Should iPhone Open Wide and Say Ahhhhh?
Dave Winer criticizes Apple in no uncertain terms for their decision to deploy a closed architecture on the iPhone. (I’m clenching my teeth and summoning all my available willpower to avoid getting sidetracked into a rant about how absurd it is to ask bloggers and journalists to “take a look at [competing] products” in response to Apple’s jaw-dropping product announcement last week. News is news in large part because it’s, um, new. If competitors want attention they should do something to attract it. But I just said that I’m not going to go there, didn’t I?)
Anyway, it’s all good since I disagree with Dave on the openness issue as well. (I’ve never met Dave in person, but I’m sure I’d love him, because he seems to have created a whole industry out of writing stuff that other people can’t help but take issue with. And, as regular readers of this blog have doubtless noticed, I’ll gladly disagree with anyone about just about anything.) He makes it sound as if the neofascist regime at Apple has decided to prevent third-party developers from freely deploying their apps on the iPhone in order to cement their tyrannical hold on power. The reality is a tad more complex. In the technology world there is a clear dichotomy between openness and ease of use. And of course openness has huge advantages, especially the facilitation of a vibrant ecosystem where innovation can flourish unchecked.
But closeness has advantages too. Why do you think that every family has to have at least one (preferably acne-ridden) techie to help them with their frequent support issues? People don’t have this issue with microwave ovens or hifis or, well, cellphones. I would argue (and I’ll bet a brand spanking new iPhone or the monetary equivalent that Steve Jobs would agree wholeheartedly) that the very openness that makes PCs so attractive to tech types makes them really easy to break if you don’t know what you’re doing. People surf around, install God knows what on their machines, fiddle settings accidentally and before you can say “IRQ conflict” their computer is in desperate need of expert attention. It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.
One reason that the iPhone is a closed system is clearly to avoid this issue, just as the Mac avoided the “plug-and-pray” hell that afflicts the PC world by keeping tight control over its hardware. As Steve Jobs says in an interview with Newsweek:
You don’t want your phone to be an open platform, meaning that anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider’s network. You need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular doesn’t want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.
But perhaps even more importantly, closeness is practically a precondition for simplicity. When you let every Tom, Dick and Harriet add new features to your device, you turn it into a power user’s wet dream at the expense of alienating normal users who basically just want a single big red blinking button in the middle of the screen that says “Press Me”. This isn’t too say that the iPhone strikes exactly the right balance between extensibility and ease of use. But it’s not fair to claim that everything besides complete openness must be a cynical assault on consumer freedom.
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Hey Matt, you’re pretty good at writing things people just have to take issue with, too
Firstly, it should be noted that the mobile market has long suffered from an overabundance of closedness and I’m still looking for the arrival of “simple” there. Users of mobile technology have long waited for the arrival of phones that serve users instead of mobile operaters, then we get the entry of an IT company that was not in bed with the operaters to begin with, so hopes are up and then what does it do? Its even more closed than other phones. At least on my current mobile I can load whatever I want and so far, the Java runtime has not crashed on me.
I’m also still looking for exactly how the iPhone will change the simplicity thing. It looks nice, but thats about all we can tell from the demo. Apples track record in the simplicity department is certainly way above average, but that isn’t saying much in absolute terms, given ITs absymal state with regard to usability.
To sum this up, its certainly a well designed phone but I’m not holding my breath.
Comment by Ingo — 1/14/2007 @ 9:54 pm
You know, just watching the demo, and the other demos on the web by other people, and looking at all the writing. … The Phone/iPod/InternetWhatever is great! Period. … After that, it is also version less than 1. … It will grow. … Does anyone remember the Mac debut onstage? With its little bitty memory and its 68000 chip? Look at the Mac now. … Things change in a couple years.
Right now, this little iPhone is the closest thing to magic I have seen lately. Does anyone like the Zune better? Even the Zune with a phone?
It just amazes me that so many people seem to want bad things, and conspiracy, to be true.
I want this phone in June for $600, as I wanted the original Mac at $2500. It will be the most useful tool in the market place.
Look at what $2500 buys you in a Mac right now. I cannot wait for the next few years of iPhone development. The genie has been let out of the bottle.
Jack
Comment by Jack Foster Mancilla — 1/15/2007 @ 3:44 am
When you let every Tom, Dick and Harriet add new features to your device, you turn it into a power user’s wet dream at the expense of alienating normal users.
Those “normal” users could choose not install additional applications. Simple.
Comment by Josh Hughes — 1/15/2007 @ 9:32 am
I think the exercise/experiment that Apple performed with the creation of richer games for the 5G iPod by an (what I would suppose) “invitation only” group of game developers foreshadows the method Apple will use to entice the best of the best 3rd party developers to write for the iPhone and give their apps the Apple seal of approval. This, in turn by the fact that the iPhone is MacOSX based will provide a flow of innovative feature rich programs for the MacOSX mobile/portable platform on the whole. The Demo at the keynote had too purposes, to show the world where Apple is going and to whet the appetites of the developers and users that will going along for the ride.
Comment by eon — 1/15/2007 @ 11:04 am
Ingo,
You can’t have it both ways. You’re complaining about closeness but also about lack of simplicity, but by point was that there are tensions between these two points. Of course, Apple will have to prove that their phone really is simple, but assuming that it is I can understand their decision to eschew an open architecture. Who would you rather cater to, a billion consumers who couldn’t care less about anything besides their phone just working, or a few thousand geeks who want to hack their phones for fun?
That said, it’s inevitable that someone will find a way to mod the iPhone, for the truly adventurous, so we may all get our way in the end.
Comment by Matt — 1/17/2007 @ 12:22 pm
Hello Cedric
First time I comment on your interesting blog (and surely not the last).
This iPhone topic is a good one to start with:
i believe that the closed/openess debate is the wrong one to have. If openess is needed for such a device, the market will eventually decide. This is more a strategic issue for Apple but for us the customers/users, what counts as you correctly write is that IT WORKS.
I would define this a bit more however. It is not just about reliability, it is about functionality and this is where the useful debate should be focusing on. What is the iPhone really about? it is about providing us all with a SINGLE pocket device to perform all the “web 2.0″ tasks we want to be able to do on the move.
Apple is taking this challenge starting from the music player angle. Others started from the phone, the PDA, the camera or emails.
Who will eventually provide the “true” all-in-one device will leap ahead of the pack.
I am not convinced that the iPhone is yet the ONE.
For instance, I use a blackberry as a phone but mainly because it delivers my company emails and agenda as perfectly as I as need it for now. Yes it lacks music,video and camera functions but I wont move to an iPhone unless it delivers my emails as efficiently.
Let’s watch this space…
Peter
Comment by Peter-Anthony Glick — 1/17/2007 @ 6:27 pm
I’m sorry to say this to you raving fans, but Mac has always been know to do less for more money. This was true with the duo systems (AMD PCs are better and cheaper), this was true with the iPod (A regualar MP3 player btw is 1/5th of the price of a IPOD)and it will be true for the IPhone (This technology has been out several years before now under Ngage, Windows and so on.)
It really annoys me when people get excited over inferior technologies advertized under a different name with a outrageous price tag stuck to it: Like manual push scooters.
Comment by Mikewee777 — 1/17/2007 @ 9:03 pm