Apple is evil, You're All Fanboys, and other half-truths
radar.oreilly.com
radar.oreilly.com
"In the here and now, Apple's success is unparalleled, and the engine is humming better than ever on multiple vectors - products, margins, developers, profits and consumer engagement.
Simply put, the goodness of Google-style openness, and the good tidings it provides for consumers and creators, does not in anyway invalidate, lessen or neutralize the effectiveness of Apple's proprietary, integrated, secretive, totalitarian-style approach."
The comments are funny though: "Jesus, what a load of crap. You sound like a 4 year old screaming for his mommy. Did your app just get rejected from the store?"
The article has 3 stages, 1) what all the blogs are saying (confusingly written in the first person even though he doesn't subscribe to this view), 2) the fact that Apple are right now crushing the competition and finally 3) it then lays out a prediction/warning of what I think is the most likely scenario:
Apple starts off with an innovation and quality lead but at some point an "inferior" competitor (most likely Android) gets enough traction and marketshare to make it the place to be for developers and therefore users, and therefore developers. This virtuous cycle repeats until the iPhone is a niche player for folks who really appreciate usability and aesthetics.
Yes, it's just a retread of Mac vs. Windows and you heard it a million times when the iPhone was first announced but I think it's still highly likely, particularly with Google backing and a coalition of hardware partners based around an open source codebase.
Note that "open" and "open source" are neither the same nor in any way exclusive.