nokia, pat phelan, twitter Fnord
Comment by Jonathan Jensen
The closed & restrictive nature of everything Apple does has always been a problem for me. However there’s no denying Apple deliver an excellent customer experience in other ways. I guess it’s probably more of a philosophical issue for me! However I still don’t own a single Apple device (unlike the rest of the family)! Maybe the only way to deliver an excellent customer experience is to be restrictive otherwise you lose control of the customer experience. I love Nokia S60 but no App Store & it’s hardly user friendly for Normobs to go & hunt for new apps.
Comment by Lonnie Lazar
It’s a popular misconception that Apple is this draconian monster, jealously guarding its cache of baubles ill-gotten lucre from the back of its cave behind a walled garden. Except it’s not. Leaving aside for a moment the fact there are over 10,000 apps available in the AppStore, many of which have nothing to do with flatulence or games or ringtones at all, the iPhone has been jailbroken since weeks after its initial debut in the summer of ’07. Every single firmware release is newly jailbroken within days of becoming public. There is nothing preventing any cocoa developer in the world from creating an iPhone app that cannot be loaded onto the iPhone or iPod Touch, notwithstanding the inscrutable caprice of Steve Jobs’ gatekeeping henchpeople.
Comment by Jonathan Jensen
I think the point here is sure you can jailbreak an iPhone but that’s a minority interest & is not what Apple intends. For Normobs it is a ‘managed’ environment – but for them that probably works. It’s only us ‘geeks’ who dislike the aura of control!
Comment by spg
this is just one more reason why i believe that the ultimate pocket device that will be used for phone calls and all sorts of computer functions that will win in the end will have evolved down from EVDO and UMTS connected laptops via netbooks to a pocket sized device. they will not have evolved up from cell phones that are sold and controlled by phone companies and there partners. the end result will be a device of similar size and function but sold on a very different philosophy/business model.
the real revolution in mobile data will begin only after wireless links(through the cell phone networks or WiMAX) to the internet on laptops overtake wired and hot spots connections. that is when real computers will shrink to pocket size.
Comment by PhoneBoy
I also don’t like a phone that doesn’t have a proper SIM unlock method. What you have to do on iPhone is against the EULA to be sure and potentially dangerous with Apple constantly “undoing” the good work of the jailbreaking community.
A normob may not care about any of this crap, but I am not a normob. I want my phone to be open without having to violate the EULA and my Apple warranty.
I recognize that normobs are gonna be all over the “managed,” “safe” environment that Apple provides. Me? Not so much.