The Locked iPuzzle
So the iPad came and as expected, everyone can’t stop talking about it. I was cautiously optimistic about Apple’s tablet. I’m a sci-fi fan with a gadget fetish and I was loving the idea of carrying around a computer tablet just like they do in all of the latest science fiction movies. And Apple has a way of completely turning the computing world upside down. They have an elegance and polish that makes the intersection of software and hardware a nirvana.
Part of that is because they rule their platforms with an iron fist. The iPhone is obvious. It’s arguably the most closed platform in recent memory. Every application has to go through Apple’s approval process, can only be listed on Apple’s store, and Apple takes a cut. It’s a fantastic device, it provides developers a way to make money, but it is incredibly closed and arguably bordering on big brother. But OS X isn’t perfect either. While I can install my own applications and control my own settings, things like getting the right APIs for Flash Player to handle video or multi-touch aren’t possible.
The iPad Cometh
So when the iPad was released and it was just a bigger iPod Touch, I was incredibly disappointed. If this is the future of computing then we’ve already lost. Apple is taking total control to a new and unfortunate level. It’s the same pay-to-play model as the iPod Touch so that you’ll be buying your applications from Apple (so they can take their cut), buying your videos and music from Apple, buying your books from Apple, and dealing with their DRM for all three. The ultimate lock-in.
The Honey Trap
This is what bugs me. As an evangelist I’m annoyed Flash isn’t on the iPhone. But as a user, I’m terrified that Apple has put a vice grip on getting content on my devices. It used to be that when you bought a device, you owned it and could basically do whatever you want with it. The model of the iPad and the iPhone is the opposite of that. You’re essentially paying for a device that then gives you the privilege to buy content from Apple. The honey pot of a seamless software-hardware experience has become a nightmarish trap that keeps you stuck and struggling.
As Mike Chambers said better than I can, having some support for HTML5 in Safari doesn’t make an open platform. One of the great parts of the “open web” is exactly how open it is. Anyone can put up any piece of content, at any time, without asking for permission. The web is accepting of Flash content, HTML content, Silverlight content, numerous video and audio codecs, and other plug-ins. Users have the ultimate choice about what they want to see and how they want to see it. That ecosystem has led to a lot of great, free content like games, video, and applications.
Which is why Apple has locked down the device. They can’t make money off of free. And instead of giving users choice and opening up their devices, they’ve decided to lock it down. The iPhone and iPad are each great pieces of technology and Apple deserves to make money off of them. But they could be so much better if they were open. The number of innovative things that an open ecosystem could do with this technology is mind-boggling. But that won’t happen because the only ideas that will see the light of day are ideas Apple lets through.
We’ve come a long way from 1984, but obviously not long enough.
Posted in General, Personal, Uncategorized
January 29th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
My tweet (hours before the event)..
http://blog.savvasmalamas.com/2010/01/29/my-take-on-ipad/
January 29th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Like you, I enjoy Apple’s technologies, but are completely against their business model. As a result, I haven’t purchased an Apple product in 5 years. I think that the average Apple consumer isn’t educated enough about how much control Apple has over their experiences with Apple devices. They also probably don’t know about how detrimental it is to the industry in general. Educating the average consumer about these things is the key element to forcing Apple to change their ways.
January 29th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Ryan, there are many reasons why Flash should not be on the iPhone. First, Adobe has a terrible track record at making flash work well on OSX. I’ve got a 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo machine, and Flash kills my CPU in EVERY browser. The blog you linked to never addresses that. Only the fact that Flash runs “well on comparable CPUs” – which CPUs? I haven’t seen Flash run smoothly on anything other than Windows. Secondly, there is a reason why Apple controls their devices with such a tight grip – do you remember Palm OS? Windows Mobile? All of those devices suffered from “install programs yourself” crashes constantly – having owned and developed on PalmOS, and owning and developing now for the iPhone, I really like the fact that quality is baked into the model – and not an after thought. While Apple may want to relax their rules – which invariably will happen – their rules have produced a rock-solid device that never crashes. Lastly, to your point of a 30% tax – well, the simple fact that the App Store is a retail outlet, and as such has to have an operating margin makes this a fair deal – do you think WalMart, or Best Buy don’t charge a percentage over the price that they pay for products on the shelves? Of course they do – that’s how they are able to stay in business. In return for the 30%, you get a great store where users can purchase your software, a fantastic distribution network, as well as users being driven to your software if it’s any good. Walmart doesn’t do that. Maybe 30% is steep, competition will fix that, but a margin is necessary and it’s what makes this mobile app space such an exciting opportunity.
January 29th, 2010 at 6:57 pm
I sorta like where the chess pieces are in this corporate game.
Apple is in the business of making tablets. For them to win, they have to create a compelling tablet software experience all by themselves.
19 other companies (HP, Dell, etc) are also in the business of making tablets. For them to win, Flash developers need to make a compelling tablet software experience.
If a company only has the resources to write software in one codebase, they will choose the one that runs on 19 devices, not the one that runs on only 1.
And in Flash, there is not a huge paradigm shift between mobile, tablets, and desktops. This makes it easier for a company to write one codebase that runs everywhere.
Adobe has a much more compelling brand promise for developers than Apple.
January 29th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
Flash is buggy, causes crashes, is slow and painful. Adobe killed Flash, many, many years ago.
Ryan, you seem like a nice guy, I advice you to start looking for a new job. Don’t be the last one to leave the company.
January 29th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Hi Ryan,
This post really made me think. I love open worlds, and open platforms, but at the same time I love my iPhone and my Apple Laptop, so it took some time for me to analyze the why, and here’s what I think it is:
Awesome software that other people build can make the entire platform. This is why I currently use a PC, because I don’t know a better PHP editor than PHPEd, and is Windows only. iPhone wise, one of the things I like best is it’s spectacular facebook client. Put these together, and this absolutely makes one of your points, namely, that positive externalities have a profound impact on a device platform.
However, there is a flip side: The Facebook app for my wife’s Palm Pre sucks. It’s one of the reason’s I don’t like the phone. My friends get viruses on their PCs all the time, and this is one of the reasons that they don’t like PCs. Put that together and you have the flip side of your post: Negative externalities can kill a platform.
What Steve Jobs has done is to find a way to eliminate the negative externalities and the cost of the positive externalities. It seems to be working, which brings about the questions as to why? I suspect it has something to do with the same reason why we need policemen…
Still, if there has to be policemen I would prefer them to be transparent and elected instead of Jobs’ apparently benevolent dictatorship…
January 30th, 2010 at 3:59 am
Ryan – I think you’re making an incorrect call.
Apple do not sell devices in order to take a cut of the content revenue stream – the App store is profitable, but not in a way that’s meaningful to Apple’s overall hardware business.
The majority of downloads are free, for starters.
Equally, on the iPhone we’ve seen ebooks with alternative DRM schemes, including the ‘book as application’ and Kindle-as-software.
And if we do compare with Amazon’s model – look how they suddenly went from 70/30 in their favour to 30/70 in the developers favour. Or their App store (where the developers pay for the cost of bandwidth).
Interestingly, what this shows is that the stores need to compete to make themselves attractive places to do business, even if they are closed with DRM.
Apple’s model is to sell hardware, and increasingly that is media players, not computers. That means doing deals with content producers – who mostly still insist on DRM (even if the example of rising music sales following the collapse of music DRM should be a message).
My simple reading is that Apple do not want to be dependent on third parties for providing any key component of their systems – because they have been there. Remember – no IE6 on OS X, Windows Media Player canned, and as I recall, there was a period when Flash development on OS X lagged 6 months behind Windows versions.
Or Adobe’s position on CS 3 Snow Leopard support / 64-bit CS development (CS being key to their high end hardware sales, they’re dependent on what you do).
Apple may accept the Kindle app, but imagine if the launch date of the iPad had been dependent on Amazon delivering the Kindle app, Adobe delivering Digital Media Editions, and Microsoft to deliver Silverlight to enable streaming media because that was the preferred choice of one of the film companies.
I’m not saying they are fault free – it makes no sense to allow Kindle and eBook apps, but not alternative media players.
When it comes to Flash, you are as bad as each other – Apple can’t implement their own Flash player, and you can’t implement & install a Flash player for them. You both operate closed licensing ecosystems that block the other from moving.
And I’d say that while the open web allows for plug-ins, that’s also been a problem that has held back development. We are lucky Adobe take cross-platform seriously, which is one reason their plugins are used – but imagine if we had 20 or so popular plug-ins, all closed source.
How hard would that make it to develop something like the iPhone? (i.e. starting with an OS where the plugins didn’t already exist). Or would you have to start with an OS where the plugins were available?
Harry said : “And in Flash, there is not a huge paradigm shift between mobile, tablets, and desktops.”
Look at Windows tablets, running MS Office. Compare that with the iPad running iWork, or the iPhone. Apple have developed a different OS and different apps for each screen size – although obviously there is shared code under the hood, they recognise each device is a physically different, a paradigm shift.
January 30th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Great post, I think there is the old Apple 1984 against big brother and the new Apple 2000 lets be big brother
January 30th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Jobs is betting on the stupidity of The People…
Too stupid to download our own apps…
Too stupid to multi-task…
So stupid that we won’t realize this greedy SOB denies a major component of The Web (Flash) so he can maximize his profits in the iStore (or whatever he fleeces The Sheep with).
January 30th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Look – we in IT have to give Jobs a pass to some extent… He has created so many opportunities for us…
But when he creates a supposedly next generation computer and he purposely leaves off a major component of the Web (Flash) – denying video, games, puzzles, interactives of all kinds – simply because he wants The Flock to buy from him instead of accessing often a better solution for free – then THIS MEANS WAR!
And Flashers – if you purchase this ridiculous slap in your face – then you’re not a Flasher and you deserve to have Steve Jobs eat your lunch – like he’s trying to do.
January 30th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
The reason why Flash is not on the iPad or iPhone has nothing to do with Flash Player performance, or 3G bandwidth, or the App store (which cannot threaten a billion dollar revenue stream), or HTML5 is better (*COUGH*), or the price of oranges in China.
It’s about control. In that respect, you hit the nail on the head dude. Apple has become the Big Brother of its inaugural ads. (So what does that make Google — Little Brother?
The internet is The Matrix, and Steve Jobs is Agent Smith.
http://www.joeflash.ca/blog/2010/01/why-flash-is-not-on-the-ipad.html
January 30th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
If nothing else, by leaving out all plug-ins, Apple is treating all plug-ins with the same distaste.
Give me a 2lb or so tablet in a similar form factor running Win7 with a decent on screen keyboard, comparable real-world battery life (and one USB and one SD slot) and I’d buy it, for sure.
January 30th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Ryan,
What is Adobe’s response to this unbelievable slap upside our head?
I’ve seen the blog postings and that’s good – but what about some ads using Apple’s own famous 1984 ad but using Jobs as the guy on the screen and Adobe is smashing the oppressors face with Freedom and Creativity.
Do we believe in Flash or not??!!!
Is Adobe going to defend us or not??!!
January 30th, 2010 at 5:20 pm
…
Хм …
January 31st, 2010 at 10:37 am
I’m just waiting for Apple to get slapped with some antitrust lawsuits from the government…. like the last time a large corporation tried to control things to a much much lesser degree than this….
They have already had to change their advertisements for falsely displaying rendered flashPlayer content on the iPhone and iPad.
And, they had to change their terminology in the UK with the iPhone, because of falsely claiming that the iPhone has “all the parts of the internet”
Pretty soon they are going to have to make some serious changes, whether they like it or not.
For the meantime, I am done with Apple. I will not support this kind of closed behavior, and this obvious slap in the face of not only developers, but the USERS of their hardware. Take a look on the Mac forums for that proof.
January 31st, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Or Adobe could man up and start game-changing instead of game-playing, and create their own damn browser. #flashbrowserftw
January 31st, 2010 at 9:57 pm
Or work a deal with Google to make it a native part of Chrome. Or buy out Mozilla. #flashbrowserftw
February 1st, 2010 at 1:19 am
Apple is becoming the new Microsoft. All that is needed is for iPhone to become the only smartphone to not run Flash or AIR. That will be the turning point. The iPad is another failed product, because of its limitations and because nobody really needs this device, it will be destined to fizzle out and eventually.