Really enjoying reading this article from Matt Gemmell. I especially love this bit:
Closed system. This is the very opposite of what your customers care about. The percentage of your customer base who make a buying decision based on the openness of a system (in terms of system-level customisation options, use of open source software or otherwise) is vanishingly tiny. They’re very vocal, certainly, but commercially they’re irrelevant. Pandering to this segment will most certainly damage your penetration into the market. Be extremely wary about sacrificing large-scale appeal for the sake of a tiny but noisy technical minority. The tablet space is in no way designed for or aimed at such users.
Italic bolding is mine. It’s so very true – anyone else seen “open” handsets doing well? Android is starting to get there, but it’ll never be open enough for some. Nokia has opened up a little, same with some of the others. But in general: most users don’t give a shit. Make it work. Give me a phone that rings and lasts 5 days. KTNXBAI.
There is that … but (and this is written from the perspective of an Apple developer so as “pro closed” as you can really get) the closed/open debate can impact on functionality. For instance: can you use a bluetooth phone (that’s still in your pocket) as the data connection for an iPad? Now, to be honest the answer is “I don’t know” but it sure as hell would be nice and is something that *could* be provided by a third party if the iPad/iPhone platform were open … but it isn’t.
There are also significant questions around Apple allowing applications that are technically feasible onto the platform for political reasons. Witness the grief ebook readers on the iPhone had approaching the launch of the iPad and the ongoing “we hate Adobe” thing.
tl;dr – open can be a good thing
I think the bluetooth argument is kind of void, tho I get your point. I guess apple’s view is that if they didn’t design it in, there is a reason for that. If you want all other other bells and whistles, go and get another product, which will (most likely) not be as integrated as the iPad or iPhone is.
For example, the kindel is totally closed, but no one is screaming that it should be opened up or that it’s a crime that you can’t do something random with it.
The iPad will either work, like the iPhone did , or fail to get traction, like the Apple TV – but so wille everyone else’s – the thing is, “everyone else” has never had a out-of-the-park hit like the iphone/ipod is…. they have been good, but not complete…