January 29, 2010
closed platforms versus open platforms
Most people drive automatic cars whereas I prefer a stick. This person is arguing the same damn thing:
I think that it’s a real possibility that in 10 years, general purpose computers will be seen as being strictly for developers and hobbyists. The descendants of the iPhone and iPad and their competitors will rule the consumer market and people will embrace the closed nature of these platforms for the same reason that Steve Levy hyped Palladium almost 10 years ago — because what you get for trading off freedom is reduced risk. There will be few (if any) viruses, and applications will “just work.”
General purpose computing is too complicated for most people anyway, and the iPad’s descendants along with similar competing products from other companies will offer an enticing alternative. So I see the death of the traditional, open personal computer as a likely occurrence.
I never understood arguments about this. Open and closed software platforms are different tools for different situations. If closed platforms mean less phone calls from my mother about her netbook, then I want more of them.
I also don’t understand why geeks demand that everybody needs to care about how to customize their computer.* I don’t expect people to care about Second Temple Judaism or the nuances of Derridean deconstruction (it’s not a method!), so why must people who just want to check their email and surf the web care about open platforms? That sounds pretty stupid to me.
Maybe I am being naive, but I thought we were talking about tools here, not economic policies.
*For the record, I consider myself an intense computer hobbyist. I run Linux (the Mint distro); Windows; and OS X in parallel, muck around with web development, and build my own computers. Mostly, however, I haven’t a clue what I am doing.
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good post.
This reminds me of the paranoia surrounding Google. “Oh Google has a monopoly! They have all our information! That’s troubling!” No, you know what? If it means it works? My internet works? Like, shit, does anyone remember ALTAVISTA? I don’t care if Google has a monopoly if it means I don’t have to use Hotmail and Dogpile. I want things to work, and 98% of the world just wants things to work. I can’t even tell you how frustrating it is for my mother to use a computer, she’s not good at it, it takes forever to boot up, it’s a nightmare of the first order. She doesn’t need linux and open source capabilities, she needs a simple system, and most people do I think.
I think it’s intentional that Steve Jobs kept saying “It Just Works.”
I wonder what Joel Osteen thinks of closed systems.
I’ll be the first to admit my card carrying Apple fanboy status. I’ve had Macs for 20 years now because they “just work.” I walked into the Fifth Ave Apple Store at 3am to buy the first iPhone on launch day. Since then, my enthusiasm has waned.
My issue with Apple’s closed ecosystem is purely pragmatic. In addition to the technical reasons of security and stability, Apple has financial incentives to block access to certain services. In practice that means on my iPhone, there’s no way to use other music stores like Amazon or eMusic; there are no good apps for viewing TV or movies. These would be non-issues in an open system.
In my case, with what I want to do on the device, it just doesn’t work.
But they have no reason to make it open. They want to sell their music on their devices. It makes total sense to me. This isn’t like some philanthropic work, it’s business. When you buy an apple product, you’re saying “yeah, thanks, I will have some iTunes please.”
Sounds like you need to find a different tool, Carl. I know, for similar reasons, I have been very seriously considering a Nexus One. We’ll see.
Thanks Andrew.
Carl, do you complain when you go to Burger King and can’t get a Big Mac?
Should Apple also block eMusic and Amazon MP3 store access on the Mac?
Should they? It might be a bad business move. If they do, I won’t buy their products anymore. Are there enough of me to hurt their business, probably not. Legally, it’s not clear. Morally, this is a non-issue.
Oh I agree, it’s a non-issue morally. And I understand the business decision completely.
The only point was, in an open system, a Mac for example, I have the option to go outside the Apple approved universe. This, I think, is a win for consumers. Don’t you want the choice?
I also think having that choice (via openness) and having a stable system that just works isn’t mutually exclusive. You can have both.
Well I don’t have an iPhone (yet) but this seems to be a good point to me. Is Amazon locked out of the iPhone? Seriously? Isn’t that bizarre? I think Carl is hitting on a different kind of openness, not the openness that hackers need, but the possibility of not being dictated to as to what stores to shop in, for starters.
When you say ‘go buy another device’, well for me for instance, that is just a highly unlikely option. I use mac, the iPhone is clearly a magnificent device, I would have no interest at all in using any other smartphone. But that does not mean that I’m drinking the kool aid. What else is locked out of the iPhone?
Everyone’s getting so angry about this topic. There seems to be a lot of pent up rage both for and against Apple. Maybe it’s because it’s Friday or maybe it’s because people are basically pent up. I think this conversation (over the two posts) would be less pent uppy if it was taking place in person.
But who the hell would actually want to watch a movie on an iPhone? Seriously.
Also, here Stephen Fry gushes about the iPad.
Def generates strong emotions. Not sure why, but it seems like it’s always been so. I gave my mother-in-law a PC running Windows 7, which actually is a pretty good environment. She complains about it constantly but goes into a blind rage when I suggest trying a Mac.
Thank you Lucy! And, well, not all of Amazon but the Amazon MP3 store due to the fact that you can’t add songs to your MP3 library except through the iTunes Store.
Also, currently there is an Amazon Kindle app for the iPhone. Now that they’re in the book business, I’m curious to see if Apple will approve an updated version that takes advantage of the iPad’s increased resolution. Apple has approved and then later removed apps from the store, a third party Google Voice app comes to mind.
My strong emotions come out of frustration! Frustration that I know there is not another company that can make something like the iPad, no other company would pay attention to the little design details like Apple does. There really is nowhere else to look if you’re someone who appreciates a beautiful interface that gets out of your way.
My main hope for the iPad was that it could serve as my sole computing device while traveling. Thinking back on the things I’ve used my netbook for*, I don’t think I could.
*for example, downloading music from eMusic, viewing video links of my nephew that were posted in WMV, friend’s pics that were posted in Flash.
Lucy’s onto something about the pent-up rage, and I think it goes way way beyond the realities of Macworld or Windowsworld or Linuxworld or any automatic piloting that’s standard with your new car. Many people, even your clever people, seem to feel that too much has been shoved on them too quickly, be it computer operating systems or complex financial instruments or too damn many choices on the television/in the supermarket/in the doctor’s office et cetera.
And there is a point at which the out-of-the-box people and the tuning-and-tweaking people converge, I think, but I am too tired and distracted this afternoon to push myself to seeing it.
I suppose it may be a generational thing, but I dunno. I’m of an age as some of y’all’s moms.
No one ever mentions their hapless dads. Maybe because men die earlier. My tech-loving airplane mechanic father died young, thrilling to the first manned landing on the moon. He would have been monkeying with some TRS-80 from Radio Shack and no mistake.But I digress.
There’s something that cuts deeper here, I think, what with the partisanship and all. But I’m not sure what it is.
Aw, I was ramblin’.
Incidentally, there are many, many people who don’t think OS X is very open at all. These are the die hard Linux users.
Sheila, it’s the secret hope that technology will make our lives better and that Apple has the ability to usher in a sort of techno-eschaton. I am not the least bit joking.
Would they be related to the die hard crack users? Also, happy birthday Andrew!
That’s close to right, Lucy. Although, Linux has an elegance to it once you know the dance.
And thanks!
Doesn’t technology make our lives better? Try arguing against that to someone hooked up to a kidney dialysis machine. No need to be secretive, methinks.
poor word choice on my part, Lucy. I didn’t mean to suggest that technologies doesn’t make our lives better (although, not all technology qua technology does), but that technology is not some sort of cultural panacea.
You have your introverts, and you have your extroverts.
You have your Leos, and you have your Virgos.
You have your Mac folks, and you have your PC folks.
You have your tomatoes, and you have your tomatoes.
wait
This is the first discussion that is really hitting the nail on the head. I’m a geek and I enjoy my geekdom, not just about computers, I really like to figure stuff out. Naturally I build my own computers and I compile my own OS. But my interests also touch design and ease of use. I should be using a Mac, but I don’t. Ever since I first saw the 20th Aniversary Mac in a Batman movie as a kid, I wanted to have one, but there is always something holding me back.
I need a tad more openess. I always have the feeling Apple is succeeding 90% of the way, in comes a business guy and screws up the last 10%, therefore ruining it.
That being said, Apple products are not made with me/us in mind. My mom would certainly love the iPad, not saying she is old, but she likes things that just work. I feel the same way about politics and most products out there, I’m not part of their target group, but that is for another discussion.
Goddamn binary shit.
There you go with your historical perspective.
“Until mobile devices compete mainly on price (probably a decade from now), tight vertical integration will produce the best device and is likely the best strategy.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/should-apple-be-more-open-dixon-2010-1