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How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

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Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#121

Post by telemachos »

andreyf wrote: post #90
mattmanser wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is alarmist nonsense. The App store and the iPhone have fostered a colossal amount of innovation, and made a lot of normal non-techy people very, very happy. And a bunch of techies too. And in the end I hope it doesn't come down to open source advocates getting their way so they can install vim, but it being about my Mum being able to use it without having to phone me saying that it's all gone wrong again and ca…

I hope it doesn't come down to open source advocates getting their way so they can install vim Installing vim isn't mutually exclusive from having a usable system.

Some of us might argue that installing Vim is the sine qua non for a (truly) usable system. (For what it's worth, I just love me some Vim. Overall, I'm on the "this device is perfect for most people" side of this actual argument.)

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#122

Post by CamperBob »

telemachos wrote: post #34
MrSartorial wrote: post #14

That Apple is creating a closed system is of little surprise. Steve Jobs is all about control. It works in the short term, but I believe it will bite them in the ass over the long-term. Making use of a closed-system and trying to be the best in a category assumes that you have access to the most brilliant minds in that field, and the most brilliant marketing campaign. What makes Apple great? Well, they can control ev…

> People hate being held down, forced into one category, etc. Here's an alternative take on this (with a story). I recently saw Thomas Keller (chef and owner of Per Se here in NYC and French Laundry in CA, among others) talking about a new-ish restaurant of his in CA, Ad Hoc. Ad Hoc has no menus. They make meals and serve them family style. You take what you want from the dishes provided. You have choice only within…

He argued that true luxury was the freedom from choice. Now in a political context, this is Orwellian and terrifying. But in the context of a meal, it made a lot of sense to me. Let a great chef do his or her magic, and I will try any damn thing they put in front of me and thank them for the privilege.

Sometimes even Apple doesn't get that. There was a great example of this principle in one of the slides the Engadget blogger took during Jobs's presentation (http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/live-from-the-apple-table...), where the 10:57AM slide shows the iBooks application allowing the user to "change the font (to) whatever you want."

Um, thanks but no thanks, Steve. Book publishers hire type designers to come up with appropriate fonts, and they hire other skilled designers to select and use them. Leaving this choice up to the reader is not a feature, but an aesthetic regression at best and a dereliction of duty at worst. It's like bundling fine art with a paint-by-numbers set.

This is exactly how MS Office ends up with 30 different selectable toolbars that nobody knows how to use. It was a splash of cold water to the face to see Apple making the same sort of mistake.

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#123

Post by stanleydrew »

GHFigs wrote: post #91
jwhitlark wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong analogy, I think. There is an important difference between desire to tinker and desire to control. I don't tinker with my car, but I'm not going to allow the manufacturer to dictate who must repair it, where I must buy gas, which roads I can use... Apple reminds me of homeland security, but prettier!

And yet when you go to a restaurant you order off the menu.

This is definitely a stretch. When I go to a restaurant I'm choosing a priori to give up control of my possible choices when I decide to go. There's no confusion. If I wanted to have full control I'd stay home and cook.

I suppose the argument then is that you choose to limit yourself to what the iPad offers by buying and using one. As long as a priori most people understand what they are getting themselves into when they buy an iPad, I think everyone would agree that people should be able to make that choice. The problem is that a lot of people aren't going to understand beforehand the limitations of this device, so they won't have made a fully informed choice.

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#124

Post by pavlov »

mattmanser wrote: post #74
lambda wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, without an open platform, the new, innovative ways of working with this machine will never be invented. This is about far more than running your own Ruby scripts. It's about the fact that true innovation cannot exist in such an environment. And the problem is, you will not see what you're missing; people won't bother developing new technologies that have no platform they can legally run on. Would the We…

This is alarmist nonsense. The App store and the iPhone have fostered a colossal amount of innovation, and made a lot of normal non-techy people very, very happy. And a bunch of techies too. And in the end I hope it doesn't come down to open source advocates getting their way so they can install vim, but it being about my Mum being able to use it without having to phone me saying that it's all gone wrong again and ca…

The iPhone model is not terribly detrimental to software innovation. Of course there's a lack of transparency, long approval waits just to release bugfixes, occasional bizarre app refusals... But mostly it doesn't matter because the open web provides an increasibly viable secondary outlet for software.

Hardware is an entirely different beast. Apple brashly requires hardware vendors to engineer their products specifically for the iPhone platform, and you can't work around these limitations in software.

For a glaring example, there's no open Bluetooth stack on iPhone OS. Most probably the underlying implementation is essentially identical to IOBluetooth.framework on Mac OS X, but instead of giving software developers the degree of freedom that's taken for granted on computer platforms, Apple has chosen to restrict iPhone OS to a much more limited API which can only connect to devices that contain an Apple-licensed chip.

Apple doesn't seem to mind suffocating independent hardware innovation in order to extract licensing fees. What a long way they've come from Steve Wozniak's days...

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#125

Post by [deleted] »

DannoHung wrote: post #40
jpwagner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then make a better one

Such a false dichotomy. "Oh, you're critical of this thing that you don't like? BET YOU CAN'T DO ANY BETTER!" "No thanks, I have more money than time, I think I'll just spend the bux on the thing that does do it better"

[deleted]

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#126

Post by stse »

lambda wrote: post #65
coffeemug wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad, mom, grandma, and grandpa can watch videos, look at photos of their kids/grandkids, send e-mails to their relatives oversees, and read their favorite books on it, all without the need for a "computer-savvy guy" who has to teach them how it works, and fix it when it's broken. In other words, it's a logical conclusion of the personal computer revolution. I understand you need to run your Ruby scripts, but this…

The thing is, without an open platform, the new, innovative ways of working with this machine will never be invented. This is about far more than running your own Ruby scripts. It's about the fact that true innovation cannot exist in such an environment. And the problem is, you will not see what you're missing; people won't bother developing new technologies that have no platform they can legally run on. Would the We…

One example of this that comes to mind is the Xbox. When the Xbox was first released, while being essentially a computer, it was only meant for playing games and watching dvds. Later when modding became easy, and therefor widespread, people developed new applications that made the Xbox do things it wasn't supposed to do. One of these applications was XBMC, or Xbox Media Center, which from the beginning was a 'clone' of Windows Media Center. But today is the basis for startups like Boxee and Voddler, and is the (IMO) most competent htpc platform, as well as the most 'cutting edge' one. Redefining the way we think about media.

There's a similar story with the Linksys WRT54G routers. And while you might be able to jailbreak the iPad, it's just a lot less likely that a community will be able to form around 'alternative' usages.

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#127

Post by duhprey »

coffeemug wrote: post #12
zacharypinter wrote: post #2

This post adequately sums up my concerns. Here we have a device that doesn't support USB thumbdrives, doesn't support dropbox (at least system-wide, I assume the dropbox iphone app would work), is unable to run ruby or any of my other dev scripts/tools, cannot install firefox or firefox plugins, etc. I do not want to see computing head this direction.

My dad, mom, grandma, and grandpa can watch videos, look at photos of their kids/grandkids, send e-mails to their relatives oversees, and read their favorite books on it, all without the need for a "computer-savvy guy" who has to teach them how it works, and fix it when it's broken. In other words, it's a logical conclusion of the personal computer revolution. I understand you need to run your Ruby scripts, but this…

The fact that developers are not the target audience is, I think, a problem. It means that apps will be created that developers think people would want to buy, NOT apps that developers would want to use.

I must use a different machine to build applications for this, which means on the gradient of iphone to macbook, it's much closer to the iphone. If the only niche it fills is for grandmothers, secretaries and managers, how will the developers ever really grok it? It seems like they'd only be monetarily driven... and that just sounds like iFart.

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#128

Post by mmphosis »

I am reading a lot of concerns that Apple has created a closed system. You are right, Apple has a closed system. That's what Apple has mostly sold for years.

What I think is exciting is that this device breaks new ground. It's only version 1.0. Better devices will come out. Hopefully, from companies other than Apple. There's virtually nothing stopping another company from selling an open platform, one that runs open software, has open hardware, has WIFI, has USB and has higher screen resolution than the 1024x768 that my 8 year old iBook has. And, hopefully someone will deliver a device that uses low power open cores.

Stop complaining. Start dreaming up something better.

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#129

Post by actf »

MrSartorial wrote: post #43
telemachos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People hate being held down, forced into one category, etc. Here's an alternative take on this (with a story). I recently saw Thomas Keller (chef and owner of Per Se here in NYC and French Laundry in CA, among others) talking about a new-ish restaurant of his in CA, Ad Hoc. Ad Hoc has no menus. They make meals and serve them family style. You take what you want from the dishes provided. You have choice only within…

I actually agree with you 100% that people love something that's easy to play with. That's what I meant when I said that Apple's simplicity is their strength. What I'm talking about is a difference between "open" turnkey and "closed" turnkey. I love turnkey, and so do a lot of people. Who wants to fuss with installing new software, etc.? That's my perspective. Closed-systems are much easier to make turnkey, but they…

Very well said - I really can't understand why so many people on HN think turnkey == closed. Sure there is a correlation, but is it just me or does it seem like everyone has forgotten that correlation != causation.

Re: How A Great Product Can Be Bad News: Apple, iPad, and the Closed Mac

#130

Post by mcantelon »

GHFigs wrote: post #103
mcantelon wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The locking down is unnecessary. It hinders power users and prevents those who would become power users from having the option to do so.

Define "power users".

At the minimum, people who wnat to use software more powerful than iPhone apps (Photoshop, music production, programming, etc.).
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