Ah, who cares. It’s an amazing product.

Wow, someone has put into words the vague sense of uneasiness I’ve had over the past few days. You’re spot on!

I couldn’t entirely articulate why, but yesterday I decided I need to revert from being 100% Mac to a more 50/50 mix between the Mac and Linux (that is, an “open” OS on “open” hardware) to stay sane. My reasoning for this was that Apple has totally forgotten about their old customer base and is only focused on being all shiny and hip to extend marketshare.. that reasoning still stands to a point, but what you are saying is true.

One thing that’s extremely odd, and has raised complaints from many fronts, is the lack of any SSH type app on the iPhone. Surely someone would have attempted to port one.. it’s a rudimentary job. Seems Apple probably don’t want one on there.

Nik – I am glad someone is cutting through the crap on this issue. The biggest open advocates are also the biggest Apple advocates and it’s just ironic and silly.

Great post mate.

For what it’s worth, the provider Apple chose in the UK messed me around enough with not getting me my iPhone 3G that I canceled the order. On reflection, I think I had a lucky escape, and probably won’t be getting one in future. The fact that Apple has no interest in satisfying their old customers who’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars with them in front of newcomers who see “ooh, shiny!” demonstrates a significant change in Cupertino. Apple is no longer a brand with a hardcore of supporters, but a brand that’s trying to be everyone’s best friend.

Actually, people *might* care once there’s an alternative. It’ll be interesting to see how the Linux/Android stack evolves. And of course part of the problem — part of what might keep Android from wide distribution — is all of this crap the carriers love, which apparently Apple either caved into or signed up for. But until there’s a strong alternative (ahem, sorry Windows Mobile), or more stuff happening in open mobile browsers (ahem, Mozilla), it’s kind of moot … which I think explains the lack of criticism. People don’t see a choice. If another “amazing product” did the same stuff AND was open, I think we’d have a different discussion going.

Gah- you’re right.

I hope that work on the third party Jailbreak app continues so that we will see a way to install iphone apps outside of iTunes and the app store.

Why don’t you buy a puppet to ridicule Apple and bend them to your will. Isn’t that how you TechCrunch guys get your way??

If open source could ever build something as polished and easy to use as Apple has in all their platforms and could come up with something original we may have some competition and they may be considered. They didn’t, they aren’t, they probably won’t. Sorry, I’ll take the closed Apple till things change. Most, even the geeks, don’t care.

If you don’t like the DRM apps, you are not under any obligation to use anything from the App Store – some don’t care about the apps. And you can always rip your own DRM free MP3s from your own CDs if you haven’t already torrented the music – no need to buy music from iTunes.

My phone calls are not wrapped in DRM. Remember that first and foremost, it’s a phone.

@9. Ernie, DRM apps is fine. So is DRM music – developers should have a choice. But don’t take all this open source code and then built a platform on top of it that makes it mandatory.

Im not anti-DRM, just pro-choice.

incredibly well put. while apple is designing cool products (not all of them) their approach is putting it all at risk to implode in a few years IMO. Jobs is making some of his old mistakes and while the market appears to be rewarding them right now, instead of building a great long haul company he will only invoke the ire of the developer community and ultimately negative reaction from consumers as well. someone will strike the right balance of openness and quality and design and will clean their clock….

A well made point.

I think the crux of the issue is that Apple has built upon OSS in multiple instances. Is there any gauge as to how much they’ve contributed back? Anecdotal evidence suggests it’s been little.

i feel a little guilty for explosion of apple back in the early 2000. When i switched over from windows to mac i was instantly convinced that windows was only here to make my life a living hell. My experience with a mac made me tell everybody that uses a windows machine to switch, i would tell them there are no bugs, no crashes and no viruses. Till this day im still on a mac and ironically i want more mac stuff. Maybe because i don’t have nothing else besides a computer and i have never owned a ipod. What is keeping my intrest with a ipod touch is that it will allow me to be mobile and still blog without having to buy a actual laptop. i know for a fact i could not afford a iphone so it doesn’t bother me that i will never get one.

never…criticize…apple…

Ex-squeeze me but I seem to remember an entity with a name made up of “teeny” and “flacid” which was on ummmm, was it 95 FREAKIN’ percent of all computer devices. I seem to recall Mr. Dell, scoffing at AAPL and the masterful one with the disdain of a ronin about to play samurai. After destroying most of its competition, then allowing Apple to Live, Redmond is somehow blameless that its innovative opposite, yang to its yin, might grow to be its equal. This is not a walled garden. It’s a fort.

Funny, the phone has already been hacked and a “how to” is up on the web. If some device is created by a specific team within a certain overall vision, is that object not patentable? I would think Mr. Jobs’ anal retentive, obsessive, control-freak genius deserves some monetary reward for its continuing compulsive excellence. We call it capitalism and the marketplace. You suck; you lose. You excel, you win! Go play Linux. Do not begrudge a company a few security and management rights when they are relentlessly attacked by hackers round the clock -

Apple’s put a lot of work in building and extending the open source WebKit which is actively being used by some of Apple’s competitors in non-Apple iPhones.

Or does that not count for some reason?

Er, I meant “non-apple phones”, not “non-apple iPhones” obviously. Nokia uses the open source WebKit stuff from Apple in their own phones for instance.

@8 Firefox is the gold standard for polish and quality, a standard most open source software does not reach, but a standard that for me is just as good or even better than Apple’s.

Open source software has undergone a shift in innovation from simple commoditization of existing tools to creating new innovations unseen and unreplicated. I do not just meant the dominance of Apache, I mean wikis, which Ward Cunningham invented and open sourced as a new software category unseen before.

And I think the best is yet to come, even though the change in perceptions takes time.

I am holding out for the Google phone precisely because of the reasons outlined in this (excellent) post. I am writing this post on an Apple iMac because I enjoy Apple’s products the most when they embrace open standards – Firefox web browser, PDF support baked in, and built on top of Unix BSD. As soon as Apple starts acting as a primar donna with proprietary standards (iTunes DRM music anyone) I start pining for Bill Gates whose operating system was more open than Apple’s before Apple adopted open source software.

@16 I’m all for capitalism and the market. I just disagree with you as to who will win through them. But let’s have this argument in a year’s time with a few more data points behind us

Apple let Microsoft relase vista and delayed the Leopard launch to take advantage of the crappy user exprience upgrade MS was offering pulling in a whole bunch of pissed of users.

Is google doing the same with the gPhone? Wait until 2 or 3 million shlumps are stuck with the DRM laden iPhone and serious complaints start to flood the net and then they release the magnificent and open gPhone for all to love and enjoy… ok wishfull thinking but who really knows. I will wait a bit to see what happens.

Bitch, moan, whine, complain.

But…but….Apple took “our” open source code and made something USEFUL with it. OMG!

Look, if Apple was violating the source code licenses for the projects they are using then say that. But dont bitch because they took work that was freely given by others and used by Apple’s engineers to make something new and cool possible.

Your entire argument is basically bitching about how Apple has made a DRM platform on top of or with the help of Open Source projects. Yet you completely fail to see the argument that the whole point of Open Source was so that PEOPLE COULD USE THE SOURCE TO DO WHATEVER THEY SAW FIT WITHIN THE LICENSE.

Seriously, stop pissing in the cheerios man.

@Daniel – thats not my argument. I think its fine for them to do whatever they want, its why I support BSD over GPL. My argument is lets call it what it is and not delude ourselves.

If they gave me the *option* to do what I would like on the platform I would be happy, for now, I am not buying into it

Hi Nik,

Don’t buy the iPhone. Then again, if you’re pro-choice, why are you lamenting those that do? Typical “open source”, “free software” thinking. You sound like those that want everyone to have free speech, as long as they’re saying the right things…

The iPhone is amazing, I’m excited to start writing apps for it. That’s the first time I can say that about any mobile device. The reason I’m excited is because the hardware and the software are designed so well to work together. The reason that is so is precisely because of the tight control Apple maintains over what they produce.

If you don’t like it, fine, wait for Android. But please, spare me the outrage. What a joke. I thought this was a new site for IT folks. This is Slashdot re-hashed, I guess I can slide you out of Google Reader now…

BTW, I’m no Apple flunkie. During work, I write nothing but Perl, C#, and Java. I’ve never written a line of Objective-C. I have a Mac at home and PCs at work. But the iPhone — it’s no shit. This is hands-down the coolest device I’ve used in 25 years.

Man, I just re-read this article. What a waste of 10 minutes.

I can boil the article down in two sentences:

You think you like BSD. You really like GPL, but don’t realize it.

No vendor could get away with what Apple has gotten away with. Closed hardware, closed OS, proprietary format for music, taking revenue on each and every software sale for the iPhone.

I’m with Nik — what bothers me is the hypocrisy of people who claim to believe in openness, then slavishly buy everything Apple ever offers. I agree with the folks who say “if you don’t like it, don’t buy it.” But if you spend time criticizing ANY vendors for lack of openness, don’t do it with an iPhone peeking out of your pocket and a PowerBook slung over your back.

Well, I am a Mac user, and I care about usefulness and features. Open Source, in many aspects, failed in providing strong solutions to consumers. When I do find a good open source product I use it – Firefox and neo office are great examples.
Yes, Apple is strong on the walled garden approach. However, 99% of the users are only interested in things that work, and not in philosophical issues surrounding software.

“But don’t take all this open source code and then built a platform on top of it that makes it mandatory.’

Why not? They’re doing exactly what the software licenses allow them to do. Why do open source fanatics get all twitchy when others do exactly what they want: reuse their code? Personally, I would be insulted by a company that didn’t take advantage of this for themselves.

” I think its fine for them to do whatever they want, its why I support BSD over GPL. My argument is lets call it what it is and not delude ourselves.

If they gave me the *option* to do what I would like on the platform I would be happy, for now, I am not buying into it”

Who’s deluded? Seems like you. You think Apple must cater to you and your politics. That’s delusional.

@Tim – they don’t have to at all, and im fine with that, they can do what they want. Lets just not kid ourselves about what they are doing and supporting them over better vendors.

People commenting here who dont agree with me will probably bash microsoft in some other thread tomorrow somewhere for not being open enough.

There is a very very bad bias towards Apple and against other companies, and I am calling bullshit on it – because thats what it is

oh and on the politics of it and the philosophy – there are very good reasons why I have the beliefs that I do, post coming up on it.

Nik, I’m just curious who you think is fooling themselves. I don’t know anyone who foolishly believes Apple is a paragon of Stallmanesque values. I don’t know anyone who is stridently, militantly open source but secretly using Mac products.

The delusion to me is thinking people actually care about what you think they care about. The Valley’s crowd of hipsters and pundits like stickers, talking politics, criticizing based on values rather than technology because it’s easier. That doesn’t mean they actually care. They want the best, coolest poduct. That’s the delusion: that people actually care about your open source politics.

Tim F: Your right, I might be fooling myself that these guys ever actually cared and they are wearing the openess stuff on their sleves only. Infact, if I think about it, I can’t explain it any other way. Free source does work though, and so does user choice.. the path we are going down now will just lead to another Windows + IE + control the web situation but this time with Apple in the drivers seat.

I guess that it might all seem kosher now, but give them 2-3 years of control and their natural instinct wil be v different, and then it will be too late.

Being concerned about monopolistic control is not the same thing as supporting free software.

Rather than an upcoming post on the politics, I’d rather see a post enumerating the free software products in Apple’s market segments that “does work though,” who are the “better vendors.”

Right now, it sounds like confused whining.

[...] TechCrunchIT » Blog Archive » The New Apple Walled Garden   [...]

Geez . . . lighten up buddy! Look, Apple has achieved the success they have because they are masters of designing great hardware with an aesthetic appeal and integrating it with very good software/UI. All the things that you are complaining about are the reasons that Apple products “just work.” Break these things up and you end up with the Intel/Microsoft blunders. Personally, I prefer having one company master all aspects of a product like the iPhone. If you don’t, then simply abandon Apple and move on, but quit trying to create an issue out of good business!

This meme that Apple is the new Microsoft—check that—that Apple is worse than Microsoft is getting pretty tiring, because it’s not true.

Unlike most companies that do open source, Apple contributes back to community with little fanfare. For example, Apple has contributed tons of fixes to GCC, but you won’t see a press release about it. That goes for dozens of other projects as well.

Lets not forget that companies can distribute custom apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch internally without using the App Store—just a web server is required. You can even do ad-hoc distribution of apps to 100 people–no App Store required. I would not be surprised to see other distribution methods in the future.

Right now, Apple is just so much better than everyone else in terms of design and execution that pundits are looking for reasons to slam them, because that’s what they do, even if it means leaving out facts and distorting things. AAC isn’t proprietary to Apple; your iPhone can be full off DRM-free music and video if you want. You can play MP3s from Amazon and watch YouTube to your heart’s content.

Apps are different. I don’t mind that apps are vetted and signed by a certificate issued by Apple. We all have sensitive information on our phones; it shouldn’t be a free-for-all at that level. Having a central location to distribute apps is pure genius. I’m sure Microsoft and Palm wished they’d implemented it; Google certainly will.

Apple doesn’t waiver from attempting to create the best user experience it can and doing what’s necessary to make that happen. Apple uses the best of open source and their secret sauce to make that happen. I have no problem with that.

The fact that the open source community loves the iPhone really is an admission that at the end of the day, usability, functionality and coolness trumps ideology. Lots of these folks are developers; the fact that the App Store is on every iPhone and they don’t need to worry about hosting, a merchant account, credit card fees, etc. for an app that takes advantage of all of the goodies in the iPhone isn’t lost on them.

Wow now I would like MS to do the same….I wish them(MS) good luck with Justice Dept….Apple is become a bloody sucker….It now just deserves to die.

Wow now I would like MS to do the same….I wish them(MS) good luck with Justice Dept….Apple has become a bloody sucker….It now just deserves to die.

It’s amazing the extent to which anti-Apple brigade doesn’t quite appreciate the risks Apple took with the iPhone:

iPhone: The bet Steve Jobs didn’t decline
http://counternotions.com/2008/07/16/bet-iphone/

This post is spot on! Apple is being naughty. They made a great product/platform but also locked it very well, even for web applications (mandatory Darwin server for streaming for example).

By not allowing processes to run in the background they locked out all potential competition on the core phone functions and silently forced app developers to adopt their push mechanism.

Apple OS always was a locked platform and I don’t think this will change any time soon

The minute you buy an Apple product….bang that’s it big Steve got you by the nuts!!!
if you wanna take a leak?? you gotta do it through i tunes!!!
and you know how they got away with it for so long????
its because they always portray themselves as a victim of an evil empire that is Microsoft!!
look at their ad campaign about switching to mac, saying that its liberation for users.
Is it really?? everything apple 24/7 ? Use their “approved” software, their “approved” hardware.
Apple product is some of the beautiful on this planet. and i admire their product.
But I’m having none of it, if it means Steve J will get me by the nuts!!

As a consumer I ideally support open source but I buy Apple – for the time being. Apart from their products being great, I think it keeps MS on their toes. It also promotes cross platform development. Finally, I think stepping from OS X to open source Unix/Linux is an easier jump than from Vista et al.

In short, OS X is the first island on the trip to open source paradise.

I would have bought a new iPhone were in not for the fact I’d have to use iTunes. No way. Not on my computer. Ugh. Nice to know I’m not alone.

[...] TechCrunchIT: The New Apple Walled Garden [...]

The majority of people don’t buy ideologies, licenses, technologies, gadgets, … they buy LIFESTYLE.

You telling we should not buy Apple products but support open products is also suggesting a certain lifestyle. The question is: is this the kind of lifestyle people will choose? I doubt it. They all like the shiny Apple logo at the back of their phones.

First off all, this is way too simplified. You’re ignoring that Apple has formed an alliance with giants, the telcos, who typically like the walled garden idea. And Apple can’t give iTouch users complete freedom and iPhone ones none, as that would be very bad PR for the iPhone and it’s stakeholders.

Second, removing freedom is like a price-raise, it’s pretty hard to do. So don’t expect there to be any less freedom on the OS X platform anytime soon, as people will simply not upgrade to the next OS with that specific “feature.”

It’s really exhausting that 98% of Techmeme-media is doom-sayers.

Microsoft Acive Desktop ~ Microsoft Active Desktop

If open-source phone applications were a good idea, then somebody would have succeeded by now with them. There’s a reason that closed-source applications and platforms exist, and it’s because, in general, they *work*. Sure, it would be great to be able to install open-source applications on my iPhone, but frankly, I’m not going to sit and wait around for a decade for that to happen. I purchased a 3G iPhone on Friday and I’ve been stunned at the quantity and quality of a lot of these apps (and disappointed at the quality of some of them). If you compare them to the apps available within the jailbreak community, you can see a vast difference in quality. Open source is great, but it’s not the end-all be-all.

Oh, and your comments about why not distribute desktop applications the same way is a complete pile of FUD. There already exist systems to distribute apps this way (notably Steam), and they can work, but in an environment like desktop OS’s, these niche distribution models just aren’t applicable in the general sense, nor will they ever be. It works on the iPhone because the iPhone is a (relatively) small, tightly-controlled platform. This is not the case at all for the desktop.

If you truly want to support Open Source over having a usable, well-designed platform + apps, maybe you should wait until Android finally starts hitting the market. And I guarantee that your experience with Android apps is going to be significantly worse than your experience with iPhone apps.

Doh!

I just ordered one today. It’s a very cool device. It cannot be denied. And it syncs with my Free iTunes on XP. I just wish the sdk was c++ – what’s objective c? Time to learn I guess. I guess the store is to protect users from virus’ (virii?) and phishing apss, etc – so it kinda makes sense. Otherwise it would be in the paper every day “iPhot hacked again…” That’s boring. For app developers it’s probably more profitable then buying adwords to get customers. If you want to give your apps away you can do that too. Their stuff works well together – that cannot be denied either. It will certainly kick my E-61′s arse – and it’s SDK sucks the biggest!

[...] TechCrunchIT » Blog Archive » The New Apple Walled Garden. [...]

Closed hardware, closed OS, proprietary format for music, taking revenue on each and every software sale for the iPhone.

Is this really all that different than how the video game console industry works? After all, you need to have Microsoft’s, Sony’s or Nintendo’s “blessing” in order to get your third-party applications to work on their hardware. Why should Apple be any different?

I started asking myself these questions last year and I came up with an answer that works for me. Open Source is idealism. It appeals to my libertarian heart, but I’ve yet to see much come out of Open Source that embodies the elegance of Apple hardware or software. Firefox 3 provides as elegant an experience as I’ve ever had with an Apple application and I switched from Safari to use it.

For me, it’s about priorities. At the top of my list is elegance and after that comes idealism. When Open Source creates solutions that are better than solutions provided by Apple’s closed system, I’ll choose it.

[...] Nik Cubrilovic tells it like it is: Geeks and enthusiasts wearing WordPress t-shirts, using laptops covered in Data Portability, Microformats and RSS stickers lined up enthusiastically on Friday to purchase a device that is completely proprietary, controlled and wrapped in DRM. The irony was lost on some as they ran home, docked their new devices into a proprietary media player and downloaded closed source applications wrapped in DRM. [...]

[...] piece by Nik Cubrilovic on the New Apple Walled Garden. The solution is simple. If you truly believe in open standards, open source and the good that it [...]

[...] A post by Nik Cubrilovic on TechCrunchIT yesterday contains a shrewd view: [...] Apple has wrapped the iPhone SDK in enough licensing, security controls and right management that it would make the Microsoft Active Desktop team blush. The phone and platform that is certain to soon take second spot behind Symbian in the smart phone market is also the most restricted and closed. Applications can only be installed from a single source, iTunes, and open source applications and distribution is near impossible. How do you install an iPhone application without iTunes? [...]

[...] over at TechCrunch wrote a post yesterday where he wondered why people who love open systems and open source are willing to wait in [...]

[...] The New Apple Walled Garden The New Apple Walled Garden [...]

About the old customers, of course Apple doesn’t care about them, unless they buy the new stuff that’s coming out. I mean, they are charging for firmware upgrades, for crying out loud! Whereas 99% of other companies release them for free. Apple significantly lowered the price of the first-gen iPhone just a few months after its initial release. No, Apple doesn’t give a damn about existing customers; extending existing customer’s mileage is the last thing Apple wants to do. The only thing Apple wants from existing customers is that they shell out more money to get their stuff.

Thank you for putting into perspective all this idolisation of Apple.

I read some of the comments. It seems that most people who disagree with the article just don’t get it. The author is not an Apple or iPhone hater. He just wanted to point out the double-standard that’s been going on. To those Mactards who said the author should stop complaining and just don’t buy the iPhone: grow up and learn to read.

[...] over at TechCrunch wrote a post yesterday where he wondered why people who love open systems and open source are willing to wait in [...]

There is no double-standard. Apple makes products to sell to the a wide consumer base. Should that consumer base really care whether that software was made in a cathedral or a bazaar ? Most would be happy if they didn’t need to reboot their Nokias or Blackberries twice a day.
Are the freetards really going to want to type in “sudo apt-get install firefox” on their Nokias and GPhones ? I think not.

There’s nothing stopping developers from open-sourcing their apps and making that code available from their websites for the purposes of “openess”.

The only closed part to the distribution of iPhone apps is the “via iTunes” route, which to me is slick and professional. Much like a Nintendo Wii… (a closed system, you don’t hear freetards complaining about).

I’m not worried about Apple cause the will go down the same path as Microsoft. Its only a matter of time before the Government start taking a closer look at Apple. Apple don’t have enough of the market now to be of any concern but the more of the market they control the more governments (not just U.S.) will begin turning their attention to Apple. Its only a matter of time no government going to let one company be the only or even the majority gatekeeper of anything…

[...] open-source development is better on the Mac, and I’ve offered reasons for this. However, TechCrunch is right to question the love affair with all-things-Apple: [Apple] built OS X on FreeBSD…, they built Safari on KHTML, and are now using libraries such [...]

What’s wrong with developers being able to DRM their software? I mean, if my livelihood was based on selling software, I’d be very enthusiastic about the App Store which gives tighter control then ever before!

Bla bla bla …. Replace the word Apple with Microsoft and see how you guys react …. Apple is acting like Google who are both acting like Microsoft.

If their strategy doesn’t work they’ll become too big, too invasive, unloved, and eventually their place in the world will just sort of be displaced by another company with shinier toys and better ideas. Remember that company Microsoft everyone was ga-ga about in the early 90s?

In 15 years there will be a Next Big Thing that out-Apples Apple.

Where do you get the idea that apps will be distributed by the App Store? There’s absolutely NO indication of that because they’re two different types of platforms. Restricting apps for the desktop would be ludicrous idea. There are way too many developers to keep track of, and restricting apps would definitely kill off the enthusiasm of young up and coming engineers.

A cell phone app has to work under very strict guidelines of conserving battery power and network use. That’s why I refuse to use the free Twitterrific – it pulls in ads over my cell network. If something goes wrong, or the app does something malicious to the phone, Apple can trace the app back to the person that wrote it. IMO, a cell phone is much more crucial to someone’s life than a desktop machine. I wouldn’t want Bob’s Wicked Cool Beer Game screwing up my phone to the point where I have no battery when I need it.

That’s where the DRM comes in. And by the way, this form of DRM isn’t THAT bad. It’s just using digital certificates for developers. What’s the harm in that? Are you saying that all apps should clutter up the iPhone and make it a useless piece of junk? I can’t even begin to tell you about the horrendous apps I found for the Nokia Symbian phones I’ve had.

Also, I’ve dealt with open source software since the days of MINIX in college. It’s not all cracked up as people think it should be. Sure we have gems like Apache and Firefox, but have you ever tried to get support for a product that has become abandonware? Yeah, the battlecry is “you can fix it yourself, it’s open source”. Sorry, my job is to build new apps, not fix broken ones by half-assed engineers.

Microsoft does that with their 360 games. Why aren’t you whining about that? Try being an Xbox 360 developer and tell me how easy THAT is.

[...] more insidious, I think, is an opinon I just read by Nik Cubrilovic on TechCrunch – which calls out Apple and Apple users for the fact that everyone is raving about the iPhones [...]

It turns out that Google is being secretive and selective about it’s so called partnership with the open source community.

If your argument is “Call it what you want but let’s not delude ourselves.” then Apple’s iPhone is being honest while Google’s so-called open platform Android is all about deluding your sorry butt.

[...] system, and mainly by the same folks that challenge any regime that Microsoft puts in place. From TechCrunchIT Apple has wrapped the iPhone SDK in enough licensing, security controls and right management that [...]

A note to all Open Source People:

If you think a company is abusing the Open Source code of ethics…

The Watergate slogan is still true…”Follow the Money.”

Nothing is free in the Land of the Free! Someone has to make a buck!

Don’t forgt…Steve Jobs was too stupid to understanding stock backdating at two different companies…Apple and Pixar! Follow the money!

I think he might be too stupid to understand Open Source ethics! Follow the money!

Open source has helped Apple go from getting loans from Microsoft to stay alive to a very profitable company. Follow the money!

Ignorance is profitable Bliss!

Oh I forgot

Google’s favorite Youtube show…

Pimp My Ride…

The Google phone is designed to Pimp open sources ride!

Follow the money!

[...] with the iPhone are expressed pretty well in this article. Obviously, I won’t be buying one. TechCrunchIT

Some nerves were hit Reading all these comments has been the best thing I did today, a good laugh is always good.

Relax people, it is only a technology, use it or don’t. If you (the user) are smart enough to provide so many good/bad arguments against/in favor of it, then you should know the implications of using or not using that technology

Peace.

but, it’s so pretty…

Great article, thank goodness someone is saying what many of us are thinking.

[...] with the iPhone are expressed pretty well in this article. Obviously, I won’t be buying one. The New Apple Walled Garden *cough* Open Moko *cough* HTC Touch Pro *cough* __________________ Best, Dan [...]

Nobody cares about it…just stop bitching about drm…only those that do illegal stuff should be concern..

[...] The contrast between Microsoft product launches and Apple product launches addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwrittenbyallof.us%2F2008%2F07%2F16%2Ffrom-the-blogs-fun-with-paper-brand-tags-and-apples-walled-garden%2F’; addthis_title = ‘From+the+blogs+-+Fun+with+paper%2C+brand+tags%2C+and+Apple%26%238217%3Bs+walled+garden’; addthis_pub = ‘slackbarshinger’; [...]

[...] The New Apple Walled Garden (Tags: open_source itunes iphone drm critcism apple) “[People] lined up enthusiastically on Friday to purchase a device that is completely proprietary, controlled and wrapped in DRM. The irony was lost on some as they ran home, docked their new devices into a proprietary media player and downloaded closed s [...]

The observation that this a walled garden is correct. The rest of the article is rather silly. Apple is a company trying to make the best garden it possibly can. It should give the open source folks garden envy – put on your gardening gloves geeks!! Show us some code – don’t gripe!

@nik
It goes to show how powerful Apple’s brand is to overcome such irony. Your comparison of Microsoft to not get away with its own DRM flavor is Microsoft’s own fault for not cleaning up its marketing image to developers which peaked at the launch of .NET but has since eroded.

The points raised don’t upset me, one way or the other.

But isn’t the Android selling incentive that anyone can take the open source Android code and modify it anyway they want…including adding DRM to create their own “closed” products?

How is that different from what Apple has done?

You hit the nail on the head. Part of the reason, IMO, that you see a lot of people in the open source world using Macs is that they have an underlying dislike for Microsoft, and Linux or Mac are about your only other options. I have tried (more than once even) to switch to desktop Linux, and while it has come leaps and bounds over the last few years it still doesn’t come without sacrifices (mine would have been built-in wifi).

Hopefully Apple realizes one day that some people, such as myself, won’t buy their products solely because of the insane level they go to lock them down. They won’t even license their DRM for use anywhere else for heavens sake.

[...] 17, 2008 Leo en Faq-Mac la traducción de un artículo de Nik Cubrilovic llamado The New Apple Walled Garden, es un artículo interesante y lo que allí se dice no es un misterio para nadie. Apple no es Open [...]

[...] news as Symbian will continue to be the ‘Open’ platform, especially compared to the walled garden approach Apple has taken with the iPhone.  As consumers adopt functionality once reserved for the [...]

[...] Evil Apple with the SDK & app download via iTunes system for iPhone. (tags: tweetmarks) [...]

Alternatively you can quit complaining about a company capitalizing on the work that they have done to create a product. Go buy a Windows CE device instead, and go live in a country that doesn’t support capitalism.

I, however, think that the added cost overhead of buying an Apple product far outweighs the added costs — either as a developer or a user. it’s only $99 to become a developer. Seems cheap to me to reach a market of millions, which just added a million more in one weekend.

[...] I’ll bite. [...]

[...] cover design, DVD design and merchandising, nowadays you simply upload it to what is to become the universal gate for software. This is good for the producers, the consumers and above all: Apple. This however is a worry to [...]

Apple is so hip and nice and works great and you are still able to whine, guess people really can’t be spoiled. sigh.

[...] over at TechCrunch wrote a post yesterday where he wondered why people who love open systems and open source are willing to wait in [...]

The difference, at least as I see it, is this. The iPhone, all iPods, and iTunes have no required restrictions or DRM on music or video. So long as it’s in the right format, it’ll play. There’s also no special bonus to using a DRM’d file, it still just plays.

The AppStore, on the other hand, is merely the same idea as platform-specific technology. You don’t call out TextMate for only working on a Mac, do you? How about going after something that’s Windows-only when you’re on Linux? No, because that’s a stupid idea. You accept that some things only work on some platforms.

Well, iPhone apps are the same way. They only work through iTunes. So what?

[...] Nik wrote a freakin’ sweet article on the absurdity that exists in how many Apple fans also claim to support open systems. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Apple is no different than Microsoft in philosophy. All the reasons that people point to Microsoft and say “They’re evil!” apply equally, if not moreso, to Apple. Interestingly, in the comments section on the article linked above, the best (and most common) reason to use Apple products is revealed in the very first comment when Chris W. said, “Ah, who cares. It’s an amazing product.” Me? I’d rather have a walk-on part in a war than a lead role in a cage. [...]

thanks

[...] Nik Cubrilovic and Dave Winer examine the paradox of Apple’s popularity with open source enthusiasts. [...]

[...] The New Apple Walled Garden – this reflects exactly how I feel toward Apple. [...]

I first got to this via /. where someone (possibly Nik) posted this more or less verbatim. Unfortunately, the base premise is wrong – here’s why:

Last night, I finally got my personal iphone development environment set up. I downloaded the ‘accelerometer’ example source (which graphs the accelerometer in real-time) – there’s nothing special about this source code, I just wanted something a *little* more complex than ‘hello world’. Any other source-code distribution would have illustrated my point just as well.

So, I went through the various certificate-signing things, and created development, distribution, and ad-hoc certificates. I compiled the code and dragged my ad-hoc certificate and the application onto itunes, then synced with my phone.

I now have some-random-program whose source-code I downloaded installed and running on my iphone. It needs the ad-hoc certificate at *compile-time*, which authorises my iPhone to be able to run the app, but if you’re distributing open-source code, that’s just fine and peachy – any recipient will want to compile it themselves anyway.

So, here’s the choices if you want to code open-source stuff:

Generate an ad-hoc certificate for a set of phones (max 100) and deliver the certificate along with the phone. You can distribute binaries like this for an identified set of phones.
Distribute your source code. Developers can compile their own version of the app and install onto their own phone using their own ad-hoc certificates
Distribute the source-code on your website and the binary via the app-store (for free).
The *only* barrier to #2 is the cost of the developer program, ($99) which isn’t much of a barrier to anyone who wants to develop code for the phone…

Simon.

Apple is just another Microsoft, only for some reason it is seen as an underdog company, to spite it’s near-monopoly on many fronts. This misguided feeling leads the hipsters to “rebel” from Windows and move to a Mac. Which is somewhat like moving from the Soviet Union to Communist China; one is marginally smaller, but basically the same.

I am not at all surprised by this demographic. I am baffled, though, by the smaller one of Macboys who claim to have been Linux users. Most are likely liars, but theres still the small number. I can’t help but think they must have sat at their Linux computer for years, not getting it. They apparently still do not get it. I had one such person talk about Hans Riser murdering his wife after I pointed out Apple’s monopolistic and Microsoft-like tendencies. I suppose this is why Apple ships every Mac with a free reality distortion field generator.

I am looking forward to the day all the Mac fanboys get shafted by Apple. The sad part is, I don’t think that they would notice. It wouldn’t be much of a change from normal operating, after all. Forced upgrades, approved-hardware only (Microsoft’s wet dream), being in bed with the RIAA, building their notoriously closed system upon BSD with no kind of compensation… I am not entirely sure how many more ways they can out do Microsoft.

Given the choice of Microsoft being where it is, or Apple taking it’s place, I thankfully accept Microsoft. I shudder to think what may have happened had Apple won the early PC wars.

Hi webmaster!

Hi webmaster!

[...] TechCrunchIT » Blog Archive » The New Apple Walled Garden. This entry was posted on Vendredi, juillet 18th, 2008 at 12:16 and is filed under Lien. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. [...]

I totally agree with the original article author about Apple / iPhone, but I disagree about the GPL comments.

You complain that Apple have used open source (BSD-licensed) code to their advantage and the detriment of others. You also say that the market will sort this sort of behaviour out. Well you’re wrong – as you can plainly see, the market won’t react against this. The market just wants their shiny iPods.

The “correct” solution from the open source world’s point of view is GPL, which says, you can use this code but you can’t use it to lock others out.

As one other commenter wrote:
> You think you like BSD. You really like GPL, but don’t realize it.

[...] swallow it. The silence, however, kills confidence in a company we’re meant to trust to run a monopolistic, DRM-laden, walled-garden mobile platform! I’m not getting an iPhone in the near future. If Apple doesn’t think [...]

Further proof that this is the case

http://pragdave.blogs.pragprog.com/pragdave/2008/07/if-you-work-for.html

[...] over at TechCrunch wrote a post yesterday where he wondered why people who love open systems and open source are willing to wait in [...]

[...] over at TechCrunch wrote a post yesterday where he wondered why people who love open systems and open source are willing to wait in [...]

Very very well written article. I have been advocating the boycott of Apple’s products, to my friends.

I have been feeling very uneasy over the amount of control that Apple has over what software is developed and used on its products. I swear myself off Apple’s products.

All valid arguments, but just jailbreak your iPhone and you get the best of both worlds (BSD/open-source apps + Apple’s great product & UI).

Dam this is so true, many Apple fans are reeeeeaaaallly into Apple (im a bit of an apple fan too), but so much that it blinds them about Apple’s products. Many fans seem to think that its great just cuz its apple. this is seriously screwed up and people should be evaluating the product, not the company or the company’s past history or by judging microsoft’s failures! This is screwed up, and even though i love some apple products, i certianly hate apple’s closed in garden and how it loves raping (and then killing) your wallet. And then after it finishes killing ur wallet, it performs necrophilia. apple products would be almost the best product out there if they MARKED DOWN THE PRICE, OPEN THEIR WALLED GARDEN (more like a fort), and stopped comparing itself to microsoft. I really do hope that microsoft creates a better windows and better operating systems for everything because i really hate the apple GUI and for some reason like Vista’s GUI (yes, im an apple fan that likes Vista GUI?). Personally i think microsoft has great potential and the thing that is holding MS back is the fact that its trying to create the perfect OS, instead of sticking to appealing to the office and hard-core gamers. MS is really trying to be nice to everyone but it simply dusnt have the capacity to do so. I also think that MS is spending more on marketting than developing lol.

overall im an apple fan only because apple products are generally a bit better for work but would like to see MS improve. I’m not sure whether the iphone is a good deal or not…its a killer phone but its so closed…

an interesting question: would the iphone be so praised if it wasnt released by apple?

Hi webmaster!

The minute you buy an Apple product….bang that’s it big Steve got you by the nuts!!!
if you wanna take a leak?? you gotta do it through i tunes!!!
and you know how they got away with it for so long????
its because they always portray themselves as a victim of an evil empire that is Microsoft!!
look at their ad campaign about switching to mac, saying that its liberation for users.
Is it really?? everything apple 24/7 ? Use their “approved” software, their “approved” hardware.
Apple product is some of the beautiful on this planet. and i admire their product.
But I’m having none of it, if it means Steve J will get me by the nuts!!

The question being raised, the issue of concern is the basic feeling of reciprocity, the need for an open source user to ‘give back’ in some way, to compensate in a sense for their advantages open source provided.

Apple has not violated any license terms, done anything illegal. The argument is placed more one of ethics. I also suspect it is one that has been debated and discussed in many places in the past, though I’ve not done the research. The BSD license and it’s brethren of academic origin allow for forking and divergent and proprietary paths. A key driver of the development of the GPL license oh those many years ago, was to get come control over the forking, divergent and especially the proprietary spin offs by forcing reciprocity in the license.

It seems to me that the give backs, the idea of reciprocity, has an aspect that is sort of a positive feedback that will help sustain and grow a market. I wonder if Open Source as a market place would not be where it is today if everyone had been as mercurial and one-way in its use as Apple? With some form of participation in open source Apple could be seen as standing on the shoulder’s of those that came before. As it is, and if continued, they run the risk of being seen as climbing on the backs of the open source community.

Do the contributors of non-GPL open source ‘care’ that people make money from their work or that there is no ‘give back’ by the users? Apparently not or they would have chosen such a license. But there does seem to be a limit where people start seeing this as excessive or improper use. A movement from use, to misuse, or even possibly abuse.

Open source is out there to be exploited whether you like it or not. If you cannot take that side of it, don’t do it. That simple. Apple didn’t rob you anything, you open yourself up to them.

[...] Läs gärna: http://www.techcrunchit.com/2008/07/15/the-new-apple-walled-garden/ [...]

right on. i wish apple would wake up to this

[...] move is very timely as Apple’s closed ecosystem is considered to be its Achilles’ heel. By aligning more tightly with Symbian, Nokia is declaring [...]

[...] desi creat dintr-o platforma opensource, Apple sunt mai rai ca Microsoft [...]

[...] move is very timely as Apple’s closed ecosystem is considered to be its Achilles’ heel. By aligning more tightly with Symbian, Nokia is declaring [...]

Hi webmaster!

[...] biggest issue here is that Apple has created what some like to call a “walled garden” through its App Store business. Instead of a thriving software [...]

Interesting facts.I have bookmarked this site. stephanazs

[...] struggle with the notion of embracing Apple products entirely. This is in-part due to their “walled garden” approach, and also as a result of the smugness inherent in some of their advertising. The [...]

EFF and Apple go to Court over Jailbreak…

Give me a break if the courts fall for apples shinanigans then we just get 1 more ruling that proves that the system is currupt my phone should be mine to use as i please….

[...] article http://www.techcrunchit.com/2008/07/15/the-new-apple-walled-garden/ makes some interesting points about Apple, and in particular the [...]

Apple has a very strong following in the open source community, and I can no longer understand it nor justify my own support (I am writing this on a Macbook).They have taken open source and everything it built and leveraged it to get to market faster – yet they have now, with iTunes and the new SDK, built a layer on top of it that excludes others. For Apple, open source is great when it furthers their own goals, but not when using it with Apple software where it may further the goals of others.I suspect the main reason why some people in the open source community give such strong support to Apple is due to their own visceral hatred towards Microsoft. Apple is seen as a force that is in the best position to challenge Microsoft’s desktop dominance. If this is true, I can’t help but feel a little sad.

Open Source… ftw.

[...] If that doesn’t happen, developers will continue to lose faith in the App Store’s walled garden approach. Apple will lose its glossy luster, and some will seek lusher platforms where [...]

[...] If that doesn’t happen, developers will continue to lose faith in the App Store’s walled garden approach. Apple will lose its glossy luster, and some will seek lusher platforms where [...]

[...] If that doesn’t happen, developers will continue to lose faith in the App Store’s walled garden approach. Apple will lose its glossy luster, and some will seek lusher platforms where [...]

[...] If that doesn’t happen, developers will continue to lose faith in the App Store’s walled garden approach. Apple will lose its glossy luster, and some will seek lusher platforms where [...]

[...] If that doesn’t happen, developers will continue to lose faith in the App Store’s walled garden approach. Apple will lose its glossy luster, and some will seek lusher platforms where [...]

[...] doesn’t happen, developers module move to retrograde establishment in the App Store’s walled garden approach. Apple module retrograde its shiny luster, and whatever module essay lusher platforms [...]

[...] If that doesn’t happen, developers will continue to lose faith in the App Store’s walled garden approach. Apple will lose its glossy luster, and some will seek lusher platforms where [...]

[...] If that doesn’t happen, developers will continue to lose faith in the App Store’s walled garden approach. Apple will lose its glossy luster, and some will seek lusher platforms where [...]

[...] If that doesn’t happen, developers will continue to lose faith in the App Store’s walled garden approach. Apple will lose its glossy luster, and some will seek lusher platforms where [...]

[...] If that doesn’t happen, developers will continue to lose faith in the App Store’s walled garden approach. Apple will lose its glossy luster, and some will seek lusher platforms where [...]

[...] If that doesn’t happen, developers will continue to lose faith in the App Store’s walled garden approach. Apple will lose its glossy luster, and some will seek lusher platforms where [...]

[...] quickly. If that doesn’t happen, developers will continue to lose faith in the App Store’s walled garden approach. Apple will lose its glossy luster, and some will seek lusher platforms where they’re [...]

[...] quickly. If that doesn’t happen, developers will continue to lose faith in the App Store’s walled garden approach. Apple will lose its glossy luster, and some will seek lusher platforms where they’re [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier&#32&#116&#111day is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I&#32&#114&#101fer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is&#32&#104&#101re: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] 今日これまでのスレッドを下に貼ってある。下から上に向かって読んでほしい。私が指すMGを見事に言い表した記事はここにある。 [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] A thread from earlier today is below. Read from the bottom up – the post I refer to, which basically describes MG perfectly, is here: [...]

[...] July of last year, I wrote about The New Apple Walled Garden. The post was about the irony of developers and advocates who were otherwise open standards and [...]

[...] 去年の7月のThe New Apple Walled Gardenという記事で、デベロッパと熱心なiPhoneファンとのあいだに横たわるアイロニーについて書いた。後者は、ふだんはオープンスタンダードとかオープンソースの支持者であっても、ことiPhoneに関しては、それが閉じた私企業規格のプラットホームであっても平気なのだ。その記事が出たあと、誰かが予言した恐怖が現実になった。拒絶されたアプリケーション、そして拒絶されたアプリケーション、さらにまたまた拒絶されたアプリケーションという無限の連鎖だ。この件で本誌が報じた記事はものすごく多くて、どれにも大量のコメントやAppleに対する苦情や非難が寄せられ、しかも、長年Apple/iPhoneファンであった人が転向する例まで少なからず現れた。しかし、Appleへの苦情を寄せたブロガーやアプリケーションデベロッパの数に比べれば、Appleファン〜iPhoneファンの数は圧倒的に膨大であり、スマートフォンにおけるマーケットシェアも伸びているので、Appleはそれをよりどころとして平気な顔を続けた。しかしそれも、昨日（米国時間11/11）で終わりだ。 [...]

[...] cause of these issues isn’t your censorship policies. Rather, at the core of the problem is your walled garden policy. After all, the app policies only exist to maintain the impeccably cultivated garden. A company [...]

[...] the iPad frenzy, I’ve been hearing a lot about Apple’s success with its walled garden approach.  I objected to their proprietary closed stance on principle for a long time.  When I [...]

[...] important way to provide value.  Since its resurgence, Apple has thrived on a business model of walled gardens, planned obsolescence, misleading marketing, and feature restriction.  These are all very [...]

[...] TechCrunch in particular has voiced their (somewhat paranoid) fear that in the future, “all apps — desktop and mobile — might be distributed through iTunes“.  A former Sun executive took it a step further, saying that “the iPhone vision [...]

[...] to run their own creations on the platform unlike on Apple devices, which adhere to the “walled garden” concept. Despite all arguments, Trend Micro believes that the Android OS, like any other OS, [...]

I need to check with you here, which isn’t something I often do! I take pleasure in studying a post that will make people think. Also, thanks for permitting me to comment!

How did you get so many comments on your blog?