Apple and the Futurist
I know what you’re thinking: yet another blog about the current App Store controversy. Perhaps you’re wondering which I’ll take out of the disenchanted iPhone developer / one-eyed fanboy angles? Well, for a change, neither. I’d actually like to start with a story…
Some years ago, when my wife and I were buying our first apartment, I found myself making small talk with the present owner. Following the usual script, I inquired how the chap made his living — and discovered that he was a futurist. I took this to mean he was some sort of Dr Who-like figure, navigating his way through time while fighting a variety of evil (yet comic) adversaries. Perhaps sensing my confusion, he went on to explain that this involved working for government think-tanks, speculating on the future and advising on policy.
This started me on a rant about politicians, in particular the shallowness of policy and the tendency to optimise for media sound bites and short election cycles. His response is where it gets interesting. He made the point that although what I said was true, it was wrong to attribute all the blame to the politicians. After all, the reason politicians act this way is because that is what gets them votes: both directly and indirectly via media exposure. So both the voters and media are driving a lot of this nonsense by rewarding shallow policies with votes and air time. His conclusion was that the cycle would never be broken by the politicians themselves — change would have to start from the bottom up.
You can probably see where this is going. Just as I had railed against the politicians, developers are now complaining about Apple’s locked-down App Store. The system is opaque, unfair and at times downright stupid. Blatantly anti-competitive policies are thinly veiled as protection of the user experience. But as wrong as this may feel, should we really expect Apple to change anything? Frankly, they own the platform and are entitled to set the policies they have. And so far, consumers and developers have been voting with their dollars and applications in droves. Even if consumers aren’t fully informed, developers can’t claim to be unaware of these policies, yet still they flock to the platform. With this kind of real, positive feedback, why would Apple feel compelled to rethink their policy?
If you believe the App Store policies are wrong, then cast your vote. Don’t buy an iPhone, and (more importantly) don’t develop iPhone applications. Realistically, in the near term consumers will keep buying the iPhone — it’s still a great product. But if enough developers vote with their applications, over time other platforms will surpass it. Apple’s marketing campaign doesn’t quite have the same ring to it when there isn’t an “app for that”. And if Apple see this shift they will hopefully rethink their policies, and the iPhone will thrive once again.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 6:28 am and is filed under Opinion, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
