Slashdot Mirror
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)
"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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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
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."
[citation needed]
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.
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.
Yes. They should also make it 100% based on Java.
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
"underpowered"
CPU or battery?
"late-featured"
What features is it missing?
"UI-focused"
Uh.. that's a bad thing? for a smartphone?
What are you comparing it to, anyway? In he US market there's what, like three phones with multitouch interfaces?
And those who do learn from history go mad while watching the same shit happen over and over again.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
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.
Which is what Apple fans need to REALLY worry about, the "cult of Steve" that has been built up around Steve Jobs. So many of the consumers, media, bloggers and day traders have so built up the "cult of Steve" bit that if Steve Jobs gets hit by a truck tomorrow and dies their stock dies with him. Just look at how the stock dove when the "Steve is dying" rumor hit a few months back? If I was on the board at Apple I would be pushing Steve to make sure his #2 man was very visible and making as much noise in the press as possible to negate the "cult of Steve" effect. Otherwise when Steve buys the farm they better damned well hope they can bring back the Woz just to keep the mythology going.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Plus you'll probably want an iPhone, which is not cheap.
But compare that to other perfectly successful mobile platforms like Windows Mobile, which requires that you buy a Lenovo-compatible PC, MS Windows, and MS Visual Studio. Even assuming you get a cheap CPU bundled with Windows it wouldn't be hard to get to $700. Plus the phone of course. And for Windows Mobile code signing is $300+ per app.
I'm not saying cheaper wouldn't be better, but people are already making good money selling apps that are way more expensive to develop.
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.
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.
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
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 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.
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
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
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.