[X3D-Public] Everybody’s Business - How Apple Has Rethought a Gospel of the Web - NYTimes.com

[cbullard at hiwaay.net]

The politics of technology marketing are shaping themselves to the American
zeitgeist of increasing insularity and local control to enable tightly focused
expansion of market domination.  The closed garden is very familiar territory.

As long as the consumer can be distracted, something the West Coast  
marketing machines now excel at, yes, Apple can go on doing what they  
are doing with few consequences except other experienced competitors  
finding ways to use Apple's own contract language to keep them out of  
any open development initiatives.

Slow strangulation of Apple is becoming a possibility.  THAT won't be  
an open process.  Apple will react in their usual insular way:   
"what's ours is ours and what's left in the open is ours too".

Apple: The Ultimate Free Rider.

len

Quoting "Don Brutzman" <brutzman at nps.edu>:

> Interesting article regarding economic success on the Web
> via closed platforms.  Excerpts below.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/technology/internet/11every.htm
>
>> April 9, 2010
>> Rethinking a Gospel of the Web
>> By STEVEN JOHNSON
>>
>> FOR about a decade now, ever since it became clear that the jungle  
>> of the World Wide Web would triumph over the walled gardens of  
>> CompuServe, AOL and MSN, a general consensus has solidified among  
>> the otherwise fractious population of People Who Think Big Thoughts  
>> About the Internet.
>>
>> That unifying creed is this: Open platforms promote innovation and  
>> diversity more effectively than proprietary ones.
>> [...]
>> Over the last two years, however, that story has grown far more  
>> complicated, thanks to the runaway success of the iPhone (and now  
>> iPad) developers platform — known as the App Store to consumers.
>> [...]
>> Those of us who have championed open platforms cannot ignore these  
>> facts. It’s conceivable that, had Apple loosened the restrictions  
>> surrounding the App Store, the iPhone ecosystem would have been  
>> even more innovative, even more democratic. But I suspect that this  
>> view is too simplistic. The more complicated reality is that the  
>> closed architecture of the iPhone platform has contributed to its  
>> generativity in important ways.
>> [...]
>> None of which is to suggest that the iPhone/iPad ecosystem couldn’t  
>> benefit from
> a little more openness. Apple should stop blocking apps that compete  
> with the iPhone’s default apps — e-mail clients, for instance — as  
> this is the one area where innovation has truly suffered.
>>
>> Of course, innovation and democratization are not the only reasons  
>> to champion open platforms. Given the current size of the iPhone’s  
>> installed base, as well as the projections for the iPad’s adoption,  
>> it is troubling that one company can single-handedly veto any new  
>> application on a whim.
>> [...]
>> But whatever Apple chooses to do with its platform in the coming  
>> years, it has
> made one thing clear: sometimes, if you get the conditions right, a  
> walled garden can turn into a rain forest.
>>
>> Steven Johnson is an author and entrepreneur. His new book, “Where  
>> Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation,” will be  
>> published in October.
>
> Is everyone resigned to having to always pay for their 3D graphics,
> and always being vulnerable to losing everything if a company tanks
> or changes hands?
>
> all the best, Don
> -- 
> Don Brutzman  Naval Postgraduate School, Code USW/Br            
> brutzman at nps.edu
> Watkins 270   MOVES Institute, Monterey CA 93943-5000 USA  work  
> +1.831.656.2149
> X3D, virtual worlds, underwater robots, XMSF   
> http://web.nps.navy.mil/~brutzman
>
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