Sayeth Steve Jobs:
You know, there’s a porn store for Android. Anyone can download them. You can, your kids can. That’s just not a place we want to go.
But then, there’s this:
What is that? It’s the Porn Store for iPhone, aka “The App Store.” Get real. Apples doesn’t want you to run Apps because they want full control of the revenue the iPhone generates downstream. That’s it. It’s not about privacy, it’s not about children, it’s not about anything other than corporate strategy. And I predict it WILL come back to bite Apple in the butt.
Then there’s the now infamous section of the iPhone 4.0 SDK that bans the use of non-native apps on the iPhone. But let’s get real, shall we? As Gruber said, this is about only one thing: once the apps are portable, the device lock-in is compromised. It’s not about multi-tasking, although, there’s probably truth in that, it’s not about new APIs, although, there’s probably truth in that too. But it’s about corporate strategy: keep people on Apple products in the Apple ecosystem.
Let’s not forget that Adobe has built its CS5 master suite with a new feature it’s been proudly touting: the ability to compile Flash apps as iPhone binaries. So they are the ones with egg on their face since that feature is simply pointless now.
If I were Adobe, after the peak of sales after the release of CS5, I’d announce that it’s the last Adobe suite to be released for Mac. No more Photoshop, no more Lightroom, no more Illustrator. Maybe even cut off Adobe Air. You could pretty rapidly destroy the enterprise presence for Apple, as people decide if they want to keep working on Macs, given the lack of true enterprise quality tools. It would be an interesting corporate strategy. (Update: They say nope.)
If I were Apple, I wouldn’t worry too much. Businesses are now a small subset of Apple users, who are, more and more, college students and home users. And those users would rather buy iWork, and maybe a few more apps Apple wasn’t producing (such as Office or Pixelmator). No big loss, right? Or is it…?
Once Apple loses the “it’s better for graphics” thing, then it might be labelled “not for serious work.” Microsoft runs some ads pushing a new image: Macs are okay for home use, but you need Windows to do any real work. And then “real workers” start switching back to Windows at home. Maybe. But it would make for a grand corporate strategy.
It’s interesting that once again, the computing landscape is full of action. I can’t wait to see how Apple behaves in the next few years. It may well deliver some of the best software ever. Then again, soon enough, I might be using Windows 8, an Android phone, and an HP Slate. Either way, the future is exciting.
This is my biggest issue with Apple and their products… the Apple lock-in that they keep trying to force you into. Even Microsoft, easily the one computer company geeks love to hate, doesn’t have anything like that. But there’s one problem with the comparison, Apple still considers itself a hardware company, while MS is most definitely a software company.
I’d like to see Apple either split their hardware and software divisions (they are both independently excellent) or open up their hardware or software. They like where they are, but the more they punish their customers with the lock-in, the more they piss off their customers and turn them away. I’ve heard more about people considering switching to Android in the past 3 months than I have ever in the past. I love my iPhone, but I hate that I have to jailbreak it to be able to use it as I wish. Android is looking better and better as time goes on. The reason I went iPhone when I did was because the hardware for the Android phones was crap. That’s changed quite a bit in the past 6 months.
I’m curious to see what Apple does to compete as Android picks up market share and people switch… to Android. They continue to think that having the most apps is what’s important… but of those apps, how many are also on Android, or have something similar on it? How many are useful? People don’t buy an iPhone because you can get a hundred apps that make farting noises. They buy it for the hardware/software integration. Android is looking up in that regard and Apple has just kind of stood still.
Also, standing by AT&T is pretty amusing. I’m sure they’re making a phone for Verizon, but announce it already.