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Should Apple Open Source the iPhone?
An anonymous reader writes "Given the OpeniBoot project is just a breath away from getting Android onto the iPhone, maybe Apple should consider opening up the platform. This post has five reasons, but I think there are far more. Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years."
Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years.
The largest software producer on the planet? Perish the thought! That would be TERRIBLE!
Anyway, I don't like the iPhone either but let's face it, some people are zebras and others would just as soon kill you as open a pack of gum.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
The open-sourcing of the iPhone will not happen under Steve Jobs' rule, which is why the rest of the company is quietly waiting for Steve Jobs to pass away due to complications from the AIDS he received at a meth-fueled gay sex party 10 years ago.
"Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years."
You say that as if it were a bad thing. I'm guessing that despite the recent drop to 89% marketshare MS is feeling just fine.
I'm not saying OSS would be a bad move for Apple or the iPhone, but to say that if they aren't careful they might end up completely dominating the market and rolling around in mountains of cash isn't going to get your point across to most people.
are doomed to repeat it
one would think apple would have learned from their past mistake of a less closed platform overtaking them and nearly sending the company down the drain
Apple don't let you develop for the iPhone freely; it has to be done under their conditions and with their approval, asking the OS to be open sourced is foolish and it will never happen, Apple has shown what does it thinks about developer freedom.
More likely they will try to find a way to prohibit Android from being installed.
Sigs are for morons... Wait a minute...
A huge part of the reason why people buy the iPhone is the unified user experience. Yes, I'd like a platform that I don't have to pay $100 to develop on...
But my mother doesn't care. she wants a smartphone that "Just Works": its easy to use, with lots of apps.
Apple has provided a great unified user experience on the iPhone, and thats the secret. Its a smartphone my MOTHER can use.
Opening up the platform wouldn't help.
Test your net with Netalyzr
How are those good points?
Apple has a history of pulling bait and switch tactics, often being more locked down than Microsoft is in many areas etc.
Look what you can do with a TiVo, that's supposively running on OpenSource software, you can't run your own software on the TiVo usually because it checks if the kernel running etc. is signed by a specific key.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
"Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years."
I bet Steve Jobs wishes he were in the same position as a company that has a 90% desktop market share and sold 18 million smartphones in a year, an increase of 42.9% oevr the previous year.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
A loser blogging from "Wahoo's Fish Tacos" who contents "They're Gonna Have to Eventually," and decides put it to a vote: "all those in favor of an open source direction for the iPhone, leave a comment that starts with "+1." All those who think the iPhone should stay buttoned up, leave a comment starting with "-1."
This will be at least as effective as an online petition!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Where Microsoft is now.. 90% market share?
AAPL cap $86 Billion
GOOG cap $97 Billion
MSFT cap $182 Billion
Sounds good to me. I hope AAPL has twice the value of the rest of the pack.
Should Apple Open Source the iPhone? The answer is threefold:
1. We must consider that if hackers mark off the natural paths that official developer programs later pave over and make safe for the less adventurous and smart companies know this, then Apple should - and will - pay attention to their hackers. (Google Maps is a great case in point. It became the mapping platform of choice because, rather than shutting down the early mashup hackers, it quickly figured how to pour fuel on the fire that they'd started.) Despite the official disapproval, Apple knows that the hacker interest in the iPhone is a great boost to their program and their goals. (Witness the fact that the Apple store in Cambridge MA allowed Rob Malda to suck his own cock and to present on iPhone development in a meeting at the store with cum dripping from his jaws.)
2. The open API has a great deal of overlap with the official API. So getting up and running with the open toolchain will help developers get a head start. But it's also more powerful than the official toolchain, and will let developers continue to push Apple in interesting new directions.
3. The demand is there. We should never kid ourselves on this. The number of slots in the official API program is far smaller than the apparent demand. We published the book, and it sold out immediately, indicating that we were right. Information about the official API as soon as the Apple NDA is lifted should be published, but for now, the iPhone is one of the most important new platforms in the market today, and one that developers should be exploring as deeply (and as soon) as possible.
sm2704
First, they simply won't. The question is little more than theoretical and we all know how that goes.
And secondly, they'll end up like Microsoft? Do you mean they'll end up with 85%+ of the market share? How is that a loss?
I know OSS is real popular around here but let's face facts, MS and Apple have a combined 98% of the marketshare in their primary markets and tons of side markets that are doing well. Give us a real reason they want to be in alignment with the other 2% of the market.
I know, most folks here have a real love for the open source way but when it comes down to making a dollar off it the ratio of wins to loses is pretty sad. Given all the advantages of open source it's hard to understand why it never really got a bigger foothold and now it seems to be little more than that... a foothold that those involved are trying to keep in fear from falling off the mountain altogether.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
How is Apple's iPhone position anything like MS? In both mobile phones and computers, MS sells their OS software to OEM hardware manufacturers. Some of the problems of MS have come because they have had to support a myriad of devices. Apple sells their hardware with their OS. If anything, with open source, Apple to be like MS in seven years.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Why would Apple open source their phone?
They already have the attention of the masses, and every phone is compared to the iPhone.
Every company is trying to come up with a handset to compete with it. The managers meet with the project leaders and the first question they ask is undoubtedly "does it have a touch screen?". Every Android-based phone is referred to as a "gPhone".
Why would Apple change their ways?
They are selling overpriced, underpowered, late-featured, shiny, UI-focused, locked-down, restrictive products. It's working out great for them.
one would think apple would have learned from their past mistake of a less closed platform overtaking them and nearly sending the company down the drain
Apple went down the drain more from the clones. Look, Apple's whole thing is about the entire consumer experience from store to computer hardware to boot. It always has been and hopefully always will be. To say that Apple should just be like Microsoft, is kinda crazy. Apple doesn't have the money to compete with Microsoft or Dell and so the real brand differentiator is that they have an entirely different business model.
This is my sig.
...at which time Apple will either abandon that particular market, or jump on the open source band wagon while Apple fans pat themselves on the back for being flexible and forward thinking. Why would they give up 7 years worth of profit and reverse current trends. Apple have continually tried to close off their hardware. Look at the latest generation of iPods which attempt to prevent users from loading alternate firmware. In any case who knows what will change in 7 years. It'd take them all of 3-6 months to open source if they choose to do so at a later date. For right now I don't see it happening.
Karma be damned. Apple is just not a nice company. I got screwed over in the 1980s when Apple decided to stop selling their software in department stores. My parents had just bought me an overpriced Apple IIe and here I was, a kid who would have to spend hours getting to the nearest Apple dealer to buy software.
People talk about how Apple changed when Steve Jobs came back but I don't see much change. It seems to me that Apple have always been more about marketing and hype than about empowering their users. If you believe the hype everything they do is stylish, bugs are rare, rare events, and the hardware is so reliable that if you have a problem you must be misusing it. The reality I have experienced has been very different.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
No, I think they should keep it as is, or maybe even lock it up even tighter.
Umm, what were you expecting Slashdotters to say?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Different business models entirely--Apple learned their lesson in the late nineties by finally stopping its efforts to be like the big boys. By focusing on a niche market and slowly expanding it is perhaps akin to Southwestern Airlines vs. American
1) Darwin is already open source as we all know.
2) Apple would LOVE LOVE LOVE to be in the position that Microsoft is in today. Billions of net profit every year.
After all, Apple is having so much trouble selling iPhones and attracting a developer community that open-sourcing the iPhone is the only way to survive... Wait, what? Apple already has the top-selling smartphone? They already have a huge developer community and thousands of applications in less than six months of having this OS on the market? They've all but killed Palm, made a huge dent in Microsoft's Windows Mobile business, and forced RIM to come out with a poorly-regarded "me too" touchscreen phone while eating market share?
Well, I guess that's how poorly things are going for Apple with a closed design. There's lots of valid reasons why Apple might be well-served to open up more of their iPhone code, but it's not like the current strategy has exactly failed miserably. Right now iPhone is in a pretty enviable place from a development point of view. Apple is early in the 2.0 cycle, and hasn't even implemented all the promised features for developers yet (like central push notification and true turn-by-turn GPS capabilities), and they still have a massive base of developers who are leveraging their Cocoa code and methods to produce iPhone software.
Not to mention that touch in general is a full-fledged platform for Apple. Not just phones, but iPods and likely other devices. Build for the platform and you run on all the devices (unlike, say, RIM's multiple platforms). And they have teh sexy as well in their hardware and UI designs, so there's consumer appeal (compared to, say, the skins manufacturers have had to overlay on Windows Mobile to make it less hostile to users).
There's always going to be people who want to tweak their phone, or run Linux on it because it has a CPU and RAM. But the mass market doesn't give a darn if iPhones are open or closed. They don't care if Android is open, either. They just care that the devices are cool and useful, and that there's plenty of nice software to run that's easy to get. iPhone is leading in that race now, and as long as they're all that, nobody important gives a darn otherwise.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years.
The largest software producer on the planet? Perish the thought! That would be TERRIBLE!
Anyway, I don't like the iPhone either but let's face it, some people are zebras and others would just as soon kill you as open a pack of gum.
Let's read that again: "today's Microsoft in seven years.".
Again, "today's Microsoft in seven years."
Are you sure that Microsoft WILL BE "The largest software producer on the planet" in 7 years? Looking after the whole Vista fiasco, the netbook war and how it seems that MS is starting to see more competence on OS market day to day... you sure that he'll still be the 1st ine in 7 years?
You heard it here first: 2015 is the year of Linux in the Desktop... if the LHC didn't destroy the universe in 2012.
They might be vying for Apple's throne someday. Right now? They're vying for scraps outside the royal kitchen.
WITH open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's IBM. (looks at PC). Nope not an IBM and soon Iphone/Macintosh will not be apple if they go down this road.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
It's poorly worded. I read it as, "In seven years, Apple might find itself in the position of Microsoft today [in 2008]."
Microsoft's market share is going down, but the grandparent meant to point out that Microsoft of 2008 has just under 90% of the market. Apple should be so lucky.
oh god yes. there's a new kid in town, he's much cooler, and doesn't whine when you compete with or circumvent his business model. his name is android, and there's already 4 phones slated for release early next year that ship with android. /me waits for htc touch pro to get official android support.
and what's the deal with the list? is /. turning into digg?
I don't care about open source, just give me relatively open platform like OS X. I don't mind if the underlying OS is closed source so long as the dev tools, APIs, and application installation are all open. As long as I know that I can release my application to be installed on other iPhones without going through iTunes (or dev tools), that's all I'm really asking for. I think iTunes still provides a great way to sell and distribute applications, but there's no way I'm developing for a platform where a company can decide on a whim whether or not I can distribute my application.
The development and the iron-clad ties to AT&T are the two reasons I didn't get an iPhone, and this is coming from a huge Mac fanboy. The rest of my family got iPhones, and it's definitely a great phone.
Okay, so some developers are saying,
"Either open up the iPhone so we can develop software for it... or we'll turn around and develop software for it anyway!"
Anybody else see why this "threat" is, er, um, what's the word... oh, yeah -- dumb?
Unless you can convince Apple that it's to both THEIR advantage and the general public's to open up the iPhone's dev tools, it's not going to happen, no matter what a relatively small number of developers (who constitute probably 0.001 percent of the total iPhone user base) say.
(Note to all software developers, from the Department of the Bleeding Obvious: the overwhelming majority of software applications on planet earth won't be used by people who are programmers, so the inherent coolness of your Killer App, open-source or otherwise, may not be appreciated as much as you might think.)
Who cares? The same fuckwits who run out and buy a Mac and then install and run only Linux on it.
The dev kit is $0
And not compatible with the Windows or Linux operating system installed on the Lenovo-compatible PC on your desk, nor is it compatible with Macs from before the Intel transition. You'll probably need to spend $599 for a Mac mini, $30 for a KVM switch, $15 for a USB keyboard or mouse to replace the PS/2 one you may still be using, and I'll say $56 for shipping and sales tax. So its $700 unless you already own a recent Mac.
And even then, Apple reserves the right to reject any app for any reason.
Yes. They should also make it 100% based on Java.
Mea culpa, disregard the grandparent post.
Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years.
Doubt it. No-one (non-technical) cares at all about whether a product is open-source; they care about having something that works. And the iPhone works very well. Microsoft seems to be doing quite well anyway, despite open-source.
OpeniBoot project is just a breath away from getting Android onto the iPhone [...]
Doesn't look like it to me from that video.
Before Open Source, before the GNU Manifesto, there was "Open Systems". Systems built around open APIs, interfaces, and protocols. UNIX was really the big push for Open Systems. If your software used the UNIX APIs, it would run on hardware from just about anyone, with less work than you might expect to do porting it from one release of an operating system to the next. Thanks to efforts like the SOftware Tools VOS, and emulation platforms like Eunice and Phoenix, it would even run on other operating systems like VMS.
It's nice that the iPhone is based on an Open Systems OS, but until you can write software to open APIs to run on it without jumping through hoops it doesn't really matter that much whether the kernel is Darwin, Linux, or Windows PE. THe iPhone is really irrelevant to open source and open systems, and it's a really expensive way to get a bare phone to run Linux on.
You're right, Open Source isn't needed, Open Systems are.
Some source for the iPhone is available, but it is a little behind in the release schedule:
http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/
Okay its probably not all there, but at least its something.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years.
I think it's clear enough by now that Steve Jobs salivates when he thinks about this. Does anyone still think that Apple is any less greedily proprietary than Microsoft? Or that, had their positions been reversed in the early years, Apple would have behaved differently from its competitor?
slashdot is going down the shitter .... any ignorant monkey can post content now :/
>is /. turning into digg?
Sadly, yes. The Idle experiment has been creeping onto the rest of the site. See - the new meta-moderation system, the new index (optional beta for now, but how long until we have no chioce?), and the new ~ pages. It's no surprise that story selection is following suit.
It seems like Taco and co. are forgetting that a lot of us still come here precisely because it's not digg.
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
I prefer Apple's performance over the last 15 years over Microsoft's. Even at 50% of its all-time high, Apple is still trading at 25 times what I paid for it, and runs the most profitable retail business per square foot in America.
Compare: The glory days of MSFT are over. It is no longer a growth company. That stock made a lot of early adopters rich, but MS is a victim of its own monopoly. Where do they go from here, other than forcing needless OS upgrades down XP users' throats?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
This OSS iPhone argument seems patently absurd to me. Look, I subscribe to many of the pro-OSS philosophies as much as the next geek. But insisting that Apple should open source the iPhone is like telling NASA to serve free peanuts on its shuttle flights lest the space program fail. Does anyone honestly believe this would be any better an approach for Apple than the one they're currently pursuing? Yeah, making hardware people want to buy running software people want to use and having more money than god is *so* over-rated.
I love it... the first post is modded "redundant"
THIRTY FREAKING YEARS and you guys just don't get it. Apple sells hardware. Without the proprietary OSes, Apple's hard ware is no differnt from other hardware. Open Sourcing the OS is JUST PLAIN STUPID if you are trying to profit from your business.
The iPhone can play DRM'd movies. Yes, DRM and encryption and the like give the Stallman set fits, but it's certainly a key bit of functionality for the phone that would go away if it were open sourced, right?
I just don't really see more benefits to Apple, especially when if the iPhone were open sourced would make it easier to add the stuff to Linux or other competing devices, no? Of course that would _never_ happen, code being snagged and all :-/
in other words they'll have too much money to care what customers think about their products because the products sell themselves... (waits for trolls)
What company wouldn't want enough cash on hand to be able to NOT SELL STUFF for a whole year? (of course what kinds of products would they make?)
Apple is reaping millions from the unwashed masses and unbathed developers. They are becoming rich on the sweat of others while lifting no finger of our own. Their profit margins are at an all-time high. As long as the iPhone remains a unified piece of technology under the control of one boss, it will remain a cohesive product. Upon becoming OSS, it runs the risk of zealots branching off versions purely for the sake of stroking their egos. Stevie is the only allowed stroke the ego when it comes to Apple crap.
Bearded Dragon
I have to admit I had a similar response. There are so utterly few open source projects that succeed in any large financial way, apple are a company that wants to make money, and the iPhone is one of the biggest gadget successes in the last 5 years - their iPod is one of the others.
This post seems to say Apple should dump surefire success and go for something risky and likely to flush all their efforts into the toilet. Goodluckwiththat indeed.
I read down through the comments to see if anyone was going to mention this, but surprisingly, no one did. As long as there is an open source alternative it doesn't matter. It seems to me there is a lot of blathering about this and that need to be open source when there are either already open source projects that exist to fill the niche. All the blathering is about is tearing down something that was built closed source. Basically, whining about what ISN'T available to fiddle with. Apple has chosen well a whole lot over the last decade. Even in cases where they got it wrong (DRM) they worked with the industry leaders until concession was made.
Not sure if you noticed but Apple is CLOSED.
Has been and will continue to be as long as Jobs is steering the ship.
Jobs'd
I'll try anything once. Twice if it tastes good
Damn - if only they fiire Jobs 7 years ago and put this guy in charge of Apple, what fantastic products the consumers could have benefitted from - the year of the Linux today? Hmmm... would Google provide Android and maps for free if it wasn't the WWWs' biggest ad money maker? Should Google also open source their search engine, in-house Linux built, and proprietary cluster infrastructure technology too?
Zebras? Gum? What????
Several people have pointed out variations on this, but we'll try again:
Apple sells hardware. To a certain extent, they sell content. I don't know how much the App Store or iTunes makes for them. Maybe a substantial amount. Hardware is their cash cow. Open source the software, and both pillars of their model are lost.
Microsoft sells software. That's self-evident.
OSS companies are generally in the business of selling professional services. i.e., we'll give you the operating system. We will sell you what amounts to a support contract for a small fee per workstation. If you want to integrate it, or make it do clever things, we have people who do that by the hour for a reasonable fee. If you're giving away software running on servers in the back room of a large company, there's good money to be made using that model. If you're selling $200 iPhones? ehhhh, not so much.
The awesome thing is that Apple's one phone is going to sell more than all the Android phones combined.
Joe User doesn't care about open source. He cares about his phone being 'cool.'
And I care about being able to only have one device instead of 3.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
I thought exactly the same thing. The only explanation I can come up with is that the moderator felt, probably with some justification, that anyone just looking at the post would say the same thing.
WITH open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's IBM.
You mean Apple will start making lots of money from business services and high-end servers?
it WILL work and you CAN make some money, if enough people agree that your app warrants it.
If you don't want to develop for the iPhone, don't.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Even if /. was fine just the way it was( much better in fact ;_; ), CmdrTaco and his ilk still have to justify their salaries by unnecessarily coding ugly and bloated features and attracting new users(read: infantile Pokemon-playing idiots).
Apple doesn't need to Open Source the iPhone. What they need to do is make it available to multiple carriers (something most think will happen eventually anyway) and ease up on the app restrictions. Let's face it, everyone wants an iPhone. They may not all have one or even get one but they WANT one.
I love you open source nuts...
Open source is wonderful, but what position is Microsoft in today? Microsoft is still king of the industry, their OSes are still the most widely used.
So are you saying that Apple will end up, king of the hill?
MS isnt going anywhere, and Linux is still not a mainstream desktop. Sorry guys, Its a great OS but the lens at which the die hard Linux Zealots look through is so skewed that it distorts reality.
At least not with the GPL (which most people this as Open Source)
There are a lot of closed source code included and legally protected source, like Microsoft License to Hook the iPhone to exchange servers. As well Apple applied for Many patents when they made the iPhone. Then why would Apple want a team of outside developers making changes and "improvements" to the code without Apples control.
Apples success based on the "We Know Best" mentality. Microsoft failure is saying Customer knows best and will try to put all customer request in our product. There are a lot of good features that Apple leaves out of their product because they feel it isn't quite ready. And it success is the fact what it does have usually works better then everyone else. Open Sourcing will not help Apples success and methodology it will probably hurt them.
IBM can get away with Open Source as people cannot easily find replacement for their big iron systems. As well paying for support and service is the core of their business. For Apple to make money on this support model it will need to make its products like crap so it is difficult enough to get support with.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Exactly! It's just like blackberry, only business men had them before when they were butt ugly, but now that they come in pink? Look out world, everybody wants one.
Xaotik Designs
Last I looked there was no sound, no wirelses, no modem, no touchscreen, no acceleromater, no sound... It's probably a little more than a breaths away. However, it's inevitable that it will happen and when it does Android will be the "open" ver of the iPhone. Simple as that, no need to open up the Apple variant of OSX for the iPhone. Just like if I wanted to I can run OS X on my Mac or Linux if I wanted something else. The choice will be there.
Linux has been ported to the iPhone all ready. And that was last month.
The port isn't really ready for prime time and someone may have seriously "bricked" their iPhone in doing it, but it does prove the concept.
There are also a lot of open source applications for the iPhone that are not available through the App Store from Apple. All you have to do is unlock your iPhone and you're all set. There are also means by which you can disconnect your iPhone from AT&T and "open source" your phone company. Many of the iPhones sold were going to countries that Apple had no relationship with a phone company. Do these iPhones have access to their 3G networks? Do they have full functionality? Perhaps not, but Apple is always happy to sell their stuff.
Apple is very concerned that someone will attack users' iPhones and they have locked it down as much as possible. Macs running earlier System Software (pre OS X) were closed boxes that had lots of innovation and lots of applications written for them. And I don't think that any malicious code, save one that attacked a vulnerability in Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications, was ever successful on the Mac running the older System.
Apple's lockdown of the iPhone is understandable. I don't appreciate that the lockdown comes complete with no copy or cut and paste from application to application. But the phone does work and the plethora of applications being written for it are enriching the user's experience.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
"Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years."
So, in 7 years they will control 90% of the market while the linux alternative controls 1%?
Oh NO!
What made iPhone so successful, is they revolutionized the way we look and use cellphones today. And it could be that the next step for cell phones is open OS. And if Apple doesn't follow Android's example, they could be left behind.
False dichotomy. It can be open source and cool.
Nick Nerderton will code some very cool apps for the Android and Joe User will install them
Since then: nothing out of Apple, despite mounting pressure from projects like Android that are vying for Apple's throne.
First off, I want to point something out: "Apple's throne" was achieved in less than two years, starting basically from zero, when competing against companies that have been in the cell phone market since the 80s. Keep that in mind when criticizing Apple's business strategies.
Open source is becoming the default way to develop software in many industries.
One SIGNIFICANT subset of the industry where open source is not the default way to develop software: Industries where the user interface matters. Think about how many times you've heard the phrase "As easy to use as Linux".
Open sourcing the iPhone gives customers a much broader selection of applications. Customers faced with a plethora of attractive applications when they visit the app store will spend money.
There is a lot of empirical evidence to refute this. Customers DO NOT want choice. One of the big complaints about Linux is that people have to choose between Ubuntu, Redhat, Slackware, Debian, Kubuntu, Fedora, LFS, Gentoo, etc. Or maybe FreeBSD or NetBSD. And on top of that, Gnome or KDE or something else. When faced with too many choices, the reaction amongst most humans is give up. One of the reasons Ubuntu has been so successful is that (unlike, say, Slackware) you don't have to go through and choose which programs and window manager/desktop system you want.
One of the biggest wins by far of the App Store is that there is a certain minimum quality level needed to be in it. If they opened that up, it would turn into something like SourceForge and it would be impossible to find the good stuff amongst the chaff.
It Will Solidify Apple's Dominance.
Apple's got a rare opportunity to solidify dominance in a market by killing the competition in the cradle.
But I thought you said choice was good? ;)
Honestly, I prefer Apple to have competition. Keeps 'em honest.
If They Don't, Someone Else Will
All of the other smartphones are already a lot more open than the iPhone, and (with the exception of Android) they've been around a lot longer. Apple's still whuppin' their asses.
That's right, Linux on the iPhone. Earth to Apple: if the iPhone had been open sourced, this probably wouldn't have happened.
Wow, you don't understand Linux people at all, do you? There is a certain sort of person who will try to install Linux on anything that stands still in front of them for too long. The only computing hardware that people won't try getting to run Linux is computing hardware that's already running Linux. And even then, they'll try to swap in a *custom* version of Linux. It's what they do. Making the iPhone more open would just have made that happen more quickly.
What motivation would Apple have to open-source the iPhone? Specifically, what advantage would it gain from going open-source that it doesn't have now?
I can't see any compelling business reason for Apple to take the iPhone open-source. It might look good from a geek perspective, but from a business perspective, not so much.
Note: they can relax the requirements to code for the iPhone w/o requiring open-source. This is a more likely course of action.
-Z
It's a certainty that 0 people today know what position MS will be in 7 years from now. Therefore, the statement can only be logically taken to mean that Apple will be in the same position in 7 years that MS is in today.
Apple has $24+ billion and no debt. What are you getting at?
Like it or hate it, the Apple experience is very tightly integrated t the iPhone. It's brand is tied up in the iPhone.
Someone running some other OS has problems, it becomes an 'iPhone' problem to the public.
I like android, I enjoy my G1, but it lacks the level of 'polish' the iPhone does.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Anyway, I don't like the iPhone either but let's face it, some people are zebras and others would just as soon kill you as open a pack of gum.
Well in our defence, a lot of us don't really like gum.
The linux booting on the iPhone part was kinda cool, but this is like the second time someone threw slashdot's traffic at a poorly written, poorly thought out blog entry. I wish I had the minute back that it took to read this garbage.
Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years
Hated, ridiculed, and filthy fucking rich ?
Welcome to the 21st century. People don't buy iPhones for their open-source platform, people buy iPhones because they are a hip status symbol.
When someone whips out a non-Apple touch phone (or a Blackberry), people say "Oh you got the cheap shitty iPhone knockoff", as their face contorts into the shape of Steve Jobs' rectum.
People buy Apple for the brand and what it represents. If you want your phone to run open-source firmware, you're free to buy a different phone, because the iPhone isn't going to do it, ever.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Slashdot (and FOSSies in general) just can't understand the simple reality- Apple is a monopoly.
Apple (and Steve Jobs) have been playing the tech monopolist game longer than most people here have been alive. Apple was locking companies into cut-throat contracts long before Microsoft was even anything.
In fact, people started turning to Microsoft as a response to companies like Novell, IBM, and Apple. For the first time, you could by JUST an operating system. And shockingly enough, with Windows 95, that was ALL you had to buy- prior to that you had to buy protocols, winsocks, network client software, terminal emulators, blah blah mwah mwah. With Win95... you just buy Win95! Talk about your disruptive technology!
And better yet, shortly afterward, they added in Internet Explorer for free, so you didn't have to pay the Netscape Tax.
When has Apple ever done anything to save their customers money? Heck, even the service packs cost $80.
Apple is not just a monopolist... but a BRUTAL monopolist.
Nevermind the fact that even "today's Microsoft" is making tons and tons of cash every single day, and Apple has never opened up anything, ever. Why opensource at all, when closed source has always made them more money? As a matter of fact, the closed nature of the iPod is singlehandedly what brought Apple off the brink of bankruptcy. I really don't understand why opensource wonks always think in absolutes and want to opensource everything. Are you guys supposed to be more smart or something?
No?
Apple is a hardware company first and a software company second. They want you to buy their hardware so you can use their software.
Hardware first, Software second.
If you didn't have to buy their hardware to use their (free) software.... how do they even make money?
So no, Apple should not open source anything (and nor should they!)
Fuck open source. They should Free the iPod; not because it would make them the most money, but because Freedom is the Right Thing. GPL FTW!!!
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
Uhh...what Vista fiasco? Oh, you mean the trolls and stories on The Register? Vista is doing fine, thankyouverymuch.
There is room for more than one model for how to develop a product. The iPhone is targeted to consumers who want a very well thought out, consistent, easily usable (and therefore more useful) device. Not all of us WANT the iPhone that would result from open source. There are projects like Android to appeal to those consumers.
I'd be willing to bet that AT&T is forbidding Apple from opening up their development because the last thing want is for Skype to be ported to the iPhone which might cut into their profits.
Hopefully after their exclusive contract with AT&T is up, Apple will offer the iPhone without a service contract so users can pick their own carrier, which would also lift the restrictions that AT&T has likely imposed.
I use rockbox on my 5th gen Video iPod. It chokes when you scroll through songs too fast. Messes up when your playlist is too long and uses the battery much faster. But even with all of that, I love it because I don't have to use iTunes, and can just drop my music on there. I haven't heard many good things about Android but I'm sure it would be the same situation with this.
It's about the hardware.
You all want that shiny spotless minimalistic big screen to put linux on.
Regarding open source: you allready have android, you just want to port some stable new Gui/FX into these linux desktop failures
"Violence is the last refuge of the competent, and, generally, the first refuge of the incompetent" - Thing_1
Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years.[citation needed]
Google is offering a mobile OS that is going to eat Apple's lunch.
The richness of applications in an open environment will eventually surpass whatever Apple has to offer.
Check any Linux repositories: thousands of applications, the top 100 lets say of a very high technical standard, many other good enough for large amounts of people, all of them susceptible of improvements that can closely follow the needs of the users. This enthusiasm will be pushed by the commercial muscle of Google, which means marketing. Great combination that Apple is counteracting with putting a minefield in front of would be iPhone developers. Brain dead policy.
Also Apple's music players are becoming more restrictive, now that finally shops and labels are realizing that DRM is an abomination the need to have an iPod to play music is going to be non existent by end of next year.
If iPods have to compete based on features only (and not in the tie in to the iTunes store) Apple may be for a nasty surprise, since there are plenty of players out there that are immensely better devices (bar the interface, but several mobile phones are providing very good ones, which will find their way to music an d media players)
In synthesis they are going to experience the PC revolution all over again: Linux will take the desktop in an uneasy stand off with Windows (yeah, I know, but people used to laugh also when I told them Linux would be a commercially viable OS by now, which is embedded and server markets, I firmly believe the Penguin will have the last laugh in the desktop as well, the EeePC and friends and the financial crush may play a big hand on this), their players will no longer be as attractive and their computers will be too expensive, again.
Most people forget how close Apple was to go under, they have forgotten that at some point MS had to put some money to help them out (really, not joking: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html ) and this all was because the stubbornness of Apple to stick to close standards for everything they did.
Apple hit the jackpot with the iPod by following their typical close the door policy for iTunes, but once that advantage is gone I just don't see that they have the necessary culture to thrive in an environment in which open standards and perhaps code will be the norm.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Apple and open source are like oil and water. They do not mix, and oil comes to settle on top of water. Perhaps even more so than Microsoft, Apple is fundamentally unfriendly to open source (it goes back to their control freak ideas about hardware and software). They have no problems freeloading off BSD, but have generally found it hard to work their platform with open source. Further, they have a history of changing ipod/iphone (database hash keys anyone ?) to break the capability of its unfortunate owners to mount it in linux. A wanton act for which there was no profit motive since itunes is free, and mounting the ipod as a disk does not harm the ipod.
And ending up like a more evil version of Microsoft might be precisely where Steve Jobs wants to take Apple. Speaking from a pure shareholder perspective, its not such a nasty place to be in.
Apple is infinitely more likely to make sure that use of Android bricks the iphone than the dreamland scenario you are suggesting. In any case, why would you want to depend on iphone now that Google phone (soon G2 ?) is here ?
I agree with the article that Apple could find itself marginalized by Android in 5 years much like Windows marginalized Macs years ago. However, making it open-source wont help. I agree that users don't care about open-source vs closed-source. What Steve Jobs needs to do is license the iPhone software cheaply or even free. Of course, he wont. I've used both Android and iPhone extensively. Android is a bit behind iPhone, but is on a steeper improvement curve. It will be an interesting five years to watch.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
The largest software producer on the planet? Perish the thought! That would be TERRIBLE!
I agree. I can't stand it when I can't find a place to fit all my money. And money just kind of smells too. Plus nobody likes you if you're rich.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
No, absolutely not.
(I figured *someone* had to give a negative answer, or it would look like a pretty unnecessary question to ask on Slashdot)
Property is theft.
Vista is doing fine????
That would be why take up is vitrually non existant in the corporate/education sector. Vista is an epic fail.
Every single person I know who has a Vista machine wants to dongrade to XP. Must be some strange new meaning of the word "Fine" I haven't previously encountered.
The insurance that the iPhone has against being eclipsed by Android is Apple's patent on multi-touch. I'm choosing Android over the iPhone, but I can already see how much better the user experience is with multi-touch.
Only you truly understand THE SECRET CODE.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
The biggest problem for me was service. Tmobile does not have 3g in my area and currently has no plays to get 3g in my area. Verizon currently has the worst phones on the planet. So that leaves ATT. And if you want a phone right now the iphone is a great choice.
So I bought it, jailbroke it, and i'm learning to write apps for it. When ATT gets a nice android phone like the iphone then I'll consider it.
But it is useless to get a phone like this without 3g imho. That is why I didn't buy the first gen iphone.
"Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years." Of course the only difference would that Apple would actually 'know what they're doing' and have a vision as such. Other than that 'small' detail, I can't think of (m)any rationally run corporations who wouldn't swap their market share for Microsoft's in a heartbeat.
Microsoft closes the quarter with less cash than Apple-10/28/2008
They don't have Microsoft's kind of money, they had MORE of it.
Badges!?! We don't need no stinking badges!
I think all apple really needs to do is listen to the people. If they would get off their asses and allow some features people are currently jailbreaking like mad for then they would stay relevant.
Where is my 3rd party push support that has been promised forever? Why can't my google calendar sync over the air without jailbreaking? Why can't I run programs in the background without jailbreaking? Where's my java? Etc.
Except Nick is already coding for the iPhone because the user base is already a couple million.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
they can keep their stuff, i won't miss it. not to mention the hardware
1. We must consider that if hackers mark off the natural paths that official developer programs later pave over and make safe for the less adventurous and smart companies know this, then Apple should - and will - pay attention to their hackers.
We've already seen in the past that Apple does look at Jailbroken applications to see what people are doing.
2. The open API has a great deal of overlap with the official API. So getting up and running with the open toolchain will help developers get a head start. But it's also more powerful than the official toolchain, and will let developers continue to push Apple in interesting new directions.
The open API *is* the official API! The only reason it's more powerful is that it exposes some internal methods the official API's do not have, and also exposes deeper frameworks as well (like the lower level camera API). Looking at that API is more like looking at an indication of where Apple is heading then pushing them anywhere. You can use all of the open API stuff with the official SDK if you want to experiment.
3. The demand is there. We should never kid ourselves on this. The number of slots in the official API program is far smaller than the apparent demand.
The registration backlog was cleared out months ago. Not to say the demand is not high, but there is no "number of slots" as you put it - just the bottleneck of the application registration process.
Information about the official API as soon as the Apple NDA is lifted should be published
Which was about a month or two ago, and we have seen tons of info come out since.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Market share for MS may be going down but revenues are actually going up. Let's not confuse the two.
Apple is just another corporation, with investors who want to make MONEY. The iPhone is a means to make that money, not some messianic cross for Jobs to die on.
Welcome to the 21st century. People don't buy iPhones for their open-source platform, people buy iPhones because they are a hip status symbol.
In reality many people buy iPhones because they are incredibly practical devices, not as "status symbols". The iPod is no "status symbol" either as status symbols are very prone to being dropped by the market at the drop of a hat, which the iPod (and now iPhone) have not seen.
This misundertanding you and countless Apple Haters before you make is the reason why you cannot understand Apple's success, and never will.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Check any Linux repositories: thousands of applications, the top 100 lets say of a very high technical standard, many other good enough for large amounts of people, all of them susceptible of improvements that can closely follow the needs of the users.
The exact same thing can be said of both the Android and Apple App store. The apps are mostly developed by smaller developers, very sensitive to user requests.
Also, there are more open source (as in code) iPhone apps in the world today than Android apps. I see no reason why that would change, you can have open source apps on the iPhone just as easily as on Android.
Also Apple's music players are becoming more restrictive, now that finally shops and labels are realizing that DRM is an abomination the need to have an iPod to play music is going to be non existent by end of next year.
Oh gee, except that iPhones can ALSO play all that DRM free music that is starting to be sold (much of it already for years by Apple with iTunes Plus).
If music going all DRM was really a problem for iPods, why as the Amazon music store only increased sales of iPods/iPhones?
If iPods have to compete based on features only (and not in the tie in to the iTunes store) Apple may be for a nasty surprise, since there are plenty of players out there that are immensely better devices
If there actually were, people would buy them. Hell, if there actually were, *I* would buy them. But what there are are a lot of devices that function OK and have masses of checklist features that no-one really cares about.
Most people forget how close Apple was to go under
And as a died-in-the-wool-over-your-eyes Apple Hater, you have forgot *why* that almost happened.
Apple hit the jackpot with the iPod by following their typical close the door policy for iTunes
You mean opening up iTunes Plus, opening up to indie labels/bands, opening the iPhone/iTouch for development...
Yeah, real closed.
Poor Apple Hater, unable to see the future coming right at him.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I can't think of any business reason why Apple would want to do that. The most likely effect would be an increased rate of iPhone bricking, thus raising iPhone support costs.
Apple is fundamentally unfriendly to open source
Webkit, Darwin, BSD, GCC, Apache, etc. etc. et.c
Or just look around Google Code for iPhone projects (of which there are many).
Don't you Apple Haters feel even a tiny bit of embarassmant for making yurself look totally incapible of even the simplest Google search? I guess not, you're too focused on your Hate.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'd be willing to bet that AT&T is forbidding Apple from opening up their development because the last thing want is for Skype to be ported to the iPhone which might cut into their profits.
There are already numerous VOIP clients (including a Skype) client for the iPhone.
Since the very firmament on which your argument is based is removed, I hardly need to point out the other errors...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
OPEN is simply "un-supportable". NeXT taught Steve Jobs ' just because you can, doesn't mean you should'. Support is a very real line item on the balance sheet. Not everything is supportable... financially, technically or morally in production. Apple must choose product success roadmap.
There is room for more than one model for how to develop a product. The iPhone is targeted to consumers who want a very well thought out, consistent, easily usable (and therefore more useful) device. Not all of us WANT the iPhone that would result from open source.
I don't know why more people cannot grasp this. There is plenty of market share to go around for both Apple and Android, both platforms have really easy to acess dev kits and great potentials, with different focuses for consumers.
People act like in the end There Can Be Only One, when in a real market there are Several. I'm sure even Windows Mobile will hang on pretty much forever.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"iTunes + iPod are killing everyone else in the music space."
Digital sales are 20% of retail. Apple sells 70% of digital. That's a total market share of 14%. How is that "killing everyone else"? There are plenty of other digital sellers (Amazon), other players (Zune, Archos, cell phones), and services and models (Rhapsody, XM).
Further, in many ways Apple acts as an enabler in the space. iTunes provides a platform for lesser known artists. The iPod/iPhone provides a home for Amazon's MP3's, Audible's audiobooks, to podcasts, to YouTube videos, and so on. SJ recognized long ago that content makes his products MORE valuable, not less.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I love this line from their site... "General phone users will eventually [sic] appreciate the high spec and performance of the phone and the wide range of free software packages expected [sic] to emerge."
'Nuff said.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Of course they won't.
The Apple business model has always required strict control over their products. That way they focus their resources on fewer apps and less hardware and achieve the excellent experience they do provide, limited only by the sacrifice of your choices.
That's just Apple's way of doing things. Don't expect them to change for any reason; they think they have it right and they seem to do well with it.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
A bullshit claim substantiated by nothing.
The company is very different (a hardware instead of a software company) the market is very different now than six, ten years ago. Even the product is very different (a phone/PDA compared to desktop computers) and so on and so on.
There's absolutely no fact to support the claim that "things will play out the same way". None at all.
There's also no reason for Apple to open source the iPhone. It's selling like crazy, and nothing even hints at open source giving that a significant push.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
One of the reasons Ubuntu has been so successful is that (unlike, say, Slackware) you don't have to go through and choose which programs and window manager/desktop system you want.
So Ubuntu is Linux for the easily confused and befuddled geek? But isn't that Apple's demographic?
There is a certain sort of person who will try to install Linux on anything that stands still in front of them for too long. The only computing hardware that people won't try getting to run Linux is computing hardware that's already running Linux. And even then, they'll try to swap in a *custom* version of Linux. It's what they do.
Nalied that, he did. And we're damn proud of it.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
You're forgetting the fact that applications purchased from the App store are tied to the iTunes account and, as such, to the phone. Thus you're getting 70% of every dollar for EVERY application purchased.
This as opposed to shareware systems where perhaps 2% of the users pay, or many commercial options where 80 to 90% of your users have ripped off the application using bogus names and serial numbers.
Sorry, but with all of the parasites roming around out there you simply can NOT do better. You might get to keep more of each dollar you get, but you'll never enough dollars to make up the difference.
The benefits of a common, SECURE store and payment system can not be overstated.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Not only is the iPhone a status symbol, it's an incredibly useful device. I've had several other smart phones and I never used half the features that were in them because either it cost me a dime very time I did or it was simply too difficult to use.
The people I see here complaining about it being closed and how evil Apple is for not making it open source still don't get it. Apple controls the hardware, the software and the channels in which it is sold. This is a good thing for quality control, price control and their margins. Apple makes money, tons of money and they aren't going to start changing a successful strategy.
Grow up people, Apple is a mature company with a good thing going, they aren't here for your amusement. You don't have a right to everything for free. And you certainly don't have the business acumen to do it yourself or you wouldn't be here complaining about the evils of Apple, Microsoft, pick the evil closed company of the week etc. you'd be out making your own fortune.
Open source business plans to date have been a resounding failure with one or two exceptions. Don't believe me, look it up.
Why bother
Are you trying to say that Apple invented / developed BSD ? And gcc ??? And apache ???? Next you will be claiming that Apple invented unix (some of your guys' commercials already sound that way).
Don't know which brand of koolaid you are drinking, but try googling sometime.
Aw, come on. Most consumers are idiots. The Black Friday death surely shows so. That you believe you bought the iPhone for an actual reason doesn't mean Joe Average did so.
They didn't invent it, but after some "gentle nudging", they HAVE given back to the various projects.
A loser for being in Wahoo's or for blogging from there? I ask because I've done one of those things.
"Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years."
So, they'll have $50B dollars in cash and a near total monopoly? Yah, they'd hate that :)
I'm being facetious, but... I think Apple will do the right thing eventually... after making a lot of money from the iPhone.
- Pat
develop for something else. No-one is holding a gun at your head and forcing people to develop for iPhone. If iPhone survives for 8 years then Apple would be rapt. Develop for ANDROID, make a difference.
Don't you Apple Haters feel even a tiny bit of embarassmant for making yurself look totally incapible of even the simplest Google search? I guess not, you're too focused on your Hate.
It's funny, you sound like those Republicans who are so blinded by party loyalty that they ascribe all opposition to "Bush Derangement Syndrome". There can't possibly be any reasonable objection to this president's actions or policies, they think, so anyone who disagrees must just be an irrational emotion-driven Hater.
It's a shame you have so little respect for everyone who disagrees with you. You might learn something if you gave their positions a little honest thought.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
So, if Apple has more money in the bank than Microsoft and has more money in the bank than Dell's market cap, exactly why should Apple change its strategy to be more like Dell?
This is my sig.
and wtf is with the "lenovo compatible" bullshit?
In 1985, Columbia Data and Compaq introduced "IBM-compatible" personal computers based on a clean-room replacement for IBM PC BIOS. In 1995, "Wintel" became more popular than "IBM-compatible", but the latter was occasionally used for commodity x86 architecture personal computers until 2005, when Lenovo bought IBM's PC division.
More to the point, if they don't open-source the phone, they'll keep the iPhone in the same ghetto Macs have always occupied. We will never know what would have happened in the platform wars if Apple had allowed the Mac clones to continue. (they would have had to find a way to survive somehow once the clone companies started making better Macs than Apple did; Jobs' first decision when he came back was to kill the clone licenses.) This has kept Mac below or around 5% ever since.
You hang around, though, with people who don't slap you for thinking saying something is "epic fail" is somehow cool. I'm not sure their taste counts for much.
And there I was thinking its just an expression.
I "picked it up" hanging around Slashdot.
Amusingly, that makes you one of the people you refer to, and I am suitably impressed by your taste.
So, would you prefer
1. Unmitigated disaster.
2. Bloated DRM riddled piece of shit.
3. Pile of slow inefficient rubbish that no one wants.
When the range of people I know that want to be rid of Vista goes from teenagers to middle aged housewives to the elderly, I think that is a fair spread.
In between posts another person came in to my office begging to be freed of Vista.
Still, I guess Vista fanboys( I still dont believe anyone is THAT stupid, but there you are) dont care about facts.
Hear, hear! The crucial flaw in TFA is that "tech customers" who mod phones, care about Linux, read /. etc. are 5-10% at best; others just want a usable product. At present and in the near future, Apple's is more usable.
Frankly, the template "$COMPANY must open-source their $PRODUCT now, before they lose the $INDUSTRY dominance to $BUDDING_OPENSOURCE_ALTERNATIVE and go out of business" is overused far too often.
...to be in the same position that Microsoft are today. So I assume the article must be arguing for Apple to keep the iPhone closed? (No I didn't bother rtfa, the summary made it sound crap and this is slashdot).
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Apple should just grow some balls and release macOS for PC. In this anti vista/MS climate they could take some serious market share. We are all dying for something better than windows...but we are never going to pay through the nose for over priced apple hardware. screw the Icrap...I say hello and goodbye on my phone...I can wait till I get home to receive an email and Ill play real video games when i get home too
The only thing I think apple should change is to open up the dev-plattform to windows/linux users.
They could tap into the already strong (often) windows/linux based "open" dev community.
That would boost the number of apps far higher.
They have 10k+ apps from mac developers alone, and that is only a small part of the active dev community (...are there any hard numbers on how developers split between the systems? I assume here that there are many more non mac-developers available).
see title
But Apple is a hardware-company. They make their income by selling physical products.
If they open-sourced their phone-os, or opened their phone-hardware to let people run whatever they wanted on it, they'd still make the same amount of income per phone sold.
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
And Nick Nerderton's app will probably be kludgy and a pain to use like most FOSS software made by basement coders who can hack the numbers but can't actually design a good UI to save their lives.
If you mean this patent then don't worry too much. Apple didn't invent multi-touch (these guys did), nor did they patent the way it's currently used. They patented extensions, such as performing cut and paste with gestures. Why the G1 has no multi-touch is a mystery to me.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
Are you trying to say that Apple invented / developed BSD ? And gcc
Good lord, just like an Apple hater to be unable to comprehend such an easy concept - that the supposedly "Open Source Unfriendly" Apple both makes heavy use of, and is also a heavy contributor to, open source projects.
Apple invented none of those things, but the fact they use them all (and many more) shows up the "Apple hates open source" meme some try to spread as the absurd lie that it is.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
What about other great projects microsoft is working on?
.. have --xxx parameters, nettools have ADD xxx parameters). The X11 and it's derivates suck ass. The numerous gui libraries (gtk, qt, ...) cause confusion and unpleasant user experience. - and this is where Microsoft and even more Apple are winning. They have STANDARDS, Linux has none.
Visual studio is THE best IDE out there. With 10th version they are just widening the gap between next best IDE.
Velocity? Singularity? Asp.NET MVC?
Vista might be crap, but windows 2008 fucking rocks. And dont't forget that windows 7 is coming out next year.
Linux desktop? Come-on, get real. Linux has good kernel, but the GUI sucked from the start. Be it console or graphical GUI. There are no standards, every CLI program has different style of parameters (ls, df,
And Linux desktop is getting worse and worse by the year, not better. Script kiddies are hacking the hacks, adding more and more unconsistency, because they do not (nor are they willing to try to) understand the common computer user.
The only salvation for linux desktop is to lose the X, create totally new GUI framework. Slick, fast and intuitive design with SINGLE API for developers and with strict conventions about design for application developers.
It's funny
What's really funny is that you didn't address a single point I made - like most of your ilk you just try to cover up what truth I offer with a lot of noise in an effort to drive something you are not willing to recognize as true, out of your realm of perception.
Enjoy the sand, it must be an especially fine grit this week for you to poke your head so far down!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Without open source, Apple will find itself in the same position as today's Microsoft in seven years.
Indeed, in the same way it is suffering by not open sourcing OSX.
The vast majority of people don't even know what open source is, let alone care that the software on their phone is open source. If you think this is going to be a factor for the average person when buying their phone you need to spend some time outside /. and speak to some real people.
Orlando.
-= This is a self-referential sig =-
like most of your ilk you just try to cover up what truth I offer with a lot of noise in an effort to drive something you are not willing to recognize as true, out of your realm of perception.
There it is again. Thanks for proving my point. :)
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Are you underestimating the power of the Google?
And I care about being able to only have one device instead of 3.
That happens when it costs three times as much...
I think all apple really needs to do is listen to the people
But they are! I mean... Steve Jobs *IS* people, right?
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
The reason the iPhone is so good is that it is well designed. The hardware is nice. But, the reason to go open-source would be to fix the /software/. The iPhone OS is horrible, crashing my apps every five seconds and being amazingly slow at even starting the Settings app. :D iPhoneLinux ftw.
No, of course Apple wont Open Source the iPhone. They're a big company run by a lot of people, not all of whom might be that bright. And in any case they each have to defend their ideas in front of other people, who in turn might not be that bright. And really, there's still too much attachment to old ways of doing things, even in an industry like IT, to really get that many heads around the FOSS ways of doing things yet. As many comments on this thread (even on Slashdot!) prove.
But don't be disheartened. Unless the laws of logic and economics are permanently suspended somehow, eventually Apple will be Open Sourcing everything. As will everybody else.
Actually, it's believed that the G1 and Android actually are capable of multi-touch, and it's demonstrated in the video found here. This site raises the exact same question you did, and my uneducated guess is that this is just a development issue that will be resolved in a future Android update.
I can live without it for now. At my age, I'm lucky I can touch anything with one finger, let along two.
I'm very happy with my G1 and expect interesting things to develop for it over the next year.
Joe Dougherty, Florida, USA
The words I thought I brought, I left behind. So, never mind.
No, but Soylent Green is.
The moment Apple released their SDK, they included a high-quality, ultra-point-and-click user interface builder for their phone that is a joy to use (the iPhone additions to Interface Builder).
If I'm not mistaken, when Google released their SDK, their approach was "write your user interface in code", and their community has had to rely on some party external to google to create some 3rd party kludge called DroidDraw that still can't even begin to hold a candle to Interface Builder's iPhone functionality (where are Google's billions of dollars going these days?)
To a developer who wants to get work done as elegantly and easily as possible, it's pretty darned easy to see which company has really truly invested in letting developers create rich applications and which company is going to get their butts kicked in the applications arena.
You would destroy one of the greatest advantages of OSS, namely NOT being dictated what you put on your computer, but rather full customization as you wish.
Give the "I don't know how to use a computer"-people all the shiney dumbed-down wizards they need, install 10 helpful browser toolbars in their ... secure ... IE and while your at it maybe some more ad- and spyware.
No thanks, I'll stick around with FOSS the way it is RIGHT NOW.
The awesome thing is that Apple's one phone is going to sell more than all the Android phones combined.
Even if that were true, all it means is that one niche phone manufacturer manages to sell more phones with its entire product range, compared with Android phones. Big deal - some manufacturer's have sold more of just a single product in their range, than Apple's entire product phone range. (I'm not sure what you mean by "Apple's one phone", as if somehow they deserve better treatment in the statistics because they only offer one option - if we compare entire companies, the difference is even more significant compared with the major players.)
And if you're right that no one cares about open source, then why do we even have this story? "Should one random mobile phone company do something to their phone that no one cares about?" - if that's what the story is, it doesn't look very newsworthy...
Already a couple of million! Wow, they've got the phone market cornered!
I was wondering how Android would fare in a market with billions of products, but now I guess they've got no chance.
What in Apple's history suggests that they could possibly go open source. They don't even have an unrestricted app store. Steve Jobs seems unwilling or unable to go open source, and I think that that is the right choice for him. It is the job of the existing software companies to be supplemented by free, open source OSs, like Android. Major software companies that are already established won't go open source, because that won't impact the average customer. Most of those who buy an iPhone want an all inclusive phone, not to mod it, but to make calls on it. This would be a bad move for Apple, but would probably pursuade me to buy an iPhone
I'd argue that Windows never 'marginalised' the Mac - ever. The Mac boomed into a massively used computer in it's niche markets (the creative industries) and has never been usurped in those industries by Windows - if anything Windows is hugley marginalised in that market sector. The fact that Windows grew into a more widely distributed operating system than MacOS overall doesn't mean the Mac was ever marginalised, it merely didn't expand into other markets with as much vigour (mainly down to accountants looking at the massive initial purchase costs of Macs back in the day and deciding instead to buy a load of cheap PC's running Windows).
Why should Apple do such a silly thing? iPhone users like myself want a system that actually WORKS and does not crash. We don't want some home brew hobbyist platform - we want a CLOSED SOURCE phone that's tightly controlled. Open source is NOT a good thing when it comes to high end customer oriented products.
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
There it is again. Thanks for proving my point. :)
Right back at you, since you didn't even address followup points I made much less the original ones which you never even explored. You seem to be incapible of doing anything other than playing Ad Hominem, and that not very well.
I'm afraid I lack your special kind of "logic", where I am in the wrong for posting facts, and the original poster is in the right for posting incorrect facts.
I'll let you have the last response since your kind (both on the right and left) must have the last word - it's pathological. Afraid I'll not be reading it though, as you've shown there is no value in reading anything you write since by definition it is off-topic.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You seem to be incapible of doing anything other than playing Ad Hominem
That's hilarious coming from a guy who deems everyone who disagrees with him an "Apple Hater".
This is a classic instance of projection, where you accuse others of doing what you do yourself. It'd be sad if it weren't so ineptly done: it's as if you don't realize that your ad hominems are preserved here for everyone to see. For deception like this to succeed, you need to do it in a less permanent forum.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Would you like to wager on the iPhone vs. "all android phones combined" sales volume?
Remember too that Apple really misfired in the OS wars because OS 7x were of a conceptually similar design to Windows 3.1. There wasn't genuine pre-emptive multitasking, real protected memory, and so forth. Apple read Windows 95 as a graphics threat and responded to with an abortive Copland project, but what really hurt Apple was Windows NT 4.0, which put the 95 shell onto a fairly solid Windows NT kernel. The low point for Apple Operating systems came when the then CEO of Apple was publicly ridiculed at a developer's conference for noting that while Copland did not have pre-emption or true task isolation, they would just "add that in"... Copland never saw the light of day.
For all of his faults as a "user" person and a techno-illiterate, Jobs actually saw that the lack of a superior techie underpinning hurt Apple's image as a techy leader. SO, as soon as he was back in the driver's seat at Apple, he went topshelf, bought Next, put MacOS on top of a Unix, and thus was born OS/X.
Fortunately for Apple, this worked out pretty well, for two reasons. For one, the emergence of Linux breathed a lot of a new life into Unix and suddenly what Microsoft argued was a dying platform became very much alive. Secondly, Jobs always executes whatever he does very well, and, while he couldn't compete with Windows on -every- feature, he could certainly get a shell with plenty of polish.
From there, it was onto some gimmicky cases for Mac, and that's when Apple really started to roll. But the thing that really got moving was the applications that came with Mac. There was always Adobe, of course, as the ruling third party, but MS came up with a decent Office port. This time, Apple went out and came up with a pretty novel suite of home products, and, some interesting professional graphics products as well. But of that home suite, there was this vision of the Mac as a center of a service. Sure, iTunes is very famous, but how many Mac owners actually used that iBook application to actually make a photo scrapbook, spend the bucks and have Apple dropship a hardbound book to whoever you want it. That was also pretty darned cool.
I wish I would have bought their stock back then.
This is my sig.
I'm fully aware that the iPhone doesn't have 100% of the cellphone market. But you can't argue that the iPhone is not more popular than the Android.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
I'm fully aware that the iPhone doesn't have 100% of the cellphone market.
That's an understatement.
But you can't argue that the iPhone is not more popular than the Android.
Where did I say that?
As I already pointed out in another reply to you, there are more phones than just the Iphone, and Android phones.
Let me say it again: in a market with billions of products - do you think I am making that up, or do you seriously think that they are all Iphones?
Is the best that can be said of the Iphone that it's more popular than an only just released phone? I thought it was bad that Apple fans seemed to think that the Iphone is the only phone in existence, but now they acknowledge one other niche platform, so they can say "Look, it's more popular than that, look how great it is!" It's like OS/2 or classic Mac fans saying how they're at least still more popular than BeOS.
microsoft had that kind of money too... "all the money in the world"... and we got Vista!