Power Corrupts
It seems that I'm not the only one with some serious concerns about where Apple is heading. From Alex Payne:
Honestly, as simple a step as Apple making iPhone/iPad SDK access free – along with its ability to install apps on the Apple devices you paid for – would be an acceptable first step towards openness. Let’s do some clumsy math on this point. According to Wikipedia, there are currently around 140,000 apps in the App Store. Let’s round up and say that each app is made by a different developer. So, at $99 per year per developer, that’s $13,860,000 per year that Apple is making selling SDK access. For a company that just posted a net quarterly profit of $3.38 billion, I think it’s safe to call the SDK money a drop in the bucket.
Further, the argument that Apple has invested in the “Open Web” as an alternative free platform for their devices simply doesn’t ring true to me. Talk to any non-geek iPhone user and you’ll quickly realize that they have no idea that web apps can, for example, be saved to the home screen like regular apps. The general attitude, once they get used to the phone, is that if there isn’t an app for it, it’s not worth doing on the device. And why wouldn’t they have this impression? Apple’s ad campaign isn’t “there’s an app for that, and also the entire open web”. For now, the web is an afterthought on these devices.
Mark Pilgrim also has a great follow up to this piece.
