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Smart iPad writing
There’s a ton of interesting writing about the iPad floating around that you may have already seen.
Steven Frank writes about Old World and New World computing, and explains that the exemplars of the new world are the iPhone and the iPad (and their competitors from other companies). I agree. The first thing I thought when I saw the iPad was that it would be the perfect device for my wife. She uses her computer to read email, surf the Web, and do some basic productivity stuff. She hates laptops, and she’s not a fan of the complexity of desktop computer operating systems. She’s ready for New World computing. (I, on the other hand, want a 27″ iMac and the opportunity to steal the iPad when she’s not looking.) Steven’s piece is really great, full of astute observations. You should read it.
Alex Payne is disturbed by the iPad because he sees (as I do) that it is the beginning of the end of computers for people who tinker.
Adam Pash says that forcing people to choose between open and user friendly creates a false dichotomy. This is one of those things that I wish were true, but that I’m not sure actually is true.
Fraser Speirs posts the positive take:
If the iPad and its successor devices free these people to focus on what they do best, it will dramatically change people’s perceptions of computing from something to fear to something to engage enthusiastically with. I find it hard to believe that the loss of background processing isn’t a price worth paying to have a computer that isn’t frightening anymore.
If you’re interested in the iPad itself rather than its implications for the future of computing, you have plenty of options. Stephen Fry is incredibly impressed. John Gruber talks about how fast it is and the chip Apple has built to make it so fast. He posted more hands on details yesterday. Usability expert Luke Wroblewski talks about the new user interface interactions introduced in the iPad presentation.
And finally, I agree with Roger Ebert — they should have called it the iTab.
My take on the long term implications of the iPad is here.
Is the iPad the harbinger of doom for personal computing?
In 2002, there was a lot of fear of Microsoft’s trusted computing platform, Palladium. The idea was that Microsoft was going to add new security to computers that was enforced in the hardware which would put an end to viruses and some other security problems but would also fundamentally change the relationship between computers and their users. Your computer would no longer be fully under your control, nor would it be functionally anonymous. Steven Levy’s original article hyping Palladium explains the purported benefits, then Ross Anderson explained what was scary about it.
In the end, Palladium was a total failure. It never went anywhere. But people at the time reacted very strongly when the traditional idea of the general purpose personal computer was threatened. People were afraid that if Palladium were implemented, the PC maker, application developers, and media companies would all be able to exert control over your experience.
Now we turn to Apple’s iPad. It’s just an iPod Touch with a big screen, but that’s all that many people need from a computer. You can use it to surf the Web, read email, listen to music, watch video, or compose documents. That’s the personal computer use case for many people. And I think a lot of people are going to buy them.
The fundamental difference between a Mac and an iPhone is that I can run any software I want on my Mac. I can buy it on a DVD, I can download it from the Internet, or I can compile it myself. I can get rid of OS X and install another operating system. The Mac is a general purpose computer in the classic sense. The iPhone is not.
Apple decides which software I can run on my iPhone. Apple provides the only means by which I can get it. The platform is for all intents and purposes, closed, and the hardware is closed as well. Sure, the iPhone is great to use, but the price of using it is that you’re rewarding Apple’s choice to bet on closed platforms.
What bothers me is that in terms of openness, the iPad is the same as the iPhone, but in terms of form factor, the iPad is essentially a general purpose computer. So it strikes me as a sort of Trojan horse that acculturates users to closed platforms as a viable alternative to open platforms, and not just when it comes to phones (which are closed pretty much across the board). The question we must ask ourselves as computer users is whether the tradeoff in freedom we make to enjoy Apple’s superior user experience is worth it.
The Setup just published an interview with free software pioneer Richard Stallman about the tools he uses. He uses a crappy Chinese netbook as his only computer:
I am using a Lemote Yeelong, a netbook with a Loongson chip and a 9-inch display. This is my only computer, and I use it all the time. I chose it because I can run it with 100% free software even at the BIOS level.
If Apple is really successful, it’s likely that other companies will be more emboldened to forsake openness as well. The catch is that customers won’t accept the sudden closing of a previously open platform, that’s one of the reasons Palladium failed. But Apple has shown that users will accept most anything in an entirely new platform as long as it offers users the experience they want.
I think that it’s a real possibility that in 10 years, general purpose computers will be seen as being strictly for developers and hobbyists. The descendants of the iPhone and iPad and their competitors will rule the consumer market and people will embrace the closed nature of these platforms for the same reason that Steve Levy hyped Palladium almost 10 years ago — because what you get for trading off freedom is reduced risk. There will be few (if any) viruses, and applications will “just work.”
General purpose computing is too complicated for most people anyway, and the iPad’s descendants along with similar competing products from other companies will offer an enticing alternative. So I see the death of the traditional, open personal computer as a likely occurrence.
Will closed personal computing matter?
The other question that arises for me is whether, in the the long term, the computer you hold in your hand really matters. If all of the applications we use run on other people’s Web servers, and all of our data lives in the cloud, then the fact that our computers are closed appliances we use to get to the Web isn’t such a big deal.
When you look at the performance curve for JavaScript, it does not seem unreasonable to me to imagine that one day in the not too distant future there will be no difference in performance between desktop applications and applications running in the browser. Apple has done a lot to make it possible to build Web applications that are nearly indistinguishable from iPhone applications. It seems likely that every platform vendor will be following their lead, so for most users it won’t matter whether they launch an application by clicking on an icon or by choosing a bookmark in their browser. Indeed, on the iPhone you can already assign icons to Web sites as though they are full-fledged applications.
I foresee an era where people who really care about computing freedom use whatever closed personal computer is available, but run their open source applications on a virtual machine in the cloud somewhere running an open source operating system. Their data is stored in some other location, perhaps in encrypted format so that the fact that it’s not in their physical control matters less. It’s not quite the same as the traditional definition of a “personal computer” but it’s not any less free than what we have now, and it provides the benefit of being accessible from anywhere with an Internet connection.
A future where applications and data in the cloud are more our own than the computers on our desks seems bizarre, but I can see things playing out that way.
For more on the threat to open computing posed by the iPhone platform, check out this piece from Create Digital Music.
Daring Fireball on PastryKit
John Gruber has a piece on JavaScript framework Apple has developed for the iPhone: PastryKit. It’s interesting to see how close Apple is getting to providing the “native experience” in a Web application. It’s a lot closer than most people would have thought possible, I think.
Improving the iPhone app store approval process
This week, Apple got a lot of bad publicity when two iPhone developers abandoned the platform because of the way the app store approval process is handled. The first was Joe Hewitt, the developer of the Facebook iPhone application. You can read his reasons why here. Back in August he expressed his frustration with Apple but said he wasn’t going to boycott the platform. Then today Rogue Amoeba announced that they’ll be focusing on the Mac going forward because of problems they’ve had with Apple’s approval process.
Like most people who aren’t calling the shots at Apple, I’d prefer it if you could install apps on your iPhone by simply going to a URL and downloading them. Even if Apple wants to maintain the vetting process for apps sold through the official store, they could provide an alternate means that anyone can use if they’re willing to assume the risks of doing so. This would, essentially, be a way to let jailbreaking go legit. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon.
As an alternative, I think Apple needs to adopt a different form of government for the iPhone nation. Right now, it’s a dictatorship. Apple exercises nearly complete control over the platform — there are a few jailbroken and unlocked phones that participate in a sort of underground, but if you want to be a legal citizen of the iPhone community, you have to play by Apple’s rules. And as in most dictatorships, Apple makes up the rules as it goes along, and isn’t accountable for enforcing the rules fairly, or offering due process, or even telling people what the rules are, exactly. It’s not surprising that so many people hate this situation — it’s not fair. And Apple’s profits say that it can get away with this behavior for awhile longer. You don’t see too many iPhone users or developers moving to other platforms but the competing platforms are slowly becoming more compelling.
Clearly democracy is out of the question. Apple is a business, and they’re not going to suddenly let the users start running the show. What I do think Apple should move toward is a constitutional monarchy. Apple’s executives remain the heads of state, and are ultimately the final authority on iPhone-related matters, but for everyday purposes the rule of law exists. Apple would write a constitution of sorts for iPhone developers and users, and get rid of the hidden, arbitrary rules. They’d create an open process for developers seeking approval for their applications, communicate reasons for denial, and give the developers a chance to appeal such rulings. This would probably be more manpower-intensive than the current process, but Apple is ridiculously profitable, and in the long term holding themselves to a greater degree of transparency and accountability would be good for the iPhone.
The current system isn’t going to work for a whole lot longer.
Feel the heat
Apple is already starting to up the transparency. I’m not surprised.
Apple vs my preconceived notions
Go read Anil Dash’s letter to Apple explaining why the company must abandon its obsession with secrecy. It’s brilliantly written and compellingly argued, and I wish that Apple would take heed and change their practices tomorrow.
Anil argues that Apple’s current practices are unethical, and I could not agree more. Apple’s relationship with iPhone developers is completely dysfunctional. The ground rules for what sorts of applications will be accepted are secret and are subject to change at any time, without notice. To be honest, I don’t see how Apple’s treatment of iPhone developers is even legal.
Anil also argues that Apple’s attempts to exercise total control over its messaging are antiquated and unsustainable. The larger trend across nearly every industry has certainly been in the opposite direction. As he points out, both Google and Barack Obama have built their brands by taking almost entirely the opposite course. And companies that were once thought of as the most monolithic in the computer industry are now in important ways the most transparent. Employees at IBM and Microsoft blog about their work and engage with the public on Twitter and in other places.
Apple violates every theory of communication that I believe in, but I can’t ignore the fact that what Apple is doing is working. Embracing transparency may work far better for them, but Apple has been incredibly successful over the past decade. Geeks (like me) who hate the company’s public persona absolutely love their products. The features of the iPhone and the opportunity to make buckets of money in a short time draw developers to the platform even though Apple treats them like crap.
In one scenario, this is a bubble of sorts. Apple may be doing OK now, but they’re headed for a big crash when people get sick of their behavior. In another scenario — one that I think is, sadly, more likely, Apple continues as they are, adjusting when it must to address reality, but only in the most minimal way.
Apple will have to become more transparent in its review policy for iPhone applications soon. They’re facing a revolt among developers — Apple crossed the Rubicon when it refused to take questions after a session on publishing on the app store at WWDC this summer. And unceremoniously booting every application that works with Google Voice from the application store, ostensibly because they duplicate built-in iPhone functionality, has been too much.
As Anil points out, there have been other cases where Apple has opened the curtain a bit in order to placate its critics, but none of them have yet led to a fundamental rethinking of its relationship with its customers and the public.
I’m reminded of the predictions that were made about China in particular and authoritarian governments in general during the rapid rise of the Web. I certainly believed that given the huge array of information available on the Internet and the difficulty in censoring it, these types of states would be forced to radically change in the face of protests from a better-informed public. I thought that the liberating tendency of the Internet would not be suppressed. Turns out I was wrong. China’s government has changed over the years, but certainly not in the ways or to the degree that I wished for and expected.
In my ideal world, Apple would take heed of arguments like Anil’s and do the right thing. The way they operate now is a massive blemish on a company that produces really great products. Failing that, I’d hope that Apple will be forced to radically change in order to make it in the modern world. But experience tells me that’s not the case. Apple may well be done in at some point, but probably not because it’s the Burma of US corporations.
The Wal-Martification of Microsoft
John Gruber’s analysis of the current state of Windows really struck a chord with me, because it reminded me of an article I read a long time ago about Wal-Mart. (I blogged about it in 2006.) Gruber’s writing about Microsoft’s declining revenue and the recent news that Apple now holds 91% of the retail market for laptops that cost more than $1,000.
Here’s the key bit:
Microsoft is no longer ignoring Apple’s market share gains and successful “Get a Mac” ad campaign. But the crux of these ads from Apple is that Macs are better; Microsoft’s response is a message that everyone already knows — that Windows PCs are cheaper. Their marketing and retail executives publicly espouse the opinion that, now that everyone sees Apple computers as cool, Microsoft has Apple right where they want them.
They’re a software company whose primary platform no longer appeals to people who like computers the most. Their executives are either in denial of, or do not perceive, that there has emerged a consensus — not just among nerds but among a growing number of regular just-plain users — that Windows PCs are second-rate. They still dominate in terms of unit-sale market share, yes, but not because people don’t recognize Windows as second-rate, but because they don’t care, in the same way millions of people buy metric tons of second-rate products from Wal-Mart every hour of every day.
The older article explains why high-end lawnmower manufacturer Snapper stopped selling its products at Wal-Mart. Here’s Snapper’s then-CEO explaining why it was ending the relationship:
“As I look at the three years Snapper has been with you,” he told the vice president, “every year the price has come down. Every year the content of the product has gone up. We’re at a position where, first, it’s still priced where it doesn’t meet the needs of your clientele. For Wal-Mart, it’s still too high-priced. I think you’d agree with that.
“Now, at the price I’m selling to you today, I’m not making any money on it. And if we do what you want next year, I’ll lose money. I could do that and not go out of business. But we have this independent-dealer channel. And 80% of our business is over here with them. And I can’t put them at a competitive disadvantage. If I do that, I lose everything. So this just isn’t a compatible fit.”
The bottom line is that Snapper could not maintain their high quality or their reputation for high quality in a market where price was the main factor in purchase decisions. It doesn’t surprise me that Microsoft’s current Chief Operating Officer came from Wal-Mart.
As I side note, I just went to Apple’s online store and saw that the 17″ MacBook Pro costs $2,499. Then I went to dell.com and built a Dell Precision Workstation M6400 with nearly identical specs — the total was $2,864.
Dangerous Liaisons with Apple
Here’s a dramatic reenactment of this conversation between an iPhone developer and the Apple representative who let him know his application was being removed from the store because it “duplicates features of the iPhone”:
Explaining the iPhone’s success
Every time a new iPhone is released, there’s a spate of articles that analyze the its success as a product. My friend Stephen O’Grady puts the success of the iPhone down to the apps. He’s got a point — the applications available for the iPhone are great. But the truth is that when the iPhone launched, the only opportunity for developers was to create Web sites that were optimized for the iPhone’s Web browser, and Apple was still selling a ton of phones.
Why? Because of usability. The iPhone offered a better experience than any other phone for making phone calls. Checking voice mail, conducting three way calls, and managing contacts are all light years better than they are anywhere else. The iPhone offered better Web browsing than any other mobile phone. Blackberry email is better than iPhone email, but the iPhone’s email experience is better than every other phone on the market.
That was the real secret to the iPhone’s early success, in my opinion. Apple spent a lot of time not only adding capabilities not available in other phones, but also perfecting the things that people were already using their phones to do. It made the wait for real applications tolerable.
Links from June 3rd
- Edmunds.com: “Confessions of a Car Salesman” Updated for 2009. The original series was a classic on the shady business practices of car dealerships. Turns out the same basic practices are still being applied.
- Bloomberg: Ballmer Says Tax Would Move Microsoft Jobs Offshore. Microsoft exec threatens to move more jobs offshore if the government closes some unrelated tax loopholes that the company takes advantage of.
- Dan Froomkin: Celebrity Journalism at the White House. A strong critique of NBC’s silly news special this week on the Obama White House.
- slacktivist: Killing in the name of. An important blog post on the history of the anti-abortion movement.
- Carrer Blog: 1 line CSS Grid Framework. Everything good and bad about CSS in a single line.
- Daring Fireball: Why Palm’s WebOS ‘Media Sync’ iTunes Integration Can’t Be Legit. Don’t miss the followup on the legality of the Palm Pre impersonating an iPod.
- Hivelogic: Deploying ExpressionEngine from GitHub with Capistrano. This approach should work for any PHP app.
- Andrew Leonard: GM: Into bankruptcy, out of the Dow. Companies that file for bankruptcy are automatically delisted.
- Joe Gregorio: Wave Protocol Thoughts. On the plumbing.
- Trader Joe’s Wine Compendium. A blog that reviews only wines sold at Trader Joe’s.
- The Atlantic: Do CEOs Matter? What do chief executives add? One thing’s for sure, a bad CEO can certainly be a disaster for a company.
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