Why iPhone is an ureliable platformSaturday, September 13, 2008 by Dave Winer. I wouldn't invest in or develop an iPhone app because Apple could decide not to approve it, and if they don't approve it you can't sell it. You can't even give it away. You don't find out if you've been approved until the last step, after you've fully invested, so you could lose, totally, if Apple says no. At first this might have seemed ridiculous if you didn't know Apple, you might assume they'd only keep out apps that somehow damaged the iPhone, but it hasn't turned out that way. Yesterday it came out that they rejected an app called Podcaster because it competed with iTunes, an Apple product. Maybe it was better than iTunes in some way, or simpler, more focused, had features iTunes didn't have? It doesn't matter, it illustrates exactly why Apple shouldn't assume this power, or if they insisit on it, you'd have to be crazy to develop iPhone apps. Consider this possibility. Next year Apple announces an app that does what your previously authorized iPhone app does. You have competition, so another competitor, even if it is the platform vendor, isn't that big a deal, right? Well what if they de-authorize your app because it duplicates functionality of theirs? Think you could live with that?
Thirteen years ago I wrote a piece entitled What is a Platform? Perhaps it should be amended to say that if you need the approval of the platform vendor to ship an app, then it isn't a platform. It's an integrity thing. The idea that it's a platform should mean no individual or company has the power to turn you off. In the same timeframe I marveled at how the Internet is the platform without a platform vendor. That's the most powerful kind of platform there is because it is the least regulated. |
"The protoblogger." - NY Times.
"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.
One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web. "Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.
"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.
"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.
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