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Daring Fireball: The Kids Are All Right

269 points by kilian 17y ago

kilian 17y ago
The point that's worth mentioning is that, in the olden days, families had just one computer, they cost a small fortune. That isn't the case anymore. In my family of 5, there are currently 10 computers of various sizes in use. This is mostly my fault since I own 5. An iPad can be used for viewing the photos that someone just edited in photoshop on their 'regular' pc. They're complimental.
nexneo 17y ago
The way my 4 year old interacts with iPod Touch and does some amazing things. Learn words, numbers, play kid's games. I think he will learn lot more interactively on iPad.
- statenjason 17y ago
  The apps are not the problem. That's actually a great use of the platform. Rather, when/if your child becomes curious about creating something of his own, he's met with a $100 barrier to entry.
  - hackermom 17y ago
    No; he's met with a $100 barrier if he wants to supply his software to others via Apple's App Store. Creating and developing for OS X and for iPhone OS on iPod/iTouch/iPad is entirely free. The XCode suite and the SDKs cost nothing to download.
    - vegashacker 17y ago
      But you can't install on any devices (even your own) without the $100 fee.
      - eelco 17y ago
        The (yearly) $100 fee might not be negligible compared to the price of the device (it's still 50% of the price of the cheapest iPod Touch), but if your child already has (access to) a Mac and iPod Touch or iPhone, I don't think it will be that much of a problem.
    - aaronbrethorst 17y ago
      No, he's met with a $100 barrier if he wants to load that app onto his iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, or submit it to the AppStore.
      - hackermom 17y ago
        This does not hinder someone from developing software, which is what "op" was under the impression of.
        aaronbrethorst 17y ago
        I was merely addressing an inaccuracy in your post. And sure it does: there are tons of scenarios where the Simulator doesn't work like the real hardware or doesn't work at all: location-based apps, many audio and graphics scenarios, Youtube video playback, etc.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
  - aresant 17y ago
    Back in the day that was a $4000+ barrier to entry to buy compiler, hardware, etc. Let's be real - what parent wouldn't spring for $100?
    - vegashacker 17y ago
      Seriously. I can't imagine the set of parents who buy an iPhone/iPad for their kid but won't spend the $100 to let their kid build with it is a large set--in fact, it's probably empty.
      - _phred 17y ago
        Yep, even if they have to buy a Mac ($600 for a Mac Mini), that's still cheap. I'm glad my parents spent money on my "software habit," which has given me a lifelong valuable skill. I'd do the same for my kids in an instant.
dskhatri 17y ago
Not to be snarky, but why isn't John Gruber an evangelist at Apple? Surely Apple would want him on their team.
- dpritchett 17y ago
  He's already evangelizing for Apple as a somewhat objective 3rd party. Bringing him in-house would cost them money and compromise his perceived reliability.
  - samps 17y ago
    He's currently doing a good job of at least appearing neutral. See his recent comments on Apple's patent litigation against HTC -- he doesn't like that at all. http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/this_apple_htc_patent_thing http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/this_apple_htc_patent_thin... (And I, of course, am a completely neutral third-party John Gruber evangelist.)
    - pavs 17y ago
      Yeah, John Gruber is neutral about Apple the same way Cory Doctorow is neutral about open platform.
      - ugh 17y ago
        I’m quite confused about the meaning of neutral in this context. Being neutral in itself doesn’t seem like a virtue to me. Being neutral is a useful position if you don’t know what you are talking about. Being neutral is a useful skill if people expect you to present facts. Both of those things don’t apply to either Cory Doctorow or John Gruber. It’s just normal that they hold and present certain views in their writing. Calling them out on not being neutral (or saying they successfully appear to be neutral) seems to not make any sense. I expect them to not be neutral. I don’t read BoingBoing or Daring Fireball for news.
        pavs 17y ago
MrFoof 17y ago
"Such is the march of progress. 40 years ago you could open the hood of your car and see and touch just about every component in there. And you had to, because many of those components required frequent maintenance. To properly own a car required, to some degree, that you understood how a car worked. Today, you open the hood of your car and you see a big sealed block and a basin for the windshield washer fluid. You can buy a new car, drive it for years, and never once open the hood yourself." (Warning, car guy!) First, I don't think this is a bad thing. The average person doesn't want to perform any maintenance anyways. Heck, oil changes. They're still just as easy to perform. You're not even saving any time by going to the dealership and back, plus waiting around. You're certainly not saving any money (I can save $45 changing my oil myself). People just don't want to expend the effort. In the case of cars, at least in the US, they went from an object to pride to... a nuisance for most motorists. They want to be comforted, coddled, and have as much as possible done for them so they can chat with friends, sip their coffee, or have a conversation via text message. That applies to many things. I know plenty of folks who spend $10-12 a day on lunch. $10-12 of ingredients gets me a far better lunch for the entire week. Even saves me time, because I don't have to wait in a line every day. It's not cheaper. It's not even less time. It's the time spent is "lower impact" I guess. That's what's paid for. Consumers are given a choice, and many choose the path of overall least resistance. I'm sure there's plenty of other psychological factors at play (i.e., "Well I have the money to not need to cook for myself all the time!", advertising making things seem more appealing), but the reality is when presented with all the options, folks just want to do the least work possible. Give people more iPads. At least in the current consumer culture, it's exactly what people want. They don't want to explore or program. It's the path of computing least resistance. Enthusiasts and people who have a serious need for one will still buy computers.
- kscaldef 17y ago
  > You're not even saving any time by going to the dealership and back, plus waiting around. You're certainly not saving any money (I can save $45 changing my oil myself). Actually, even this has gotten a bit debatable. My dealership has wifi available, so I can take my car in for an oil change and I don't have to take any time off work to do it.
SwellJoe 17y ago
Things have never been better for kids and technology than they are today, and I agree with Gruber that it's a bit myopic to suggest otherwise. But, it is dangerous to ignore negative events, just because the overall trend has been positive for the past 30 years. Apple has been responsible for a number of very negative events in the past few years. Going back to more closed systems is not a good thing, even if the iPad is awesome and seems like magic and kids love it (and I'm sure they do). The iPad and iPhone are more closed, more hostile to tinkerers, more hostile to adventurous users, than most other similar devices. This is a bad thing. One shouldn't apologize for a company doing bad things, just because things in the industry as a whole are better than they were ten or fifteen or twenty years ago. Open Source software has made dramatic improvements in the landscape for kids learning technology today. Apple is fighting those improvements, and they should be called out for that bad behavior. Apple is behaving in ways that are bad for developers, and bad for kids who might become hackers. Just because they also happen to build awesome products, and do happen to provide an approved relief valve for their closed ecosystem, doesn't make it OK to be hostile to developers and would-be hackers.
- akeefer 17y ago
  Arguing as a sometimes-utilitarian: people love their iPhones, and their creation has actually brought happiness into people's lives. In all this doom-and-gloom talk about how the iPad will destroy computing as we know it and Apple is the new evil empire, etc. etc., hardly anyone ever seems to weigh the happiness brought to consumers by their devices. So let's not just focus on the theoretical-hacker-kid-who-will-now-never-learn-to-program, because they're not the only type of person affected by these devices. Are many people's days just a tiny bit happier because they have their iPhone? Yes. (And many people's days are happier because they have a phone that is much better than it would have been had the iPhone never happened). And that should matter too.
  - pyre 17y ago
    The problem is that Gruber is presenting a false dichotomy. > Something important and valuable is indeed being lost as Apple shifts to this model of computing. But it’s a trade-off, because something new that is important and valuable has been gained. The trade-off here isn't a "you can't have it both ways" type of decision. It's a business decision by Apple to only allow apps through the AppStore. The iPhone and iPad could be just as user-friendly of devices while remaining open. [ As a side note: Comparing the 'openness' of the web app angle for the iPad/iPhoneOS is a bit disingenuous, because you need to have hosting ('in the cloud' or not) to deliver such an app. You didn't need to have that 'back in the day' when you were creating BASIC apps on an Apple II. A better solution to 'openness' would be to just charge the $99 for the devkit and allow apps to be installed outside of the AppStore. ]
lanstein 17y ago
On the topic of Atari 2600 BASIC, at least there was PEEK and POKE, not that it was easy to figure out the different addresses without a manual. Amusingly, I have a floppy on my desk that my little brother wrote on when he was about 4 or 5. It has two commands on the label - POKE and PEAK :)
- whyenot 17y ago
  There actually was an amazing little book published by Compute! that contained information on every memory address of interest on the Atari 400/800, and what peeking/poking different values at each address did. It was fantastic, and a tinkering teenager's bible.
there 17y ago
whether or not the ipad is a step in the wrong direction, i feel bad for the kid learning how to program by having to save up to pay for an apple developer account (and having to use his parents' bank account information since he's under age), learning with apple-supplied-and-regulated documentation, then submitting his work to apple, stressing out over whether they'll approve of it and think it's good enough, and then probably not making much money at all on the whole thing and taking that to mean he's a bad programmer. not to mention all of the idiots dismissing his software with "this app sux" on the app's review page.
- conesus 17y ago
  The reality is that this 13 year old kid has positive reviews on his app, has the increased confidence to go along with actually making something, and will undoubtedly use that confidence and passion to create more substantive projects as he gets older. The bar is ostensibly higher for the inexperienced to get involved with programming. But $99 for a developer license is nothing compared to the cost of an Apple ][e, Amiga, Atari, etc. Most kids already have a Mac anyhow. And if they don't, a Mac mini + LCD is not prohibitively expensive. PcC developers have to start on something, too. I see the iPad as an easier way for a 13 year old to show off his work. And at that age, since you're not living off the money you make, you are largely living off props. And what better way to boost confidence than to have real live customers.
  - there 17y ago
    i think we both know that the particular 13 year old mention in this article is rare and that developers of any age have a hard time making a hit iphone app. it's nice to focus on the few that have made lots of money, but the reality is that there are many thousands of apps that haven't made any money (especially considering the $99/year fee) and some that were never approved in the first place. while you state that "most kids already have a mac", which i'd disagree with, the costs to acquire that and the iphone/ipod touch that they're actually using to run the app, are much higher than an old computer running linux, where they can make whatever they want for free and distribute it on the internet or at school without having to have anyone else approve it or anonymously judge its quality.
Titanous 17y ago
While I agree that being able to sell apps on the iTunes Store is a good thing, and worth $99, I don't think that Apple should limit owners of their iP* devices from creating and installing unapproved applications. Why should I have to pay $99 just to sign my own apps for personal use? You don't pay the car manufacturer for a license to modify your car. This is the only problem I have with these devices. In my opinion, Apple should just do what Windows does with downloads, and warn users when installing unsigned apps. This provides the best of both worlds. Keep charging for the privilege to sell on the App Store, but please, just let me use my device how I want to.
- btucker 17y ago
  Most people have been well seasoned just to click through any warnings. I think the solution is just to allow anyone to install an alternative "unlocked" OS on the device. You'd have to jump through some hoops to do it, but once you did you could do as you pleased (and give up your right to any support from apple). Basically allow jail breaking w/o the need to find an exploit to do it.
  - Titanous 17y ago
    This would work as long as you can get support if you reflash the "locked" firmware before calling.
- pyre 17y ago
  A possible solution: * Apple still charges $99 for a developer license/kit * Apple still runs their AppStore * Apple releases specs/API for creating your own AppStore * People create competing AppStore implementations * By default, Apple's AppStore is the only one configured * The interface for adding extra AppStores is a bit hidden and rough around the edges, so that people have to be motivated to actually do it. (i.e. raise the bar a bit, so that the people that do it know what they are doing) The majority of people would still just use Apple's AppStore, but this would allow Apple to side-step the "We can't approve that because it would be bad for our company image to have it in our AppStore" type of issues. Apple could even void the warranty for people that use competing AppStores as a way to raise the barrier, but at least it would still be there for the people that wanted to use it.
orangecat 17y ago
You can buy a new car, drive it for years, and never once open the hood yourself. That’s the iPad. If the iPad were a car, it would be illegal to open the hood. Yes, there's some 13 year old kids writing iPhone apps. There are even more 13 year old kids writing PC and Mac apps, so I'm not sure what that proves. What there won't be by design in the iPad world is disruptive innovators like Linus Torvalds. As I've said before, that's good for Apple and bad for everyone else.
- 0x44 17y ago
  If the iPad were a car, it would be illegal to open the hood. That's incorrect, if the iPad were a car opening the hood would void the warranty.
  - orangecat 17y ago
    No, that would be reasonable. Apple has specifically stated in filings to the Copyright Office that jailbreaking is and should be a criminal act: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking-illegal http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking...
    - pyre 17y ago
      I guess it depends on what we mean by 'opening up the hood.' Sticking to the analogy I would take that to mean cracking open the physical case. Most of the 'black boxes' in a cars engine are also protected with various DRM methods to make it illegal for others to reverse-engineer them (therefore making it so that mechanics have to pay the manufacturer for access to the devices). I would associate those with the actual chips inside of the iPad/iPhone as well as the OS.
      - biafra 17y ago
        "make it illegal" in the USA. Reverse engineering is not (yet) illegal in other (most?) countries.
    - 17y ago
stcredzero 17y ago
Last two paragraphs: If you could go back and show my 10-year-old self an iPad — millions of colors, video, photographs, gorgeous typography, a touchscreen interface, networking (wirelessly!) — and offered to let me write web apps for it in exchange for my agreeing never to touch an Apple II again, I’m pretty sure I know what the answer would be. Something important and valuable is indeed being lost as Apple shifts to this model of computing. But it’s a trade-off, because something new that is important and valuable has been gained. I'm sure a lot of early audiophile tinkerers would be gobsmacked if someone shoved a Bose system at them through a time portal. Perhaps our fears of the death of tinkering are like laments about the death of penmanship. Maybe what's essential survives in a different form?
jerf 17y ago
"Something important and valuable is indeed being lost as Apple shifts to this model of computing. But it’s a trade-off, because something new that is important and valuable has been gained." This is true, but for people like me, beside the point. A car is either open or closed, to the extent the terms mean anything. A computer doesn't have to choose! It can be closed, until you press the "Yes I Want To Possibly Break My Box" button and all it has to do is stop checking executable signatures and let things that aren't from the official source run. (Isn't this how Android works? I don't have one.) This is not a fundamental tradeoff that Apple with some regret has been forced to make to make their product easy to use. Gruber is hiding his arguments behind a technical tradeoff that is entirely manufactured by Apple in the first place. A few weeks ago I bought my wife an HP Mini running Windows 7. She will never crack the hood. It is an easy to use machine, browser here, open office there (which, by the way, I was allowed to install), IE locked away behind this icon over there to access her ActiveX-based time-and-attendance system. It is one application install away from having an "app store"; for instance, Steam could probably be installed in about five minutes. And I could turn it into a Linux machine in about half-an-hour. Because none of that ease-of-use actually requires the machine to be tinkerproof.
- sstrudeau 17y ago
  This is exactly my complaint. I think everything about the iPad and App Store is brilliant and the closed defaults make sense. But preventing everybody from opening the device because most people shouldn't/won't is the problem. This is not a necessary trade off. If I want to run my own code on my own device, make me jump through a hoop (so I know what I'm getting into) but don't stop me from shooting myself in the foot (and don't make me pay you a $99/year subscription).
megaduck 17y ago
I'd like to call a moratorium on iPad speculation until the damned things actually ship. You know, wait for some concrete data, rather than bullshit hypotheticals. Our imagined use-cases are usually wrong. Telephones were going to be a broadcast mechanism. Java was going to be an embedded systems language. Wave was going to replace email. Sorry to be such a grump, but I feel like all useful analysis has been exhausted. Wait until people actually buy (or don't buy) the device, then we can talk some more.
- wmf 17y ago
  In this case we're speculating about market evolution that will take place over the span of a decade or so... and by the time we have hard data it will be too late to change anything due to path dependence.
- doron 17y ago
  I agree, it is fun to speculate. /but i think everything that could be said up to this point has been said, half of those posts (including Gruber) is commentary on someone else.
dpatru 17y ago
Perhaps Apple products represent the progress of innovation. Since Henry Ford was young, the kids tinkered with gas engines and buggies. Now, automobiles are a mature technology and largely black boxes. Consumer electronics have gone the same way. There used to be a time when kids tinkered with radios. Now radios are black boxes. Progress, though, has not destroyed opportunities for innovation. On the contrary, opportunities have grown. Robot technology, for example, seems to be just beginning.
- doron 17y ago
  Would that be the fate of software? will that be a benefit, if software like Apache be closed? and only vendors with closed technology sell closed software?
keyist 17y ago
I did read this post, but as a warning to others, it says nothing that you didn't already know Gruber would say about the iPad. (Sacrificing karma to illustrate double standard.) EDIT Clarification: double standard remark is wrt my guess on how comment voting would turn out.
- tptacek 17y ago
  What double standard? I agree with you. This isn't news.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- ugh 17y ago
  What you said is correct. There isn’t much new stuff to be found in either Gruber’s or Cory Doctorow’s writing about the iPad. You can safely and happily ignore both of them, just what the other comment you are referring to pointed out. Doesn’t mean the whole thing is completely uninteresting. I don’t see the double standard.
Dotnaught 17y ago
Gruber's argument isn't an argument. He acknowledges that Doctorow, Pilgrim, and Payne have a point and then fails to address the real issue: Apple's veto power over apps on its devices. His answer: Be happy you can write Web apps. That's like saying freedom isn't an issue in China because Hong Kong has freedom. There's simply no rationale for Apple to reject apps based on content that's not illegal, like political speech. The car analogy fails because cars are not useful for content creation, the way computers are. Gruber suggests its a trade-off, in which something is lost and something is gained. But that which is gained -- an effective online market for apps through iTunes -- isn't necessarily linked to what is lost -- Apple's dictatorial control over its hardware and third-party apps. There's no reason it can't just be something gained and nothing lost, at least with regard to content approval. Access to hardware is a related issue and there Apple could afford to be open too.
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  He acknowledges that Doctorow, Pilgrim, and Payne have a point and then fails to address the real issue Except the "real issue" isn't actually an argument either. There is a tradeoff happening here: for the average non-programmer, devices which have at least a certain level of "no user-serviceable parts inside" can be made to be much simpler, much easier to use and at least slightly more secure (in that attacks which depend on duping a user into installing/executing malware will fail) then devices which are completely "tinkerable". The problem lies in failing to acknowledge that this tradeoff exists or that it should be considered on its merits rather than ideologically rejected out of hand; this takes it from the level of rational argument down to the level of blindly applying dogma. Most of the rest of the "argument" is merely a classic slippery slope (allowing just a few devices to have just a little bit of control built in is assumed to lead automatically to all devices having total control built in), and as such doesn't really stand up on its own.
deleted 17y ago
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Dotnaught 17y ago
Can a 13-year-old legally be an Apple developer? Doesn't one have to be 18 to be bound by a legal contract like the Apple Developer Agreement?
jsz0 17y ago
I'm starting to become a defeatist on open platforms. I'd love to see them succeed but it just doesn't seem like the quality and usability is there. If it annoys me it must drive the average person totally insane. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go back to trying to figure out why Dolphin on my Android phone crashes on startup and how to restore the original built-in browser which I must have deleted.
- shade 17y ago
  I have to agree with you on quality/usability. I ended up going back to the iPhone after 2 weeks with the Droid -- mostly because our Exchange server just didn't want to play nice. My big take away after two weeks, though? Android Market apps have a long way to go to catch up to iPhone apps in terms of polish. Even some of the stuff Google supplies just isn't as nice to use. That makes me sad, since I'd like to see a little more competition.
- zavulon 17y ago
  I couldn't agree more. I would LOVE to use something that's open vs something that's closed. Ubuntu instead of Leopard. Android instead of iPhone. OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. Gimp instead of Photoshop. Problem is, all those things are inferior compared to their closed-source counterparts (my opinion only), and don't let me do the job I need them for nearly as well, or in as much comfort. I am a "tinkerer", programmer, tech geek, etc. Am I going to sacrifice my iPhone just because it's closed-source, and start using something else? Never in a million years. I have enough things to tinker with in my life. Some people may disagree, and that's fine, but for me and majority of others it's just not such a big deal if the damned thing works as it's supposed to and I'm happy with it.
  - yters 17y ago
    This seems to be a fundamental problem of open source: people contribute because it is fun. However, the stuff that brings value to your average user, i.e. nice UI and good documentation, is boring. So, OS is great for hackers, some of the best technologies are open source. But, it tends to suck for the end user.
- 17y ago
webwright 17y ago
Yeah, the Atari comparison is ridiculous-- it's comparing the defending closed system with an older and MORE closed system. Let's change it to, "Imagine a 13 year old in 1995 who could produce&sell his own internet game/app on the web." and see how the comparison flies. Because I can imagine that just fine. I see the benefits
majma 17y ago
I'm not demeaning the actual work of Sam Kaplan, I applaud it, but I think argument from cute kid tinkering should only work once for each child in question.. (see video below) please find another 13 year old poster child whose love of technology and entrepreneurship has been kindled by apple's closed ecosystem. http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1377966471&play=1 http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1377966471&play=1 also, does this kid have parents with marketing backgrounds or what? :) all I'm saying is, maybe Sam Kaplan isn't the average kid on the block consuming apple products?
papachito 17y ago
> Something important and valuable is indeed being lost as Apple shifts to this model of computing. But it’s a trade-off, because something new that is important and valuable has been gained. Why should it have to be a trade-off? Because Steve Jobs said so? With Chrome OS, there's a dev mode where you can do/install everything you want and get into console mode. And Android is totally open source too. So as much as Apple wants us to believe there's a necessity in restricting, the truth is that there is absolutely not, it's an artificial restriction.
- replicatorblog 17y ago
  There is a big trade off the other way. Android has a terrible UX. There are a lot of examples but one is their store. App prices are listed in Dollars, Euros, Pounds, and Yen and that is just a small sampling of apps I've seen. What you gain in openness with open OS you lose majorly in polish and usability. There is no perfect platform that satisfies all needs.
  - papachito 17y ago
    > Android has a terrible UX. There are a lot of examples but one is their store. App prices are listed in Dollars, Euros, Pounds, and Yen and that is just a small sampling of apps I've seen. That just means that Google didn't do a good job at designing their app store. Why does it have anything to do with imposing restrictions on developers?
  - orangecat 17y ago
    Android has a terrible UX. To the extent that's true, it's not because Android is open. The Android Market does have many shortcomings (my favorite WTF is the 325 character description limit), but fixing them in no way requires adopting a closed model. There is no perfect platform that satisfies all needs. Agreed. I have no problem with the existence of a walled-garden platform that has armed guards facing both in and out. I do have a problem with that being the only model for mobile computing, which is exactly what Apple is aiming for with their lawsuits asserting that Android is illegal.
cageface 17y ago
Faulty analogies. Computers are not cars. Web clients are not gaming consoles. The iPad is a closed client for an open system.
zppx 17y ago
Apple has a negligible global penetration, and I believe iPad will have a user base smaller than 1% of the total number of computers in the globe in the next 5 years, so even if Apple intends to be evil this will not affect any would be developer. Maybe in the US the case is different, but the iPad will probably not affect how a guy in China, Russia or India learns how to develop an application.
misuba 17y ago
Where are the open-systems advocates who want to make something even better than the iPad instead of complain about it?
msie 17y ago
It's a credit to Apple's importance to the industry (and future hackerdom, apparently) that noone is having the same debate over the JooJoo tablet.
nnutter 17y ago
I hate that people like Gruber keep making the analogy to automobiles. Because the car manufacturers didn't try to lock down their system and took government intervention to prevent this? But if Apple does it, it's just "progress".
mscarborough 17y ago
While the App Store allows (at Apple's discretion) many people to write applications and have them available to a large user base, that is not even close to being 'open'. All of these apps, and any content you want to buy and consume on your iPad, is going to be routed through Apple. To paraphrase an insightful author (who I cannot remember right now), it is an expensive device: apart from the initial investment, you will be paying Apple in order to tailor the device to your own desires, whether that involves downloading an app, a book, or a magazine to read. Also, there's something else that gives me something to consider before contemplating another Apple purchase: the whole Flash dilemma seems to fit in too well with Apple's business goals for everything to be about Adobe being 'lazy' and having a poor-quality product in Flash. While Adobe may have its issues (can have high RAM requirements, particularly in Linux), I think they have enough talent that it could be fixed, at least for target platforms (probably not Linux, sadly, but at least popular mobile devices). On the other hand, Apple has no reason to allow flash. Why would you buy a $5 game if there were other, ad-supported versions that you could get for free through Safari? I'm not panning Apple in general. I run Linux for work, but just started to complement those workstations with a couple Apple products for personal use. It just doesn't ring the free/open platform bell for me; however, it's an ambitious and interesting project...I'm curious to see where it goes.
extension 17y ago
The iPad is more open than a game console and less open than a personal computer and you can't use either comparison alone to predict the future. The point of being in a new category is that it won't replace existing products, though it will change the way we use them. I sincerely doubt that the children of tomorrow will grow up without personal computers just because the iPad is around. Computers are dirt cheap, can do way more stuff, and kids aren't afraid of them like "mom" is. It's difficult to say whether the iPad will be a net win or loss for software freedom, in the long run. Never have so many developers been so tightly controlled by a single vendor. However, the iPhone/iPad platform has opened up a world of opportunities for developers, inspired the creation of other, more open app stores, and will probably encourage, far more than deter, aspiring young developers, as Gruber's anecdote illustrates.
more_original 17y ago
Tinkerable or not, a platform where Apple decides which applications can be distributed stinks!
grendel 17y ago
The reason things are so good for us now is the free software and free culture that gave us the tools we have. Apple firmly sits on that back.
mooted 17y ago
If you are regular guy using a car to go from A to B, you definitely don't want to open up the hood. But if you bought a car to learn a thing or two about the engine inside, then you are in trouble with a locked down hood. The same with kids who wanna be hackers. If your kid want to be a hacker and learn things, he is definitely going to be in big trouble with locked down devices like iPad and companies like Apple .

269 points by kilian 17y ago

The point that's worth mentioning is that, in the olden days, families had just one computer, they cost a small fortune. That isn't the case anymore. In my family of 5, there are currently 10 computers of various sizes in use. This is mostly my fault since I own 5. An iPad can be used for viewing the photos that someone just edited in photoshop on their 'regular' pc. They're complimental.

nexneo 17y ago

The way my 4 year old interacts with iPod Touch and does some amazing things. Learn words, numbers, play kid's games. I think he will learn lot more interactively on iPad.

statenjason 17y ago
The apps are not the problem. That's actually a great use of the platform. Rather, when/if your child becomes curious about creating something of his own, he's met with a $100 barrier to entry.
- hackermom 17y ago
  No; he's met with a $100 barrier if he wants to supply his software to others via Apple's App Store. Creating and developing for OS X and for iPhone OS on iPod/iTouch/iPad is entirely free. The XCode suite and the SDKs cost nothing to download.
  - vegashacker 17y ago
    But you can't install on any devices (even your own) without the $100 fee.
    - eelco 17y ago
      The (yearly) $100 fee might not be negligible compared to the price of the device (it's still 50% of the price of the cheapest iPod Touch), but if your child already has (access to) a Mac and iPod Touch or iPhone, I don't think it will be that much of a problem.
  - aaronbrethorst 17y ago
    No, he's met with a $100 barrier if he wants to load that app onto his iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, or submit it to the AppStore.
    - hackermom 17y ago
      This does not hinder someone from developing software, which is what "op" was under the impression of.
      - aaronbrethorst 17y ago
        I was merely addressing an inaccuracy in your post. And sure it does: there are tons of scenarios where the Simulator doesn't work like the real hardware or doesn't work at all: location-based apps, many audio and graphics scenarios, Youtube video playback, etc.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- aresant 17y ago
  Back in the day that was a $4000+ barrier to entry to buy compiler, hardware, etc. Let's be real - what parent wouldn't spring for $100?
  - vegashacker 17y ago
    Seriously. I can't imagine the set of parents who buy an iPhone/iPad for their kid but won't spend the $100 to let their kid build with it is a large set--in fact, it's probably empty.
    - _phred 17y ago
      Yep, even if they have to buy a Mac ($600 for a Mac Mini), that's still cheap. I'm glad my parents spent money on my "software habit," which has given me a lifelong valuable skill. I'd do the same for my kids in an instant.

dskhatri 17y ago

Not to be snarky, but why isn't John Gruber an evangelist at Apple? Surely Apple would want him on their team.

dpritchett 17y ago
He's already evangelizing for Apple as a somewhat objective 3rd party. Bringing him in-house would cost them money and compromise his perceived reliability.
- samps 17y ago
  He's currently doing a good job of at least appearing neutral. See his recent comments on Apple's patent litigation against HTC -- he doesn't like that at all. http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/this_apple_htc_patent_thing http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/this_apple_htc_patent_thin... (And I, of course, am a completely neutral third-party John Gruber evangelist.)
  - pavs 17y ago
    Yeah, John Gruber is neutral about Apple the same way Cory Doctorow is neutral about open platform.
    - ugh 17y ago
      I’m quite confused about the meaning of neutral in this context. Being neutral in itself doesn’t seem like a virtue to me. Being neutral is a useful position if you don’t know what you are talking about. Being neutral is a useful skill if people expect you to present facts. Both of those things don’t apply to either Cory Doctorow or John Gruber. It’s just normal that they hold and present certain views in their writing. Calling them out on not being neutral (or saying they successfully appear to be neutral) seems to not make any sense. I expect them to not be neutral. I don’t read BoingBoing or Daring Fireball for news.
      - pavs 17y ago

MrFoof 17y ago

"Such is the march of progress. 40 years ago you could open the hood of your car and see and touch just about every component in there. And you had to, because many of those components required frequent maintenance. To properly own a car required, to some degree, that you understood how a car worked. Today, you open the hood of your car and you see a big sealed block and a basin for the windshield washer fluid. You can buy a new car, drive it for years, and never once open the hood yourself." (Warning, car guy!) First, I don't think this is a bad thing. The average person doesn't want to perform any maintenance anyways. Heck, oil changes. They're still just as easy to perform. You're not even saving any time by going to the dealership and back, plus waiting around. You're certainly not saving any money (I can save $45 changing my oil myself). People just don't want to expend the effort. In the case of cars, at least in the US, they went from an object to pride to... a nuisance for most motorists. They want to be comforted, coddled, and have as much as possible done for them so they can chat with friends, sip their coffee, or have a conversation via text message. That applies to many things. I know plenty of folks who spend $10-12 a day on lunch. $10-12 of ingredients gets me a far better lunch for the entire week. Even saves me time, because I don't have to wait in a line every day. It's not cheaper. It's not even less time. It's the time spent is "lower impact" I guess. That's what's paid for. Consumers are given a choice, and many choose the path of overall least resistance. I'm sure there's plenty of other psychological factors at play (i.e., "Well I have the money to not need to cook for myself all the time!", advertising making things seem more appealing), but the reality is when presented with all the options, folks just want to do the least work possible. Give people more iPads. At least in the current consumer culture, it's exactly what people want. They don't want to explore or program. It's the path of computing least resistance. Enthusiasts and people who have a serious need for one will still buy computers.

kscaldef 17y ago
> You're not even saving any time by going to the dealership and back, plus waiting around. You're certainly not saving any money (I can save $45 changing my oil myself). Actually, even this has gotten a bit debatable. My dealership has wifi available, so I can take my car in for an oil change and I don't have to take any time off work to do it.

SwellJoe 17y ago

Things have never been better for kids and technology than they are today, and I agree with Gruber that it's a bit myopic to suggest otherwise. But, it is dangerous to ignore negative events, just because the overall trend has been positive for the past 30 years. Apple has been responsible for a number of very negative events in the past few years. Going back to more closed systems is not a good thing, even if the iPad is awesome and seems like magic and kids love it (and I'm sure they do). The iPad and iPhone are more closed, more hostile to tinkerers, more hostile to adventurous users, than most other similar devices. This is a bad thing. One shouldn't apologize for a company doing bad things, just because things in the industry as a whole are better than they were ten or fifteen or twenty years ago. Open Source software has made dramatic improvements in the landscape for kids learning technology today. Apple is fighting those improvements, and they should be called out for that bad behavior. Apple is behaving in ways that are bad for developers, and bad for kids who might become hackers. Just because they also happen to build awesome products, and do happen to provide an approved relief valve for their closed ecosystem, doesn't make it OK to be hostile to developers and would-be hackers.

akeefer 17y ago
Arguing as a sometimes-utilitarian: people love their iPhones, and their creation has actually brought happiness into people's lives. In all this doom-and-gloom talk about how the iPad will destroy computing as we know it and Apple is the new evil empire, etc. etc., hardly anyone ever seems to weigh the happiness brought to consumers by their devices. So let's not just focus on the theoretical-hacker-kid-who-will-now-never-learn-to-program, because they're not the only type of person affected by these devices. Are many people's days just a tiny bit happier because they have their iPhone? Yes. (And many people's days are happier because they have a phone that is much better than it would have been had the iPhone never happened). And that should matter too.
- pyre 17y ago
  The problem is that Gruber is presenting a false dichotomy. > Something important and valuable is indeed being lost as Apple shifts to this model of computing. But it’s a trade-off, because something new that is important and valuable has been gained. The trade-off here isn't a "you can't have it both ways" type of decision. It's a business decision by Apple to only allow apps through the AppStore. The iPhone and iPad could be just as user-friendly of devices while remaining open. [ As a side note: Comparing the 'openness' of the web app angle for the iPad/iPhoneOS is a bit disingenuous, because you need to have hosting ('in the cloud' or not) to deliver such an app. You didn't need to have that 'back in the day' when you were creating BASIC apps on an Apple II. A better solution to 'openness' would be to just charge the $99 for the devkit and allow apps to be installed outside of the AppStore. ]

lanstein 17y ago

On the topic of Atari 2600 BASIC, at least there was PEEK and POKE, not that it was easy to figure out the different addresses without a manual. Amusingly, I have a floppy on my desk that my little brother wrote on when he was about 4 or 5. It has two commands on the label - POKE and PEAK :)

whyenot 17y ago
There actually was an amazing little book published by Compute! that contained information on every memory address of interest on the Atari 400/800, and what peeking/poking different values at each address did. It was fantastic, and a tinkering teenager's bible.

there 17y ago

whether or not the ipad is a step in the wrong direction, i feel bad for the kid learning how to program by having to save up to pay for an apple developer account (and having to use his parents' bank account information since he's under age), learning with apple-supplied-and-regulated documentation, then submitting his work to apple, stressing out over whether they'll approve of it and think it's good enough, and then probably not making much money at all on the whole thing and taking that to mean he's a bad programmer. not to mention all of the idiots dismissing his software with "this app sux" on the app's review page.

conesus 17y ago
The reality is that this 13 year old kid has positive reviews on his app, has the increased confidence to go along with actually making something, and will undoubtedly use that confidence and passion to create more substantive projects as he gets older. The bar is ostensibly higher for the inexperienced to get involved with programming. But $99 for a developer license is nothing compared to the cost of an Apple ][e, Amiga, Atari, etc. Most kids already have a Mac anyhow. And if they don't, a Mac mini + LCD is not prohibitively expensive. PcC developers have to start on something, too. I see the iPad as an easier way for a 13 year old to show off his work. And at that age, since you're not living off the money you make, you are largely living off props. And what better way to boost confidence than to have real live customers.
- there 17y ago
  i think we both know that the particular 13 year old mention in this article is rare and that developers of any age have a hard time making a hit iphone app. it's nice to focus on the few that have made lots of money, but the reality is that there are many thousands of apps that haven't made any money (especially considering the $99/year fee) and some that were never approved in the first place. while you state that "most kids already have a mac", which i'd disagree with, the costs to acquire that and the iphone/ipod touch that they're actually using to run the app, are much higher than an old computer running linux, where they can make whatever they want for free and distribute it on the internet or at school without having to have anyone else approve it or anonymously judge its quality.

Titanous 17y ago

While I agree that being able to sell apps on the iTunes Store is a good thing, and worth $99, I don't think that Apple should limit owners of their iP* devices from creating and installing unapproved applications. Why should I have to pay $99 just to sign my own apps for personal use? You don't pay the car manufacturer for a license to modify your car. This is the only problem I have with these devices. In my opinion, Apple should just do what Windows does with downloads, and warn users when installing unsigned apps. This provides the best of both worlds. Keep charging for the privilege to sell on the App Store, but please, just let me use my device how I want to.

btucker 17y ago
Most people have been well seasoned just to click through any warnings. I think the solution is just to allow anyone to install an alternative "unlocked" OS on the device. You'd have to jump through some hoops to do it, but once you did you could do as you pleased (and give up your right to any support from apple). Basically allow jail breaking w/o the need to find an exploit to do it.
- Titanous 17y ago
  This would work as long as you can get support if you reflash the "locked" firmware before calling.
pyre 17y ago
A possible solution: * Apple still charges $99 for a developer license/kit * Apple still runs their AppStore * Apple releases specs/API for creating your own AppStore * People create competing AppStore implementations * By default, Apple's AppStore is the only one configured * The interface for adding extra AppStores is a bit hidden and rough around the edges, so that people have to be motivated to actually do it. (i.e. raise the bar a bit, so that the people that do it know what they are doing) The majority of people would still just use Apple's AppStore, but this would allow Apple to side-step the "We can't approve that because it would be bad for our company image to have it in our AppStore" type of issues. Apple could even void the warranty for people that use competing AppStores as a way to raise the barrier, but at least it would still be there for the people that wanted to use it.

orangecat 17y ago

You can buy a new car, drive it for years, and never once open the hood yourself. That’s the iPad. If the iPad were a car, it would be illegal to open the hood. Yes, there's some 13 year old kids writing iPhone apps. There are even more 13 year old kids writing PC and Mac apps, so I'm not sure what that proves. What there won't be by design in the iPad world is disruptive innovators like Linus Torvalds. As I've said before, that's good for Apple and bad for everyone else.

0x44 17y ago
If the iPad were a car, it would be illegal to open the hood. That's incorrect, if the iPad were a car opening the hood would void the warranty.
- orangecat 17y ago
  No, that would be reasonable. Apple has specifically stated in filings to the Copyright Office that jailbreaking is and should be a criminal act: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking-illegal http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/apple-says-jailbreaking...
  - pyre 17y ago
    I guess it depends on what we mean by 'opening up the hood.' Sticking to the analogy I would take that to mean cracking open the physical case. Most of the 'black boxes' in a cars engine are also protected with various DRM methods to make it illegal for others to reverse-engineer them (therefore making it so that mechanics have to pay the manufacturer for access to the devices). I would associate those with the actual chips inside of the iPad/iPhone as well as the OS.
    - biafra 17y ago
      "make it illegal" in the USA. Reverse engineering is not (yet) illegal in other (most?) countries.
  - 17y ago

stcredzero 17y ago

Last two paragraphs: If you could go back and show my 10-year-old self an iPad — millions of colors, video, photographs, gorgeous typography, a touchscreen interface, networking (wirelessly!) — and offered to let me write web apps for it in exchange for my agreeing never to touch an Apple II again, I’m pretty sure I know what the answer would be. Something important and valuable is indeed being lost as Apple shifts to this model of computing. But it’s a trade-off, because something new that is important and valuable has been gained. I'm sure a lot of early audiophile tinkerers would be gobsmacked if someone shoved a Bose system at them through a time portal. Perhaps our fears of the death of tinkering are like laments about the death of penmanship. Maybe what's essential survives in a different form?

jerf 17y ago

"Something important and valuable is indeed being lost as Apple shifts to this model of computing. But it’s a trade-off, because something new that is important and valuable has been gained." This is true, but for people like me, beside the point. A car is either open or closed, to the extent the terms mean anything. A computer doesn't have to choose! It can be closed, until you press the "Yes I Want To Possibly Break My Box" button and all it has to do is stop checking executable signatures and let things that aren't from the official source run. (Isn't this how Android works? I don't have one.) This is not a fundamental tradeoff that Apple with some regret has been forced to make to make their product easy to use. Gruber is hiding his arguments behind a technical tradeoff that is entirely manufactured by Apple in the first place. A few weeks ago I bought my wife an HP Mini running Windows 7. She will never crack the hood. It is an easy to use machine, browser here, open office there (which, by the way, I was allowed to install), IE locked away behind this icon over there to access her ActiveX-based time-and-attendance system. It is one application install away from having an "app store"; for instance, Steam could probably be installed in about five minutes. And I could turn it into a Linux machine in about half-an-hour. Because none of that ease-of-use actually requires the machine to be tinkerproof.

sstrudeau 17y ago
This is exactly my complaint. I think everything about the iPad and App Store is brilliant and the closed defaults make sense. But preventing everybody from opening the device because most people shouldn't/won't is the problem. This is not a necessary trade off. If I want to run my own code on my own device, make me jump through a hoop (so I know what I'm getting into) but don't stop me from shooting myself in the foot (and don't make me pay you a $99/year subscription).

megaduck 17y ago

I'd like to call a moratorium on iPad speculation until the damned things actually ship. You know, wait for some concrete data, rather than bullshit hypotheticals. Our imagined use-cases are usually wrong. Telephones were going to be a broadcast mechanism. Java was going to be an embedded systems language. Wave was going to replace email. Sorry to be such a grump, but I feel like all useful analysis has been exhausted. Wait until people actually buy (or don't buy) the device, then we can talk some more.

wmf 17y ago
In this case we're speculating about market evolution that will take place over the span of a decade or so... and by the time we have hard data it will be too late to change anything due to path dependence.
doron 17y ago
I agree, it is fun to speculate. /but i think everything that could be said up to this point has been said, half of those posts (including Gruber) is commentary on someone else.

dpatru 17y ago

Perhaps Apple products represent the progress of innovation. Since Henry Ford was young, the kids tinkered with gas engines and buggies. Now, automobiles are a mature technology and largely black boxes. Consumer electronics have gone the same way. There used to be a time when kids tinkered with radios. Now radios are black boxes. Progress, though, has not destroyed opportunities for innovation. On the contrary, opportunities have grown. Robot technology, for example, seems to be just beginning.

doron 17y ago
Would that be the fate of software? will that be a benefit, if software like Apache be closed? and only vendors with closed technology sell closed software?

keyist 17y ago

I did read this post, but as a warning to others, it says nothing that you didn't already know Gruber would say about the iPad. (Sacrificing karma to illustrate double standard.) EDIT Clarification: double standard remark is wrt my guess on how comment voting would turn out.

tptacek 17y ago
What double standard? I agree with you. This isn't news.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
ugh 17y ago
What you said is correct. There isn’t much new stuff to be found in either Gruber’s or Cory Doctorow’s writing about the iPad. You can safely and happily ignore both of them, just what the other comment you are referring to pointed out. Doesn’t mean the whole thing is completely uninteresting. I don’t see the double standard.

Dotnaught 17y ago

Gruber's argument isn't an argument. He acknowledges that Doctorow, Pilgrim, and Payne have a point and then fails to address the real issue: Apple's veto power over apps on its devices. His answer: Be happy you can write Web apps. That's like saying freedom isn't an issue in China because Hong Kong has freedom. There's simply no rationale for Apple to reject apps based on content that's not illegal, like political speech. The car analogy fails because cars are not useful for content creation, the way computers are. Gruber suggests its a trade-off, in which something is lost and something is gained. But that which is gained -- an effective online market for apps through iTunes -- isn't necessarily linked to what is lost -- Apple's dictatorial control over its hardware and third-party apps. There's no reason it can't just be something gained and nothing lost, at least with regard to content approval. Access to hardware is a related issue and there Apple could afford to be open too.

ubernostrum 17y ago
He acknowledges that Doctorow, Pilgrim, and Payne have a point and then fails to address the real issue Except the "real issue" isn't actually an argument either. There is a tradeoff happening here: for the average non-programmer, devices which have at least a certain level of "no user-serviceable parts inside" can be made to be much simpler, much easier to use and at least slightly more secure (in that attacks which depend on duping a user into installing/executing malware will fail) then devices which are completely "tinkerable". The problem lies in failing to acknowledge that this tradeoff exists or that it should be considered on its merits rather than ideologically rejected out of hand; this takes it from the level of rational argument down to the level of blindly applying dogma. Most of the rest of the "argument" is merely a classic slippery slope (allowing just a few devices to have just a little bit of control built in is assumed to lead automatically to all devices having total control built in), and as such doesn't really stand up on its own.

deleted 17y ago

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Dotnaught 17y ago

Can a 13-year-old legally be an Apple developer? Doesn't one have to be 18 to be bound by a legal contract like the Apple Developer Agreement?

jsz0 17y ago

I'm starting to become a defeatist on open platforms. I'd love to see them succeed but it just doesn't seem like the quality and usability is there. If it annoys me it must drive the average person totally insane. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go back to trying to figure out why Dolphin on my Android phone crashes on startup and how to restore the original built-in browser which I must have deleted.

shade 17y ago
I have to agree with you on quality/usability. I ended up going back to the iPhone after 2 weeks with the Droid -- mostly because our Exchange server just didn't want to play nice. My big take away after two weeks, though? Android Market apps have a long way to go to catch up to iPhone apps in terms of polish. Even some of the stuff Google supplies just isn't as nice to use. That makes me sad, since I'd like to see a little more competition.
zavulon 17y ago
I couldn't agree more. I would LOVE to use something that's open vs something that's closed. Ubuntu instead of Leopard. Android instead of iPhone. OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. Gimp instead of Photoshop. Problem is, all those things are inferior compared to their closed-source counterparts (my opinion only), and don't let me do the job I need them for nearly as well, or in as much comfort. I am a "tinkerer", programmer, tech geek, etc. Am I going to sacrifice my iPhone just because it's closed-source, and start using something else? Never in a million years. I have enough things to tinker with in my life. Some people may disagree, and that's fine, but for me and majority of others it's just not such a big deal if the damned thing works as it's supposed to and I'm happy with it.
- yters 17y ago
  This seems to be a fundamental problem of open source: people contribute because it is fun. However, the stuff that brings value to your average user, i.e. nice UI and good documentation, is boring. So, OS is great for hackers, some of the best technologies are open source. But, it tends to suck for the end user.
17y ago

webwright 17y ago

Yeah, the Atari comparison is ridiculous-- it's comparing the defending closed system with an older and MORE closed system. Let's change it to, "Imagine a 13 year old in 1995 who could produce&sell his own internet game/app on the web." and see how the comparison flies. Because I can imagine that just fine. I see the benefits

majma 17y ago

I'm not demeaning the actual work of Sam Kaplan, I applaud it, but I think argument from cute kid tinkering should only work once for each child in question.. (see video below) please find another 13 year old poster child whose love of technology and entrepreneurship has been kindled by apple's closed ecosystem. http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1377966471&play=1 http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1377966471&play=1 also, does this kid have parents with marketing backgrounds or what? :) all I'm saying is, maybe Sam Kaplan isn't the average kid on the block consuming apple products?

papachito 17y ago

> Something important and valuable is indeed being lost as Apple shifts to this model of computing. But it’s a trade-off, because something new that is important and valuable has been gained. Why should it have to be a trade-off? Because Steve Jobs said so? With Chrome OS, there's a dev mode where you can do/install everything you want and get into console mode. And Android is totally open source too. So as much as Apple wants us to believe there's a necessity in restricting, the truth is that there is absolutely not, it's an artificial restriction.

replicatorblog 17y ago
There is a big trade off the other way. Android has a terrible UX. There are a lot of examples but one is their store. App prices are listed in Dollars, Euros, Pounds, and Yen and that is just a small sampling of apps I've seen. What you gain in openness with open OS you lose majorly in polish and usability. There is no perfect platform that satisfies all needs.
- papachito 17y ago
  > Android has a terrible UX. There are a lot of examples but one is their store. App prices are listed in Dollars, Euros, Pounds, and Yen and that is just a small sampling of apps I've seen. That just means that Google didn't do a good job at designing their app store. Why does it have anything to do with imposing restrictions on developers?
- orangecat 17y ago
  Android has a terrible UX. To the extent that's true, it's not because Android is open. The Android Market does have many shortcomings (my favorite WTF is the 325 character description limit), but fixing them in no way requires adopting a closed model. There is no perfect platform that satisfies all needs. Agreed. I have no problem with the existence of a walled-garden platform that has armed guards facing both in and out. I do have a problem with that being the only model for mobile computing, which is exactly what Apple is aiming for with their lawsuits asserting that Android is illegal.

cageface 17y ago

Faulty analogies. Computers are not cars. Web clients are not gaming consoles. The iPad is a closed client for an open system.

zppx 17y ago

Apple has a negligible global penetration, and I believe iPad will have a user base smaller than 1% of the total number of computers in the globe in the next 5 years, so even if Apple intends to be evil this will not affect any would be developer. Maybe in the US the case is different, but the iPad will probably not affect how a guy in China, Russia or India learns how to develop an application.

misuba 17y ago

Where are the open-systems advocates who want to make something even better than the iPad instead of complain about it?

msie 17y ago

It's a credit to Apple's importance to the industry (and future hackerdom, apparently) that noone is having the same debate over the JooJoo tablet.

nnutter 17y ago

I hate that people like Gruber keep making the analogy to automobiles. Because the car manufacturers didn't try to lock down their system and took government intervention to prevent this? But if Apple does it, it's just "progress".

mscarborough 17y ago

While the App Store allows (at Apple's discretion) many people to write applications and have them available to a large user base, that is not even close to being 'open'. All of these apps, and any content you want to buy and consume on your iPad, is going to be routed through Apple. To paraphrase an insightful author (who I cannot remember right now), it is an expensive device: apart from the initial investment, you will be paying Apple in order to tailor the device to your own desires, whether that involves downloading an app, a book, or a magazine to read. Also, there's something else that gives me something to consider before contemplating another Apple purchase: the whole Flash dilemma seems to fit in too well with Apple's business goals for everything to be about Adobe being 'lazy' and having a poor-quality product in Flash. While Adobe may have its issues (can have high RAM requirements, particularly in Linux), I think they have enough talent that it could be fixed, at least for target platforms (probably not Linux, sadly, but at least popular mobile devices). On the other hand, Apple has no reason to allow flash. Why would you buy a $5 game if there were other, ad-supported versions that you could get for free through Safari? I'm not panning Apple in general. I run Linux for work, but just started to complement those workstations with a couple Apple products for personal use. It just doesn't ring the free/open platform bell for me; however, it's an ambitious and interesting project...I'm curious to see where it goes.

extension 17y ago

The iPad is more open than a game console and less open than a personal computer and you can't use either comparison alone to predict the future. The point of being in a new category is that it won't replace existing products, though it will change the way we use them. I sincerely doubt that the children of tomorrow will grow up without personal computers just because the iPad is around. Computers are dirt cheap, can do way more stuff, and kids aren't afraid of them like "mom" is. It's difficult to say whether the iPad will be a net win or loss for software freedom, in the long run. Never have so many developers been so tightly controlled by a single vendor. However, the iPhone/iPad platform has opened up a world of opportunities for developers, inspired the creation of other, more open app stores, and will probably encourage, far more than deter, aspiring young developers, as Gruber's anecdote illustrates.

more_original 17y ago

Tinkerable or not, a platform where Apple decides which applications can be distributed stinks!

grendel 17y ago

The reason things are so good for us now is the free software and free culture that gave us the tools we have. Apple firmly sits on that back.

mooted 17y ago

If you are regular guy using a car to go from A to B, you definitely don't want to open up the hood. But if you bought a car to learn a thing or two about the engine inside, then you are in trouble with a locked down hood. The same with kids who wanna be hackers. If your kid want to be a hacker and learn things, he is definitely going to be in big trouble with locked down devices like iPad and companies like Apple .