OK so Jobs didn’t use the word “ain’t”. But in a Newsweek
interview with Steven
Levy, Jobs put the kibosh on any talk about the iPhone opening up its
platform for third party developers:
ÄúYou donÄôt want your phone to be an open platform,Ä? meaning that
anyone can write applications for it and potentially gum up the provider’s
network, says Jobs. ÄúYou need it to work when you need it to work. Cingular
doesnÄôt want to see their West Coast network go down because some
application messed up.Ä?
Perhaps the most revealing quote is about the issue of mobile walled gardens
and how Jobs and Apple first approached
Cingular:
ÄúWe talked to several of them and educated ourselves,Ä? he says.
He finally decided to deal with AT&TÄôs Cingular network. Äú[They] were
willing to take a really big gamble on us. We decided what the phone is. We
decided what software would be on the phone. And so we could make the product
we wanted.Ä?
(emphasis ours)
The bolded bits really sum up Apple’s philosophy. Their products are closed
up tight, so that nobody can meddle with them. People weren’t allowed to touch
the OS in Macintosh back in ’84 and nowadays they can’t even change the battery
in an iPod. The iPhone will be another product that locks out developers and any
meddling from users. As Nick Carr put
it: “In Jobs’s world, users are users, creators are creators, and never
the twain shall meet.”
And really, from a commercial and even artistic sense, Apple’s philosophy is
a proven winner. So why change a winning formula? Of course all us web 2.0
zealots will continue to pine for an open platform, because we know that some
great innovation would happen over the long run that way. But it ain’t gonna
happen.
And actually this is Microsoft’s best opportunity to get ahead in their
battle with Apple over digital media – continue to provide the platforms for
external developers and content providers that Apple doesn’t, and see what
flowers. Michael Gartenberg points
out that Cingular already allows this, with Windows Mobile and Palm OS
applications on smartphones.
Still, it’s hard to bet against Jobs and the iPhone – it’s just such a great
product…
Pic: Chris Heuer
