Part of me is jealous every time I see someone showing off their sleek Apple notebook or iPhone. They’re so sexy, svelt, and powerful. I’m like a kid who sees that bright red, yellow, and green box of candy. The mouth waters but the eating isn’t as fun as quenching the desire. Now I know Apple theologians will think me an uninformed heretical nut job. They are in love with their MacBooks and iPhones and I’m a just an envious nerd. On the surface they are right. But the 80% rational part of my brain doesn’t want an Apple for one overriding reason: it is a walled garden. The price for beauty, svelt, and power is confinement and I’m just not that psyched to get in, no matter how cool that piece of hardware might make me in the eyes of others.
Perfect example is Wired’s report on applications cast out of iPhonedom embracing Android. It is true Android is playing catch up/me too with iPhone. Apple has the market lead. Apple’s phone is cooler, thinner, sexier. On top of that it has a great application development environment open for anyone who wants to play. But it is also true that it is Apple’s sandbox, not the developers. Just like their hardware, unless your application fits with their world domination plan you’re not allowed in the sandbox. Take your toys and leave please. Now I know Google has its own world domination plan. Call me naive but world domination by Google versus world domination by Apple seems like democracy versus communism, respectively. Both want to rule the world. One just fits what I, the lowly developer, want from that world more than the other. 1984 anyone?
