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Yes, the restrictions are definitely the reason the App Store is worth so much money. Asking Apple to remove them is akin to demanding that movie theater owners

Yes, the restrictions are definitely the reason the App Store is worth so much money. Asking Apple to remove them is akin to demanding that movie theater owners allow outside food and beverages and forgo their $8 popcorn. My point is that there is a kind of fearmongering in comments like the one above mind -- that if somehow Apple were to open up its platform to the wild and wooly world, it'd soon be overrun by every form of scam and debauchery known to man. Countless examples prove otherwise. There is no "reason" for Apple to maintain these restrictions other than money. (Oh, and it looks like enlightenment will have to wait after the blow to my karma I just took on that comment above.)

stcredzero 17y ago
My point is that there is a kind of fearmongering in comments like the one above mind -- that if somehow Apple were to open up its platform to the wild and wooly world, it'd soon be overrun by every form of scam and debauchery known to man. It's not that you've shown that there wouldn't be "every form of scam and debauchery known to man." It's more that you've shown that there would be, but the world won't end and it wouldn't be so bad for you. But for a lot of people out there, the experience on the net is full of suckiness, because they don't have all the knowledge that you do. If someone wants to create a walled garden for those folks, why can't they? Wouldn't that be allowed in a free market? It's not like they're forcing you to buy their phone!
- thwarted 17y ago
  The Apple marketing is that the iPhone is for everyone, not just people who want someone else to vet what they do with the iPhone. And there's nothing stopping Apple from making a device that truly is for everyone, with one mode that can be locked down completely so you can have someone else limit what you can do to do keep you safe, and another mode for people who don't need to be handheld and are adults and can make their own decisions without needing to effectively violate the DMCA or loose hardware support from Apple to do it. However, Apple is welcome to create whatever device they want if they think they can sell it.
- bad_user 17y ago
  > But for a lot of people out there, the experience on the net is full of suckiness, because they don't have all the knowledge that you do. That's not my experience with regular-users, and I've been around such people a lot. The experience when dealing with a computer in general is full of "suckiness" ... I saw people that can't use GMail because the left-menu which contains "inbox" and "sent" plus the top search-bar is somehow counterintuitive to them. So the IPhone/IPad experience can't change that with flashy buttons / pinch to zoom, although it is somewhat an improvement to regular interfaces (for phones at least, I have yet to see a study which argues that the iPhone interface is more intuitive or productive that your average Windows PC). But other than that, the Internet experience is as good as possible ... when searching on Google for a definition, more often than not the first result is from Wikipedia (which contains articles edited by many regular non-tech users). When wanting to contact old friends, I see many people not having trouble with Facebook. Surely some may be mislead by "the Facebook of Sex" by ending up in the wrong place, but I never see people stupid enough to not figure out something's different and that's not Facebook. When wanting to read online newspapers, I never see people wondering were to find the desired newspaper, or how to click on a story-link. Surely, there are lots of wannabes out there, that's why as an online newspaper you still need marketing to grow your brand. Email / IM are also 2 services that are used a lot. I don't see people having trouble using Yahoo's IM (and in my country, everybody with an Internet connection and his dog has a YIM account). Email is kind of tricky in a way ... to send emails to multiple people, they never use the BCC field, and that's a PITA sometimes, but it's not like their end-goal isn't reached. So, when making such assertions, please provide references to studies ;)
  - stcredzero 17y ago
    In just going by how it is for my parents, BCC Field? You're not even in the ballpark!

stcredzero 17y ago

My point is that there is a kind of fearmongering in comments like the one above mind -- that if somehow Apple were to open up its platform to the wild and wooly world, it'd soon be overrun by every form of scam and debauchery known to man. It's not that you've shown that there wouldn't be "every form of scam and debauchery known to man." It's more that you've shown that there would be, but the world won't end and it wouldn't be so bad for you. But for a lot of people out there, the experience on the net is full of suckiness, because they don't have all the knowledge that you do. If someone wants to create a walled garden for those folks, why can't they? Wouldn't that be allowed in a free market? It's not like they're forcing you to buy their phone!

thwarted 17y ago
The Apple marketing is that the iPhone is for everyone, not just people who want someone else to vet what they do with the iPhone. And there's nothing stopping Apple from making a device that truly is for everyone, with one mode that can be locked down completely so you can have someone else limit what you can do to do keep you safe, and another mode for people who don't need to be handheld and are adults and can make their own decisions without needing to effectively violate the DMCA or loose hardware support from Apple to do it. However, Apple is welcome to create whatever device they want if they think they can sell it.
bad_user 17y ago
> But for a lot of people out there, the experience on the net is full of suckiness, because they don't have all the knowledge that you do. That's not my experience with regular-users, and I've been around such people a lot. The experience when dealing with a computer in general is full of "suckiness" ... I saw people that can't use GMail because the left-menu which contains "inbox" and "sent" plus the top search-bar is somehow counterintuitive to them. So the IPhone/IPad experience can't change that with flashy buttons / pinch to zoom, although it is somewhat an improvement to regular interfaces (for phones at least, I have yet to see a study which argues that the iPhone interface is more intuitive or productive that your average Windows PC). But other than that, the Internet experience is as good as possible ... when searching on Google for a definition, more often than not the first result is from Wikipedia (which contains articles edited by many regular non-tech users). When wanting to contact old friends, I see many people not having trouble with Facebook. Surely some may be mislead by "the Facebook of Sex" by ending up in the wrong place, but I never see people stupid enough to not figure out something's different and that's not Facebook. When wanting to read online newspapers, I never see people wondering were to find the desired newspaper, or how to click on a story-link. Surely, there are lots of wannabes out there, that's why as an online newspaper you still need marketing to grow your brand. Email / IM are also 2 services that are used a lot. I don't see people having trouble using Yahoo's IM (and in my country, everybody with an Internet connection and his dog has a YIM account). Email is kind of tricky in a way ... to send emails to multiple people, they never use the BCC field, and that's a PITA sometimes, but it's not like their end-goal isn't reached. So, when making such assertions, please provide references to studies ;)
- stcredzero 17y ago
  In just going by how it is for my parents, BCC Field? You're not even in the ballpark!