Why is The iPhone Locked Up?
Apple is releasing it’s new iPhone on June 29 at 6:00 p.m. In case you haven’t seen it, it’s really pretty neat. What is it?
Take a video iPod with a good widescreen and put the Mac operating system on it, then give it connectivity which means internet and phone access.
Apple then put a motion sensor in iPhone, so it will orient itself depending on which way the iPhone is being held (up and down or longways).
They also put a lot of time and effort into the interface, so that when you’re browsing the internet, you can expand and collapse information by touching the screen and pulling your fingers apart or pushing them together. Pretty neat stuff. All in all, a very impressive package. The one thing I like is the effort put into the interface and to actually make the gadget useable. But……there’s a very strong but. They locked it up and made it proprietary.
- Will Only Run on One Network – Apple cut a deal with AT&T / Cingular and if you want an iPhone, you’re going to have to switch to Cingular. What about the other phone companies? Well, you’re out of luck. The official reason for this is technology. But that’s bull, they could have done a phased rollout of the major carriers and let the other carriers handle it a few months behind Cingular.
- No Replaceable Battery – Like an iPod, the battery is sealed inside the device. You can’t buy an extra battery for when you’re travelling and if it goes bad, you can’t replace it. You’ll have to take it to a service center. Of course, in a year when the battery goes bad or becomes very short lived, rather than get a new battery, Apple is hoping people get the latest and greatest iPhone.
- No Upgradeable Memory – You can get a 4gb or an 8gb model and that’s it. There’s no SD card slot to upgrade or improve the memory. The tv commercials show a crystal clear movie running on the iPhone. This also shows a planned obsolesence / forced (or at least pushy) upgrade plan by Applea.
- No Third Party Software – This one flabbergasts me. Apple has the iPhone locked up so that noone other than Apple can write software for it. Yesterday at WWDC, the Apple developer conference, Steve Jobs said that others will be able to write for the iPhone using Web 2.0 applications. That’s an impressive piece of doublespeak. Let me translate that for those who aren’t techminded “Programmers can write programs on the internet. The iPhone accesses the internet. Programmers can’t write programs on the iPhone. Only Apple can do that. If you want to use an ‘iPhone’ program that is on the internet, your iPhone will have to be connected to the internet the entire time you use the program, because the program can’t be downloaded to your iPhone’. Wow. Just wow. Officially the reason given was security reasons, but please.
So we have a very cool and innovative product, with limited memory, running only on a single network with a limited life battery that can only be changed out by a service center that is locked down so that noone else can write software for it.
Will I get one? I don’t know. It’s a hard call to make. They did so many things right, but then worked hard to really sock it to the customer. On one hand I find that reprehensible and a slap in the face to the customer. On the other hand, the digital rights management hasn’t hurt them with iTunes and the iPod. I think that is because they made it so easy to use, that people don’t worry about the problems with DRM. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Some fair critical analysis of the iPhone, but I believe there will be support for 3rd party apps.
Will,
Hopefully they will support third party applications in the future. Right now, they are saying no can do.
Of course, they're wrapping it in language saying that third party developers are allowed to write through Safari. That's somewhat similar to saying something like Writely (now Google Docs) runs on your computer.
It doesn't. It's a web app. And that's what Apple is *saying* that third party developers can run, web apps. It's 100% not the same thing.
Yahoo Mail isn't a program on your computer. It's on the internet.
That doesn't mean that third parties won't be able to do *anything*, but you'll have to be connected and on the internet to access them at all.
However, just because that's the way that Apple is starting, doesn't mean it will play out that way.
It will be interesting to see what actually goes down because the iPhone seems to be a helluva product, I just don't like some of the business decisions that went along with all the cool technology decisions.
Dave
If replacing the battery in the iPhone is anything like doing it in the ipod, i am not worried when there are a ton of ipod battery companies out there (e.g. ipodjuice.com) that make it relatively easy to do. The only thing is that many people can't go for more than one or two days without their phone.
