The Dawn of the Limited Platform
Jan 28th, 2010 by Ryan Meyer
Yesterday I spoke to the Jeff Eckhoff about the iPad. I complained that the iPhone/iPod Touch OS was very limited and suggested that the same machine running OS X would be much more attractive. I wasn’t alone. Bloggers complained and images like this hit #1 on the social news sites.
It’s suggested that Apple’s motivation for using the iPhone OS is that they felt a machine under $1000 running OS X would damage their value perception. While this is certainly true, I suspect Apple’s intent is further reaching. The iPad is their attempt at pushing their limited platform into mainstream computing. Why would they want to do that?
- App Store profit. There is only one place to buy Apple-approved programs, and Apple owns it. They take a cut of every purchase.
- No competition. Don’t like Safari? Prefer Firefox? Too bad. Apple doesn’t have to approve competitors’ applications, at least not until they’re sued.
- No viruses. Apple won’t approve malicious software and a closed ecosystem won’t allow it to run without permission.
- It just works. The more limitations it has, the less it does but the easier it is to use.
The timing is perfect; there are a staggering number of Apps available for the iPhone/iPod Touch and malware is at an all time high.
But is it a step in the right direction? Slashdot doesn’t think so…
Every time Apple decides to close something off – by insisting on approving apps, by not giving you a [general purpose] USB port, etc., and people go for it anyway, because it’s slick and nice to use, we get used to a little bit less openness.
People don’t miss openness until it’s too late. Then it’s suddenly “What do you *mean* I can only use printers that are Apple certified?”. “I’ve bought all these e-books, and now the only place I can read them is on Apple hardware?” etc.
Either way, iPad success could signal a new era in computing: the limited platform.