Pilgrim on Open Gadgets, Apple and "Twisted Wish Fulfillment"
Before the iPhone came out, I wrote a piece saying that the only way to send a message to Apple that you wanted an open phone with third-party application support was not to buy one. Then, a day after the iPhone was released, I bought one. (And then donated some cash to the EFF out of guilt.)
I still really like the iPhone. I still genuinely think we have a right, perhaps not just as customers, but as members of a society that has chosen to recognize the ownership of material goods, to expect to be able to do what we want with hardware we own (while not expecting the support of companies that may not share the same principles). But Mark Pilgrim, writing about Apple, the iPhone, and the relationship Apple has with its customers, makes some very noteworthy points:
My current theory is that it's some twisted form of wish fulfillment. "I wish this company understood the value of openness, but they don't, so I'm going to keep buying their closed, crippled shit until they get it." Yeah, let me know how that works out for you. And while you were waiting breathlessly for them to "get it," Apple locked out third-party videos. And third-party hardware. And third-party ringtones, applications, and carriers.Apple apologists often chide critics by reminding that "Apple is a business." Fair enough. But it's also important to realize that "Apple is a business" might not be the excuse for the problem, but the root of the problem itself.ProsperityOpenness is just around the corner!
You can publicly shame a successful company into making small concessions, but on the whole it's money that speaks the loudest. At the end of the day, the general public has a lot more market influence than we nerds. Maybe it's more productive to put all the effort expending to keeping Apple in check towards creating competitive solutions that address our smaller market's needs.*
If Wishes Were iPhones [DiveIntoMark.org via Daring Fireball]
Bonus Link: The iPhone Freedom Fighters [Slate]
* Yes, I think it's weird that I just grew a two-foot beard, too.
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I would have also accepted "Steve Jobs doesn't care about Mac people."
Apart from screwing geeks out of their birthright, there are legitimate reasons for Apple to keep the iPod/iPhone closed, at least for the time being.
I've had a range of Symbian and Windows Mobile phones and not one them was more reliable because it was open to third party code. Yes, it's great that I can install a different, better browser and have access to a million and one apps. What's not so great is when it takes an extra minute to start up, starts crashing when it receives calls, there isn't enough memory to run that new browser or half your old apps don't run on your upgraded OS. I'm prepared to accept such problems because I can work around them most of the time, but most users have neither the knowledge nor the patience. For them it's better to have only a few bells and whistles that they can actually use than to have a Pandora's box of stuff they can't get their heads around.
Another reason for keeping things closed is that it makes life a whole lot easier for development. If Apple want to switch to another CPU or go with a 3D interface, it's a lot quicker and easier when you don't have to worry about making sure third parties update their code too or leaving legacy code in so old stuff works.
Lastly, Apple may well intend to open up the iPhone but haven't done so yet because it simply isn't ready. It takes a lot more time to develop a stable open OS than a closed one and it would be commercial suicide to rush an SDK to market, particularly when it appears there's no significant market pressure to do so.
The thing is, that despite being closed, the Apple products like iPod and iPhone are just that much better than everything else out there. Every single smartphone every conceived has a useless user interface, except the iPhone.
Even if you take into account the high price, and the "cost" of going through the trouble of hacking it, and dealing with the problems when the hacks break, the iPhone is still better than everything else. It's the same with the iPod. Even if you have to deal with syncing it without iTunes, the iPod is still superior to other players.
Sure, the base feature set of the Apple lineup is sad when compared to say, the Cowon iAudio 7 or the Nokia N95. But it's the details that Apple gets right and everyone else ignores. For example, if you start listening to a podcast in iTunes, then sync your iPod, you will start playing where you left off. Now sync with the iTunes again and you will play where you left off on your iPod.
If you're listening to music on your iPhone, and you get a call, it handles the transitions so smoothly. No having to fumble around for the right buttons to turn the music off and the phone on.
It's the subtle and minor features like that which Apple gets right and nobody else thinks about. Even though I also wish that Apple would open up. I wish it just as much as all the other geeks out there. However, even if you consider just the locked-down feature set, the Apple products are just better.
I mean, consider the iPhone. It is pretty much the only phone that is also a fully featured and decent mp3 player. Right now I have to carry a separate phone and mp3 player. The iPhone is the only device currently available that has the ability to reduce the number of devices I carry by one. Even locked down.
This is why people unlock Apples products rather than purchase say, Linux phones. The Linux phones may be open, but they suck.
There's a reason why I haven't bought an iPhone yet. I like to steer clear of a product unless I know it's going to prove beneficial to use. Apple's proven that the iPhone is not customer-friendly. In the longrun, I hope they find that it's not Apple-friendly, either, and make some changes in the way they're handling things.
@Jim: you might be right, but being Jim-friendly and being customer-friendly are probably two different things.
If you're an existing smartphone user expecting something better in the same paradigm then the iPhone probably isn't for you, just as the Wii isn't for hard-core gamers looking for an upgrade to their old Xbox or PS2.
But that won't stop Apple or Nintendo making buckets of money from all those other people for whom earlier rival products never held any appeal.
@Tubman: Your analogy possibly has more relevance than you originally intended. Much like Nintendo was the system for the "hardcore gamers" of yore, Apple was the safe-haven for the hackers/mavericks/innovators. Remember the 1984 ad?
The sad part is that in both cases it seems that these companies have alienated their old user bases in favor of a "friendlier" image.