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Comment by martythemaniak | Hacker News Reader

Let's not kid ourselves - all the power Apple wrestled away from AT&T it kept for itself - the consumer didn't see much of a change, or saw a regression.

Prior to the iPhone, loading your own apps and changing settings on your smartphone was standard practice. What Apple did was bring the featurephone practice (jumping through somebody's beaurocracy to get to consumers) to the smartphone market. Suddenly, being in control of your own smartphone is an "openness feature".

Now, to loyal Apple fans, who love and trust Apple, this transfer of power/control from AT&T to Apple is the same as them (the Apple consumer) seeing benefits. To other people, it just means dealing with someone else, without any change in the fact that you still have to go through somebody.

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There's a huge difference between a phone maker having control and a network having control.

Consider: When Verizon doesn't allow mp3 ringtones ... well, you just don't get phones with mp3 ringtones on their network [1].

When Apple doesn't allow mp3 ringtones, Verizon is compelled to open the door to Android phones that happily allow mp3 ringtones so that they can compete.

The only reason Verizon and AT&T have rolled back any of their customary phone-crippling practices is because other phones must compete with the iPhone.

Consumers have 'won' to an astounding degree since the iPhone released. I don't know anyone who's purchased a phone in the last three years, that didn't wind up with a device head and shoulders more capable and well designed than what they had before.

Frankly, I can't think of anything remotely close to a 'regression' that actual consumers would have been forced to swallow post-iPhone.

[1] Yes, I completely discount the existence of unlocked unsubsidized phones on US networks prior to the iPhone. 1. they were horrible, 2. there was no break on service fee for having an unsubsidized phone, if not an outright charge for bringing your own unlocked phone, making the effective price wildly prohibitive.

I just dont get this line of reasoning, i had a mediocre Windows phone on Verizon, and i could do anything on it including mp3 ringtones. there was no restriction on any element, that was before the iPhone was around.

I dont really trust either the operator or the phone manufacturer to restrict my phone experience, why should the choice for the consumer be a lesser of two evils when the obvious solution is right there, that is, no lock to either (if the consumer so chooses), i dont see the difference between restrictions imposed on sideloading regardless of the source

Frankly i consider not being able to change the default OS keyboard (say use swype instead) or default music player, or be forced to use Itunes a regression. Not to mention i have to connect it to a computer (an Authorized one at that to update the iphone, again forced to use that awful piece of software forced on me by the manufacturer)

If we suppose that the competition with the Iphone creates a better ground for consumer freedom, then it would not suffer from new players, on the contrary, it might force the iphone to be more open as well.

> "Frankly i consider not being able to change the default OS keyboard (say use swype instead) or default music player, or be forced to use Itunes a regression."

But you have none of those limitations on an Android phone. So how has the market regressed? Many, many more people are enjoying device freedom well beyond what your windows CE phone enjoyed and you're calling that regression just because one vendor doesn't?

Has the market regressed if Windows Phone 7 ships without replaceable keyboards? Was it regression when the Pre shipped without that?

Is it a regression of Android if a single Android handset ships with unremoveable crapware?

Or is the state of the market still improving, because even gimped android devices are head-and-shoulders better than consumer phones three years ago, non-gimped Android device choices abound and a new MS Phone and Pre are around the corner?

I guess you could argue that it wasn't the iPhone that forced Verizon (and AT&T) to offer these newer, better handsets without locking them down as they often would with even Windows CE and Blackberry phones (consider the state of data plans in the pre-iphone world).

But to that I would simply direct you to the lag between the G1 and the Droid, the lack of a Nexus One on Verizon, the rate of handset innovation in the last three years compared to the previous 7 and to the timing of the 'open network' pledge vs the iPhone announcement.

Without the iPhone upending the Apple cart, would you get a Pre? Would Microsoft be pushing Windows Phone to consumers? Would the Blackberry have a decent browser? Would Verizon be advertising consumer phones that aren't locked to their app market, ringtone market, etc? I just don't see it.

I Should be clear, i am now using Android and I am very happy with it. the ability to sideload gave me Swype beta which is not afforded through the android market.

If the service provider chooses to block sideloading on android, then they diminish the quality of the device. if the device has disabled sideloading by design by Apple, then it is also diminished in quality, to claim that restrictions made by one are preferable to the other just doesn't make any sense to me.

Apple surely had a great effect on the quality of manufactured devices as well as the range of offering, but i doubt that they had much of an effect on the openness of said devices.

If i understand the article, then the gist of it is that the quality of Android is stymied by service providers, that is true, but it is also true that you can compare apples to apples here, that is, which network provides me the best android experience, and that is a competitive advantage, there is no such option for the Iphone.

Put simply, let the service provider who offers the best most open and reliable experience win. Somehow there is this idea gaining audience, that the Android's "openess" is actually detrimental to it advancement, i just dont see how that can be true on the long run.

Right now, because we are stuck with oligopoly of cellular providers, there is little choice, this will not change until more service providers enter this field.

The statement above "Apple is going to exert the power to control the carriers. Apple is about the only company that can, or will, exert this kind of power" is naive.

Apple has no such power, quite the contrary, it is locked to a single US service provider that doesn't give their clients the best quality of service, consumers that are on AT&T that dont have the iphone dont seem to flock en mass to get one, and consumers on other networks, dont seem to migrate en mass to AT&T just to get it, so the market for Iphone in the US is increasingly limited.

A game of chicken of sorts, we will see who blinks first. The service providers limit access to device hardware in their stores the same manner that apple limits access to software on its online store, it is the practice rather then the practitioner that is at fault here.

The iPhone didn't make competitors take the open route. But if not for the iPhone, Verizon certainly would never have considered allowing Android devices on their network, let alone subsidized and championed them.

The gist of the article is that all phones are stymied by service providers. Even Apple, for all the ground it's gained for its own interests, has been hamstrung by arbitrary carrier requirements and restrictions.

You may have faith in the market alone to deliver unencumbered Android devices. I do not. The short history we have to this point has shown the US duopoly interested in competing only on how much functionality each successive device can gate off.

The carriers have every financial incentive to carve out functionality and wall it off behind premium fees. They have an incredibly strong incentive to not allow themselves to become commoditized data pipes. And they have demonstrated repeated preference for sharing the market over 'playing to win' at a lower rate of profit.

If the US duopoly is willing to collude on gimped android[1], as all evidence has shown, there is no market threat in not shipping an unencumbered Android phone.

[1] it needn't be official collusion; merely a lack of strong competitive moves in an area, as long as the other holds the line. E.g. the situation with US plan pricing, data plan policy and pricing, tethering charges, texting rates, feature-phone features prior to 2007, etc.

Let's not forget; way back in 2007, Apple went to Verizon first, and Verizon passed on the iPhone. Verizon just wasn't willing to give up any control to Apple. Way back when, Verizon deliberately disabled the Bluetooth stack on their phones, so you had to use their fee-based service to do something like copy photos off your phone.

> There's a huge difference between a phone maker having control and a network having control.

There is, but it only distracts you from understanding that you should be the only one in control of your phone.

Understanding how things "should" be has nothing to do with being able to recognize improvements in the World That Is.

You can know that you should be able to load an arbitrary mp3 as a ringtone on an iPhone, and still prefer the current state of affairs to the state of things a mere three years ago. I do.

Should is a funny word. Just because our perception of fairness dictates that we should control our phones, its just not going to happen in the foreseeable future.

I'd say this particular should is more a question of enlightened self interest, rather than fairness.

It is in our long term interest to have as much control of our "digital assistants" (which includes both smartphones and personal computers) in order to ensure that they assist us, and not some other party.

And your network! Right?

Pfft. Smartphones used to be more open because they were the Lexus LSA that gets customers excited about buying their $20k Toyta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect#As_a_business_model). Anything was acceptable because they were not seen as a primary market to optimize.

Enter the iPhone, the first smartphone to achieve mass market. The iPhone requires a premium data plan. The iPhone requires an additional data plan to tether only on AT&T. AT&T may have gotten veto power over certain apps in the AppStore. They certainly had input on the maximum file limits over cellular. You see that Apple has considerable power, and that AT&T still has power, but what you don't see is that the consumer has more power in this equation than in the Android formula. Android users can't even install a vanilla OS or their own updates half of the time.

Overall the consumer may have less power than in previous smartphone systems, but to lament this is to assume that the carriers would allow a previous smartphone system to become as dominant as the iPhone without imposing restrictions similar to the state of Android.

Pretty sure that Blackberries were pretty popular before the iPhone.

Blackberries were corporate purchases with more restrictions than any iPhone. The parent was talking about consumer purchased smartphones like Windows Mobile or Symbian.

You touched on this in your last paragraph, but I think it still deserves saying: Apple wields a lot of the power it wrenched away from carriers to the benefit of it's consumers. I'm stoked that my iPhone doesn't com preloaded with crap ware and that my girlfriend's 3 year old device receives OS updates immediately once they are released to the public.

You've got to be kidding. The iPhone has attracted hoards of new consumers to Apple who were not previously "loyal Apple fans, who love[d] and trust[ed] Apple". Apparently many normal people feel that they saw a major change for the better after this power redistribution.

>Apparently many normal people feel that they saw a major change for the better after this power redistribution.

I would attribute the uptake of smartphones to the standard, endless evolution of technology. And while they fell behind, there is absolutely no doubt that Blackberry blazed the path after Windows Mobile faltered.

//the consumer didn't see much of a change, or saw a regression

The consumers did see a change. The phones beacame usable (pleasure to use) from being unusable (pain to use).

And model selection came down from dozens to two. You can have it in any color, as long as it's either black or white.

This is what we call political point-scoring. I am trying to get a point across on a particular subject (power/control) and you're trying to muddle up the conversation by talking about something else completely.

Prior to the iPhone, apps on an a phone were paying $3/month to a carrier for crappy junk. The phones were locked down. It was far from "standard practice" to load your own apps onto your own phone, and the apps you could choose to use were highly limited and far more controlled.

I think people forget that before the Apple AppStore there really were very few apps for phones.

You either didn't read my post or you're deliberately being obtuse to make your point - there was a huge difference between smartphones and featurephones.

What you're describe is the featurephone app model, which Apple made more user and developer friendly and brought to the smartphone arena.

I used to have a blackberry (and yes, I had both apps and games on it) and when I bought the original iPhone, I had to jailbreak it in order to be able to do the same things I could do before. That's a regression.

I think you're confusing smartphones and feature phones. You're right that the experience of apps on feature phones was lackluster (it still is actually). The iPhone helped catapult smartphones into the mainstream, but there wasn't a lack of smartphone software before the iPhone. Palm, Symbian and Windows Mobile (and BlackBerry to a lesser degree) all had a wide array of apps available before the iPhone was ever announced.

It's pretty clear to most people that the smartphone app market that exists today is qualitatively different than the one that existed before the App Store. I think that's the point the parent was trying to make.

Definitely. The emphasis now is to get your potential users to spend 99c as many times as possible (with "do one thing" and shiny graphics; see "fart apps"). Previously, everything was either free, or something you found for $20 at some commercial vendor's website.

I think people forget that before the Apple AppStore there really were very few apps for phones.

really? i've owned a palm treo and nokia e71 that both had hundreds of applications available that i could just download and install right from the device's web browser. no market, no restrictions.

> I think people forget that before the Apple AppStore there really were very few apps for phones.

Fewer than today, sure. But Windows Mobile had thousands of apps and a pretty decent app development ecosystem.

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