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

[Dave A]

Free Rider yes. What is passed off as 'Technology News' is Apple-packed 
propaganda.
Radio, TV, Internet, and Verizon/Droid News Widget giving my 40% Apple 
stories
every day. Free advertising. Nonsense I say.

Dave A

cbullard at hiwaay.net wrote:
>
> 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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