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You seem to be under the impression that phones once were free & loose, and then Apple locked them down. Phones never were free - carriers controlled what w

You seem to be under the impression that phones once were free & loose, and then Apple locked them down. Phones never were free - carriers controlled what went on them, and what features were used. Apple opened devices up to a level never before seen - no more carrier crap pre-loaded, and a serious push to improve data pipes and 3G availability throughout North America. Not to mention an app marketplace NOT controlled by the carriers, and an web browsing experience that doesn't require you to be snooped on by WAP gateways. Do you not still see the (baseless) grief Apple gets from carriers about how their phones are "data hogs"? Or how the media breathlessly claims the retina display is going to clog up all of our bandwidth from higher resolution video and pictures? Phones were always locked down heavily, Apple blew up that up to a large extent, but not completely, of course, as they are in business.... But today's variety of walled gardens are mostly untouchable by the carriers. > Apple's restrictions are all about controlling device owners to make Apple more money. (Otherwise they would be "suggestions".) No, the restrictions are all about curating an experience. Suggestions require choice. Most people don't want to make choices on how their phones work, they want to be handed experience with most decisions made for them, and for popular variations to be tweakable. "Opinionated software". > You may not install apps that don't pay Apple 30% of their revenues. Well, yes, they are capitalists, shame on them. > You may not install apps that compete with Apple's favored apps. That sucked, I agree, but that's changing. Chrome is out for iOS. Alternative Email clients are out. Apple generally is known for good customer service according to most customer satisfaction surveys, and presuming these people are semi-rational beings, that usually implies Apple actually listens to them (eventually). > I'm saying freedom doesn't what you think it means, and I don't think even Frank Luntz could make it mean that. You seem to be confusing political freedom with freedom to violate others' property. Firstly, you do realize that you have political freedom -- people are completely free to jailbreak their phones, no police will come after you. If you violate your carrier's T&Cs they can fire you as a customer, but that's due to years of historically poor regulation of telecom in the USA. Secondly, none of the software you use, that you haven't written, is owned by you. All owners of that software have a restriction on your behaviour with that software, including free or open source software. You have never been completely free when you use software. Thus, degree of openness is just a feature. Apple is trying to find a balance that people care about. Naturally developers & technical folks don't like losing the freedom to tinker, while most people couldn't care less. Apple needs to maintain a developer community that tinkers, though. So it's a balancing act.

guard-of-terra 14y ago
"Phones never were free - carriers controlled what went on them" This is only relevant for USA, not the rest of the world. All around the globe you could walk into a store, buy any phone you wanted, buy a carrier's SIM and insert into that. So the Apple model is a kind of dropback.
abecedarius 14y ago
An iPad is not a phone. An iPod Touch is not a phone. Even on phones, many, maybe most, aspects of the lockdown have nothing to do with carriers' interests. Apple has decided it likes being like a carrier; its relation to users has changed from computer company to jealous boyfriend. (I'm not getting involved beyond your first paragraph.)
- demallien 14y ago
  There is a spectrum of openness when it comes to computing devices. At one end you have computers that are very open, with all of the problems that come with that, and at the other extreme you have fixed-function devices such as printers. In between, you have things like game consoles, smartphones, and other mobile devices. iDevices are more closed than computers, sure, but they are much more open than say a Nintendo DS, whose SDK costs an order of magnitude more than iOS devlopment. This is as it should be, as iDevices are more flexible than a games console. Viewed as a continuum of openness, Apple's products seem to me to be exactly where you would expect them to be. You could argue that they should be alittle more open, some even argue that they should be more closed, but overall their success in the market would seem to bear out the theory that they are roughly in the right spot.
  - abecedarius 14y ago
    This claim (that there's a big niche for curated computing with one central curator) would sway me a little if it weren't for all the patent litigation. And the really strong network effects in OS adoption. Where I'd expect them to be: no correlation a priori between whether a computer has a multitouch interface and whether its own owner can choose what software to run.

guard-of-terra 14y ago

"Phones never were free - carriers controlled what went on them" This is only relevant for USA, not the rest of the world. All around the globe you could walk into a store, buy any phone you wanted, buy a carrier's SIM and insert into that. So the Apple model is a kind of dropback.

abecedarius 14y ago

An iPad is not a phone. An iPod Touch is not a phone. Even on phones, many, maybe most, aspects of the lockdown have nothing to do with carriers' interests. Apple has decided it likes being like a carrier; its relation to users has changed from computer company to jealous boyfriend. (I'm not getting involved beyond your first paragraph.)

demallien 14y ago
There is a spectrum of openness when it comes to computing devices. At one end you have computers that are very open, with all of the problems that come with that, and at the other extreme you have fixed-function devices such as printers. In between, you have things like game consoles, smartphones, and other mobile devices. iDevices are more closed than computers, sure, but they are much more open than say a Nintendo DS, whose SDK costs an order of magnitude more than iOS devlopment. This is as it should be, as iDevices are more flexible than a games console. Viewed as a continuum of openness, Apple's products seem to me to be exactly where you would expect them to be. You could argue that they should be alittle more open, some even argue that they should be more closed, but overall their success in the market would seem to bear out the theory that they are roughly in the right spot.
- abecedarius 14y ago
  This claim (that there's a big niche for curated computing with one central curator) would sway me a little if it weren't for all the patent litigation. And the really strong network effects in OS adoption. Where I'd expect them to be: no correlation a priori between whether a computer has a multitouch interface and whether its own owner can choose what software to run.