f1reblog

A couple weeks ago I was having a conversation with a friend who was convinced that Apple would screw up the iPhone SDK by making it a closed ecosystem that they would control via iTunes. “No way”, said I, “this is the new Apple. The Apple that wants to foster community and creativity. They would never do something as asinine as close off their most exciting new platform for no reason other than a crazed need for control”.

Well, it was similar to that. More like “Nuh uh! That’s stupid”, but that’s what I was thinking.

So it’s starting to look like he was right. The rumor (or rumour for my East of the Atlantic friends) is that Apple will indeed control which apps are available for iPhone users by requiring iTunes for installation. Apple will, of course, determine who gets to put their apps on the iTunes Store and most likely there will be a charge for all apps. No freeware.

That probably also means no open source apps.

Way to choke off that nascent community!

I’m extremely disappointed, but I realize that my opinion amounts to nothing to Apple. Just to recap: I’ve owned a Mac IIcx, Mac IIci, LaserWriter II NT, PowerBook Duo 210, Quadra 700, some model of Performa back in the bad old days when the numbering system was incredibly obtuse, G4, Cube, iBook G3, PowerBook 12″, Newton MP 2100, PowerBook G4 Ti, MacBook Pro Core Duo, MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo, 1st Gen 5GB iPod, 3rd Gen 15GB iPod, 1st Gen 4GB iPod Nano, and an iPod Touch. There are probably some that I forgot. I think I may have had a Quadra 840av for a short while also. At any rate, I have a some history with Apple products.

This is the first time I’ve really been disappointed with Apple. Even during the days when they couldn’t do anything right, I was never this disappointed.

There’s still a chance that they’ll do the right thing, but for all practical purposes, I suppose it’s time to jailbreak my Touch.

Update: I forgot to put in my two cents after the SDK was released. Overall, I’m pretty happy with it. Apple is making accommodations for freeware apps and the cost for commercial apps is very low, making $.99 or $1.99 apps feasible. Sure, Apple takes 30%, but they have to deal with the bandwidth, billing, etc. Thirty percent is actually low compared to the other services. The only really bad thing about the SDK is no background apps. That makes some classes of application unworkable — e.g. geolocation-based social networks and IM. Still, it’s fair. You don’t want your IM client burning through your iPhone battery. Developers are a smart bunch. They’ll figure out how to make it work.