October 8th, 2007
Is iPhone helping Apple lose its soul?
Business Week’s Arik Hesseldahl writes that he won’t buy an iPhone because he doesn’t like how Apple “is keeping the iPhone from evolving in a manner consistent with its corporate heritage.”
Most of Arik’s specific grievances seem to be focused not on the iPhone pricing strategy, but on the fact that he doesn’t like it that Apple is not fully opening up the device to third-party developers.
Apple hasn’t always been this way, Arik points out.
“Historically Apple’s Macintosh computers have remained relevant because of the ongoing efforts of dedicated, enthusiastic software developers who continued to build great applications even when the size of the Mac-using community was dwindling,” Arik writes. “Shutting developers out of its latest, greatest accomplishment is a lousy thing to do. ”
Arik does point to Steve’s argument that enabling unfettered third-party development of apps for the iPhone is a different animal. The reason: iPhones being phones, getting those third-party apps out on the network could cause potential havoc.
Arik isn’t buying any of that. He projects the Apple view is that third-party developers are “roublemakers who might, in the worse case, cost Apple and its hand-picked partners money. And that’s why Jobs has promised to stop them.”
Follow along, and I will ask what you think.
Loading ...Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
