Tim Bray explains why I'll never own an iPhone

[elfs]

Tim Bray sez:

The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet's future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It's a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord's pleasure and fear his anger.

I hate it.

I hate it even though the iPhone hardware and software are great, because freedom's not just another word for anything, nor is it an optional ingredient.

via Boing Boing

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

And yet he overlooks an important fact. I can get a macbook and the SDK, write my own program for the iphone, and install it myself. The SDK is free - the 100$ is if you want to put up an app on the app store. I don't have to have the appstore to put in my own program from my own computer onto my own iphone.

There is NO greater freedom than being able to program your own device to do whatever the heck you want. As for Apple's "no naughty" rules, go to Best Buy and try to buy a Porn DVD. None there. Nor is there a swimsuit program, best pickup lines or "How to get girls in bed" training disc. Are you likewise going to ban Best Buy for simply trying to keep a "broadest possible appeal" factor by being as unoffensive as possible?

Apple would be better served by having an "opt in" setting where you have to say you want to see the R rated or above applications. Make it so the kids cannot turn that on (parental pin perhaps). That I think would be a better approach than Disneyfication. That may be coming, I don't know. But it isn't accurate to claim the phone is closed, closed, closed, when I can easily program mine to do anything under the sun. Closed store, yes. Closed machine, no.

[lovingboth]

The freedom to install someone else's program?

Sure, if you have the SDK (does that require you also have a Mac?) and the source code you can, but as I understand it, without jailbreaking it, you cannot install from someone else's site.

Best Buy don't stop you going elsewhere for your porn.

[bolindbergh]

Actually, the $99 is if you want to run your program on actual hardware. The free SDK only lets you run it in a simulator.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

The cost is irrelevant. $99 is a token cost for most software developers, who are used to shelling out bucks for the latest & greatest development tools.

The point that Bray's making is that you can't express yourself as an iPhone developer to other iPhone users unless you get Apple's approval for doing so; approval they may yank at any time for any reason.

Not at all.

[elbowfetish.livejournal.com]

As an iPhone developer who'd never use or recommend an iPhone I can say with authority you've been misinformed. The developer process is just another way to pooch you coming and going with Apple tax on the front end and back end. If you pay, you can register your phone for development (and a friend's phone even). But the only way to run your own apps is to 'break' your phone, which violates your contracts, and in many ways 'breaks' your phone.

It's all really very sad, and puzzling why so many hipster kids still fall for it.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

Considering these are comments "on leaving Sun to be Google's Android developer advocate" I kind of have to take them with a grain of salt. I grant there's some major screwups with app store (VOIP apps, sex apps) but I'll pass on the hyperbole. If it were quite that bad, I don't think I could get to to http://www.adult.com

[lucky-otter.livejournal.com]

"I can get to adult.com" != free to use the device however I want.

This is why I'm eying a WebOS or Android phone as a replacement for my creaky Treo 700p. They're more open platforms.

Linux is a cruel thing to inflict on phone users.

[elbowfetish.livejournal.com]

Linux was designed as a poor man's Unix clone, it'll never be a good choice for a phone OS. And why try to force it? We already have tailor made open source alternatives like Symbian (which is also secure in its market dominance), and as you say, Win Mobila and WebOS if you don't demand open source politics, and those have the features you want.

Re: Linux is a cruel thing to inflict on phone users.

[lucky-otter.livejournal.com]

WebOS is based on Linux. Based on what I've seen of actual Linux phones, not theorizing based on Linux's origins, Linux is an acceptable choice for a phone OS. In theory, a custom OS could be better; in practice, I haven't seen any phones with custom OSes that I like better. Frankly, past a certain point of stability and power-usage, the OS matters little. The UI is far more important.

While Symbian may be better in some theoretical sense, the actual phones that use it are totally uninteresting to me. There are only a couple with keyboards and they have miserable touch screens. Maybe there's one with a touchscreen and on-screen keyboard, but no thanks.

Re: Linux is a cruel thing to inflict on phone users.

[(Anonymous)]

The basic problem is that Linux isn't realtime (though RTLinux makes a stab at it). Some people think a phone should still be able to do things like *gasp* receive phone calls. I insist it can do that without disconnecting my ssh and irc sessions too, but I'm a demanding user.

The measure of success for a smartphone OS is not even knowing you have one, let alone which one it is. Most smartphone users in the world just do stuff without knowing there's Symbian inside. If the UI is working you're not thinking much about that either, rather thinking about what you're doing instead.

So many people only realised recently that their car has an OS, only because the computer is being blamed for recent Toyota bugs. You'd think at least Mac users would go gaga to know their old Ford runs the same CPU as their old Mac. :-)

[(Anonymous)]

There is one group I'd seriously consider an iPhone for, the visually impaired because of its built in accessibility which is actually quite inventive. Of course I'd never suggest one to anyone else for these very reasons.

Plus as much as I hate flash it definitely isn't "open" of Apple to refuse to allow it. I also recall looking at the developer stuff, even if you pay $100 you are limited to X amount of users of the software without going through the app store. That is very underhand in my opinion.

Smartphone for the vision impaired.

[elbowfetish.livejournal.com]

I'd set up a Windows phone for a visually impaired person, especially if they needed it for work. It integrates much better with busines functions, actually has security... The games would be largely irrelevant. iPhone has way better games than a Mac.

[(Anonymous)]

Windows smartphone accessibility isn't as good, believe me. I don't have an iPhone I use a symbion with a system called Talks, but the iPhone has the ability to run your finger around the touch screen in order to control the phone. This is a lot more natural than using buttons to move a cursor around the place. I'm not a fan of Apple, I think they're as basd as MS just they know what PR is which makes them even more scary, but I've recently had chance to try a MacBook Pro which has similar access options through its multi touch trackpad. It is frankly excellent and I never tire of it. Now if only they could include that kind of functionality in Windows or Linux access solutions I'd have everything I want, preferably Linux.