Apple ’s iPhone OS debut on Thursday was not the variety of Apple Event where the company shows off a brand - novel intersection , exclaim how it ’s the good product the party has ever made , and delay for the oohs and ahs of the receive guest .
Yes , iPhone O 4.0 was the reason Apple invited the bunch to the company ’s Cupertino campus , and that raw version of the operating scheme that runs the iPhone , iPod touch modality , and iPad has some hopeful new feature . ButThursday ’s eventwas a bit less about shiny - intersection Apple and a chip more about strategical technology company Apple .
Combating Android
Apple caught everyone in the smartphone industry directly - footed back in 2007 with the original iPhone . But the iPhone has erupt serious contest in the industriousness , with Google ’s Android operating system of rules fueling a lot of instauration . Android market percentage is accelerating and Apple has train lumps for not offering some of the features provide by Google ’s open - source operating system for smart telephone .
The biggest knock on the iPhone from the Android camp has been multitasking : Android does it , and the iPhone does n’t . There ’s a legitimate tilt to be made that the average earphone consumer does n’t care about a construct as expert as multitasking . But that same average consumer cares quite a chip about the inability for the euphony from the iPhone ’s Pandora app to keep play when they exchange to Safari or Mail .
As much as I roll my eyes at the content of Motorola ’s “ Droid Does ” fight for the Droid smartphone , the core message of that campaign is that the iPhone has limits and the Droid has none . ( I ’d indicate that the Droid ’s industrial intent and the usability of Android are limit , but hey , there ’s a rationality I ’m not in the advertising stage business . )
So here arrive iPhone O 4.0 , with features that are targeted at blunt some of Android ’s perceived advantages , foreman among them multitasking . On Thursday Apple was able to fetch the CEO of Pandora out on stage , to drop some earnestly staggering data point about the iPhone ’s popularity—25 percent of all Pandora ’s listening time occur from the iPhone — and then show off a new version of the Pandora app ladder under iPhone OS 4 , happily playing music even while he flip-flop to other apps . Toss in a sojourn from Skype to trumpet the iPhone ’s newfound power to pass its interpreter - over - IP program in the ground and it ’s clear that Apple has smacked down one of Android ’s vantage .
( And yes , techie types can argue about whetherthe seven multitasking genus Apis stick out by iPhone OS 4.0will truly make the iPhone ’s multitasking ranking to the system used by Android . But will steady consumer deal ? I kind of doubt it . Pandora will make for in the background on the iPhone lead off this summer . Simple , clear , and a positive subject matter for Apple . )
App Store arbiter
Of course , one area on which Apple gets beaten up on a unconstipated basis is the App Store . The App Store is an asset for Apple , perhaps its strongest plus . But many critic deride Apple ’s policies about what apps it allows in to the memory board .
This could all be defused , of course , if Apple were to allow what Google does with Android — namely , a organization predilection buried a few menu down that allows user to install third - political party apps that do n’t come through Android Market , the Google equivalent of the App Store .
In the Q&A session following Thursday ’s upshot , Ryan Block fromGDGTasked Steve Jobs about this very return : Why not let people who really want to add third - party apps do so ? Most consumer would never use the feature , and it would extinguish most criticism of the App Store commendation process .
Book of Job ’ result was interesting , in that he did n’t offer the possibleness that things would change in the future tense . He essentially said that there ’s a porn app stock for Android and that Apple does n’t want that on the iPhone , so “ we do n’t need to go there . ”
Perhaps this think of he does n’t think App Store gatekeeping is really a big progeny . I think it ’s more potential , though , that Apple would rather be see as a arduous - handed arbitrator of app approvals than be seen as the purveyor of a product that runs high-risk stuff . If the App Store is Apple ’s biggest asset , and Apple ’s products are increasingly appreciated in the context of how they run apps , then losing command of the App Store would be tantamount to losing control of the integral iPhone OS platform .
If you have n’t detect , Apple is not a caller that is willing to lose even a diminutive act of control over its products . ( It ’s what exasperate many of the fellowship ’s critic , but it ’s also what makes Apple and its products what they are . You ca n’t have one without the other . )
Blocking out Adobe
Apple ’s concern about lose mastery over its chopine nurture its caput in another , related to area on Thursday : its rescript of the iPhone Software Developer Kit guidelines to cast out all applications develop using system of rules not approved by Apple .
This move has broadly speaking been report as a poke in the eye of Adobe , which has announced that one feature of its CS5 retinue of products will include the ability for Flash developer to compile iPhone version of their Flash apps .
And yeah , it is that . Apple ’s distaste for Flash is genuine , and as Jobs reiterated Thursday via a one - word result to a motion on the issue , Apple has “ no ” architectural plan to allow it on the iPhone .
Apple does n’t want Flash - created apps on the App Store for a simple reasonableness : It melt off the iPhone to a last - common denominator political platform , and at that point Apple lose all command over the iPhone OS experience .
Once developers can make an app in one evolution environment — Adobe’s — and compile it to run on every smartphone known to humankind , many developers will decide to deliver themselves a shipload of money and stop build up native apps for the iPhone , Android , and other program . They ’ll just germinate once , for Flash , and let it move anywhere .
Sounds good , but the break - once - lam - anywhere philosophy is something that realize more sense to bean counter and growth - surround seller than it does to platform owner and discriminating user . In the ’ XC we were secern that Java apps would be the future of software system , because you could write them once and deploy them anywhere . As someone who used to apply a Java - based Mac app on an almost daily fundament , permit me tell you : it was a disaster . Java apps did n’t comport like Mac apps . They were unworthy and awful and weird , but hey , at least they run on the Mac .
It ’s the same means I feel about Adobe ’s AIR environment today . It ’s a Flash and/or HTML - found organisation that lets developers write cross - platform desktop apps . A good lesson of an Adobe AIR app is TweetDeck . A luck of the great unwashed like TweetDeck for Mac , and bless ’em . I can only adopt they like it because they like its lineament Seth . It ’s a horrifying Mac app , though . It ’s got no card bar to talk of , a strange and circumscribed preferences window , weird scroll bar … the list goes on . It feels , in brusque , like a Web app that ’s been butterfly into a window so that it can pretend to be a native Mac app . And — spoiler alert — that ’s because it is .
Apple does n’t need apps that don’tfeel like native iPhone appson the iPhone . It does n’t require Adobe to help developer in creating a world where App X for iPhone and App X for Android are undistinguishable from one another . Apple does n’t want to introduce new iPhone feature film and then catch as nobody convey advantage of them because Adobe has n’t update its development organisation yet . Or , worse , watches as Adobe resist to adopt them because the other operating systems do n’t support those lineament .
If iPhone apps are one of Apple ’s swell asset , a lowest - vulgar - demoninator app world is Apple ’s peachy nightmare . Apple wants the iPhone app experience to be created using Apple ’s native tools by developer who are engage with the program and falling over themselves to support Apple ’s latest features . These are the developer who were downloading and installing iPhone atomic number 76 4.0 on Thursday and rivet over the documentation , stick quick to dig in and start update their apps for this summertime ’s exit .
I understand the fury at Adobe over Apple ’s moves against Flash development on the iPhone . ( And I ’m sad that this particularly place spat may have incalculable fall - out on the rest of the Adobe - Apple relationship , which will potentially impact both companies ’ customers down the route . )
It ’s go a bit of the feeling ofLucy rive the football game away from Charlie Brown , but with one key difference : in this scenario , Lucy never asked Charlie Brown to kick that football . Charlie Brown saw a bunch of other kids kicking the football game and thought he could run up and kick back it too .
Is it imply for Lucy to jerk the football away from ol’ Chuck at the last arcminute ? Yeah , absolutely . But it ’s Lucy ’s football .
Search? That’s so ’00s.
Another bomb lobbed by Steve Jobs on Thursday was point flop at Google , and not at its Android appendage , but right at its core : hunting and hunting - based textbook advertising .
Here ’s what Jobs said :
On the screen background , hunting is where it ’s at . That ’s where the money is . But on a wandering gadget , hunting has n’t chance . Search is not where it ’s at . People are n’t searching on a fluid gimmick like they do on the desktop . What ’s materialise is , they ’re spending all their metre in apps . And this is where the opportunity to deliver advertising is . Not as part of search , but as part of apps .
It was risible sitting in Apple ’s demonstration theater listening to Jobs address enthusiastically about iAd . ( And make no misunderstanding , this was not Jobs break through the question — he seemed legitimately aroused about the potential drop of iAd . ) Because , let ’s confront it — it ’s hard for most consumers to get excited about young tools to bring us more commercials .
The head Jobs was draw was that advertising does n’t have to suck . And , by extension , he was saying that Google ’s approaching to advertising does . Now , I ’m passably sure that low - common - demoninator text ads will always be with us , but I agree with Jobs that there ’s got to be a place for something richer , too . Especially for big companies ( with massive advertizement budgets ) like the ones Apple used as example of iAd .
Hysterical complaints about an ad - filled app apocalypseaside ( raft of apps already have ads , give thanks you very much — and it ’s the error of every one of you who see a $ 3 app on the App Store and complain that it ’s way too rich for your origin ) , what Apple ’s trying to do is expend the emergence of the App Store and the business leader of smartphone apps to rewrite the mobile advertising playbook the same way Google changed how advertising on the Web works .
Yeah , in the oddment it might mean we end up with more ad in apps . But if the ads are good , and they ’re easily dismissable , maybe that ’s not the uncollectible affair in the man .
Apple versus the world
All in all , Thursday ’s Apple upshot was a bit huffy . And the company has certainly been taking its lumps for it . I ’ve seen plenty oftongue - cluckingandself - serve hysteriafrom citizenry who say they are now disillusioned with Apple ’s behavior in these matter .
secondly , Apple is neither a charity nor a public utility . It ’s a gain - making corporation with a whole lot of shareholders and gazillion of dollars in the bank . Apple exists to make money . Yes , under the counseling of Steve Jobs , its missionary post is to transfer the world by making groundbreaking and exquisitely designed technology product — but that mission ultimately serves the function of making money .
I believe that a lot of the critique of Apple ’s strategical moves comes out of the sheer attractive feature people experience toward Apple ’s products . People really , really desire to habituate them — and when that desire comes into conflict withpolitical agendasor desires or personal preference , the frustration generally gets lump back on Apple .
The reality is , not only can Apple not please everyone , it ’s notremotely interestedin please everyone . ( This is the same reason why Apple does n’t trade a $ 500 MacBook . It could make one , sure , and hatful of people have say they want one . But the fellowship does n’t think it ’s in its financial best interests to make such a product . )
When you ’re successful , your competitors take poster and they react . In the last few old age , Apple has been incredibly successful , and many other companies have noticed and reacted . As Thursday showed , Apple ’s management is being aggressive in making moves that they consider will place the caller at a competitive vantage . Whether or not they ’re the right-hand move remains to be seen , but I do n’t think why Apple is wee them is any sort of mystery .
