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Comment by martey | Hacker News Reader

It's hard to "root" for them when there are no phones out that currently run on the platform, and many of the details still seem to be up in the air.

My worry is that Apple will dominate the smartphone market (like the MP3 player market), which will cause everyone else to try and play catch up. It already seems to be happening - other companies seem to be concentrating on touchscreen phones they call "iPhone killers." When was the last time someone made an innovative MP3 player that gained a significant share of the market?

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I am comfortable having a company like Apple lead the MP3 and smart phone markets. They are setting a quality standard that balances function and design in ways that other companies can learn from.

I hate to make the obvious comparison but its better then having something like Vista; an OS that dominates the market and the competitors succeeding by trying to be better, by not being like Vista.

Apple deserves the top spot if all the competitors can do is make a touchscreen, instead of improving the UI as a whole and focusing on the user experience.

With the iPhone though we are potentially talking about the platform of the future.

Do you want a single monopoly controlling this? That type of situation has historically been bad for innovation.

As an analogy, how would things be if every internet web app created had to operate at the mercy of another company? Startup A has a great idea and wants to release an innovative new webapp. But they need to pay and have permission to do so, must operate in a tightly defined sandbox, and must share profits that they make. And the webapp could be kicked off the internet at anytime for breaking these rules.

Does that make you comfortable?

Depends if I'm taking the perspective of a start-up founder or a developer.

As a founder I would understand the business strategy taken by Apple who naturally aims to keep a maintainable standard in it's softwares components.

Keeping technical standards is pretty common for any company acting as a platform. In this scenario the end goal seems to be ensuring a level of performance.

A company who decides to create an innovative app should of considered whether or not it can meet those standards. Otherwise their time creating something innovative should of been applied to a better market or when the platform in place can handle the innovation.

By the way, the smart phone market is far from monopolistic so I'm not really worried.

I personally have no problem (okay, some problem) with apple cornering the hardware market for smart phones. My bigger concern is if they corner the software market as well. The software from apple is more suited to the non-technical user (as most of their users are non-technical) and I would like to have my own software on the iPhone. That is why we have competition in the first place. To serve the market in the most efficient way possible. If a single company controlled the entire software space (not just OS), would we have software like emacs which is completely useless for anybody outside a technical field but a godsend to hackers?

Likewise, eventually apple will corner the hardware market in some platform and sell hardware that I do not like at which I will just have a problem with all parts of their products. Better not to let them monopolize the marketplace in the first place.

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