Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Steve Jobs, Apple, Developer
Shipley confronts Apple on "contain and engage"
Wil Shipley (he of Delicious Monster) has a big piece up about Apple, the iPhone, and the iPod that's making the rounds of online Mac onlookers. He calls out Apple (as they've been called out before) for leaving the iPhone a closed platform, and he answers a lot of questions that were asked by Erica's article the other day.Shipley says that Jobs made a number of mistakes, the first of which was combining forces with other companies, including the record companies and AT&T. In the early days of all this, Jobs was seen as a hero, convincing the record companies to change their minds, and bringing AT&T into the realm of a really great phone. But, Shipley says, Apple plus another company doesn't equal Apple anymore. As much as Apple seemed to have brought record companies around to its point of view, it turns out that the record companies have brought Apple over to their side as well.
Case in point: ringtones, in which Apple is asking us to pay three times for the same song just so we can play it when people call us. And then combine that with Jobs' harsh requirements for locking down the Apple aesthetic, and suddenly, instead of finding ourselves locked inside a closed system we like (iPod + iTunes), we're trapped inside a closed system that charges us for no reason (iPhone + ringTones).
How to fix things? Shipley says an SDK for iPods and iPhones, which is a big duh. Apple should have done that long ago, and developers have been saying so ever since. They've trusted developers to make beautiful programs for the Mac, and they should trust them on the iPhone as well. And he says Apple needs to open up-- either let their music out, or let others' in. Clearly, people prefer having control over their content rather than, say, what NBC is planning, so if Apple makes a serious effort to free their content (music, movies, and ringtones alike), they won't need the companies-- they'll have all the audience.
Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Pandora said 4:12PM on 9-20-2007
Only Hope remained there in an unbreakable home within under the rim of the great jar, and did not fly out at the door; for before that, the lid of the jar stopped her, by the will of Steve Jobs.
http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/wil-shipley-says-were-acting-like.html#comment-143446400792149511
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phi said 4:12PM on 9-20-2007
Stephen Fry (actor/comedian) has a surprisingly good write up on the state of smartphones too and what apple needs to do about the iPhone as well... http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/?p=3
I also completely agree with Wil and felt like he put it even more succinctly than my blubbering posts on the subject
http://observingtech.blogspot.com/2007/09/more-apple-woes.html
http://observingtech.blogspot.com/2007/09/im-starting-to-dislike-apple.html
But I really am starting to wonder what Steve Jobs is smoking that he's getting so greedy that he forgot about the little guy.
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Thomas said 4:27PM on 9-20-2007
Whilst I agree that ringtones are a rip-off I think we also have to point out that the terms of Apple's ringtone service are far better than the norm.
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Kevin Davidson said 4:25PM on 9-20-2007
This was something Palm got right early on. There's a thriving commnity of Palm OS developers out there, and that helped make Palms so successful.
Perhaps Apple think they don't need that as most users never buy any new software for their PC, and fewer still for their phone. Can't believe Apple would be so full of themselves. Oh. Wait a minute :-)
Please, Apple. See sense - we need proper, official support for 3rd party applications and a documented way to get iTunes/iSync support as well to get documents/settings etc. on and off the phone and backed up.
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Jon said 4:51PM on 9-20-2007
I thought you were only charged twice for ringtones - once for buying the song and once for converting it into a ringtone. What's the third?
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PSM said 4:37PM on 9-20-2007
"But, Shipley says, Apple plus another company doesn't equal Apple anymore."
Amen! After the events of the last couple weeks, I am embarrassed for the support I have expressed for Apple as a company. They are turning into every company I hate -- Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T -- I used to think they were the one company that honestly cared about producing the best product. Now I'm looking at Windows Mobile for my next phone, because I believe Microsoft to be the MOST OPEN platform. The horror!
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Marcos said 4:47PM on 9-20-2007
> 3. This was something Palm got right early on.
> There's a thriving commnity of Palm OS developers
> out there, and that helped make Palms so
> successful.
Where am I? Did I get lost and landed in 1997??
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Johnny Dangerously said 4:53PM on 9-20-2007
> 6. Where am I? Did I get lost and landed in 1997??
No kidding, man. You beat me to it. Was Palm *ever* something that could be called "successful?"
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Thayne Miller said 4:54PM on 9-20-2007
Again I must re-iterate that the scope of the "big picture" must be realized when we start talking specifics such as open or closed platforms. Now, I'm as much a geek as the next guy (I am in graduate school for a masters in electrical engineering), but to the common iPhone go-er, "open" and "closed" aren't really that important. Case in point: my iPhone. Sure, I would love an open platform. I love being able to run NES.app on my iPhone, but guess what? That's not what I bought. I bought a phone that can check my email, surf the web, read my RSS feeds, play TV shows, and find driving directions and traffic reports anywhere in world.... all in my pocket. The key to all of this working properly is apple having control over the operating system in the iPhone. Let me explain:
The iPhone doesn't have a very fast processor, because they wanted to try to conserve as much battery life by using a slower processor. Out of the box the iPhone is super responsive, from zipping through photos to load multiple web pages and maps. But have any of you noticed what happens to the speeds and battery life once you start hacking up the insides with apps? The battery life gets cut in half and the uber-responsive "glossy" feel to the iPhone is now ever-so laggy. I didn't notice it until I did a full software restore and I can see why Apple would want to keep it closed.
Again, please look at the bigger picture here. Just because ~2% of the population we call the "tech community" wants it open, doesn't mean that that is the best. I would rather have a closed phone with only apple apps, than an open one that is filled up with inconsistent UIs and ugly icons that is slow and power hungry. Isn't the simplicity and elegence of all of these gadgets the core thing that makes Apple products so enticing?
I love my iPhone just the way it is and on one last note: if you are really that hung up about $0.99 ringtones, then maybe you should thank Apple for making your decision to NOT buy ringtones all the easier, since custom ringtones made from songs are by far and away the worst thing that's ever come to the cell phone industry.... now, custom, USEFUL ringtones is another point, but I can already do that with garage band and SSH. (and if apple locks that down again, I don't really care)
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Jason said 4:59PM on 9-20-2007
Yeah, I mean I'd love to see 3rd party developers be able to develop aps for the iPhone, BUT...
* I think Apple would be silly to release a half-baked development environment, and have to be backwards compatible. Look at the mess Windows is in because of that. I'd rather have them start 1 year from now and say "this is the development environment, and we'll support it going forward".
* In a year there will be more iPhones out there than Macs, and within 5 years if things go really well, there could be as many as 10 times as many iPhones as Macs sold. The more "open" the system is, the more hackable, and virus-able it is. If I were Steve, I would go slowly on this front.
I know this sucks for developers, or geeks who want special features, but apparently that's not their primary audience right now. Their primary audience right now is people who just want it to work.
All this being said I can't wait until 3rd party aps start showing up, as after all these years I still can't find ANYTHING on my OXS machines without Quicksilver... :)
-jason
http://www.gravityswitch.com
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Mike said 5:00PM on 9-20-2007
You know, I'm not sure I agree that Apple is doing wrong by consumers. I DO believe that Apple is playing a game of give and take, and setting up maneuvers for later down the road. Think about it: now that Apple has the music industry cornered, but right now, they're still dependent on them for content. In a couple of years, what's to say that Apple WON'T just open up a content creation division and cut out the middlemen entirely. Artists signing directly with Apple would give Apple the much-needed content the music industry has right now and Apple COULD make most of their profits from selling the hardware. Artists would sign with Apple if Apple promoted them and paid them fairly. Why would artists sign with labels for 10 cents a song (random number) with the labels getting most of the profits when they could sign up with Apple for 90 cents per song and cut out the labels entirely? With iTunes being as hot as it is, why not down the road?
I think NBC sees that happening with their content, and they're afraid of the clout Apple has. Because, honestly, these days of YouTube and iTunes and the internet, you really don't need middlemen anymore. I mean, it'd be great to have a company put up money for promotion and whatnot, but the internet is more powerful than that and will become more so in the future.
On the other hand, iPhone is such a new product, I think Apple will eventually open up an SDK but they need a stable platform, first. Apple is now NeXT, and the NeXT motto, from what I heard, was get things working, then get things working faster/better. I think once OS X for devices become stable enough, I don't see why Apple would keep it closed. Given enough time, why shouldn't they create APIs developers could tap into.... unless the foundation wasn't solid yet. Give it time.
As for ring tones, I DO believe this is a game of give and take. Apple negotiated a price far lower than that of the other companies (FAR lower) with content you can create yourself instead of chosen for you (that eventually expires on Sprint and the others!!). Does it suck that a snippet of a song cost as much as the song itself? Heck yea, it does. But, what's the alternative? Much more restrictive.
I guess I'm saying that Apple may be laying the foundation for much bigger moves. To quote Denzel in Training Day, "This isn't checkers, this is chess."
As long as Apple doesn't abuse its position, we should all be all right. The next few years will definitely be interesting.
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Callum said 5:04PM on 9-20-2007
I thought Apple would have learned from their Apple + Motorola experiment (what was that ROCKR piece of crap about!?). Seems one recent combination that did work was Nike+, due to the complete lack of interest from the general public and hackers alike.
Apple have started moving in a worrying direction (iPhone / touch just seem so 'locked up' compared to the old iPod hacking). Surely pressure isn't coming from outside to lock up these devices, i'd prefer to believe that- but it isn't the case- why would apple make it 'their job' as stevey said the other day to keep us out of are own devices.
the Apple TV was fine enough to crack open, wasn't an apple exec quoted as saying something like 'we don't mind, as long as you enjoy it- and while we believe that we've got the finest option (our s.ware + our h.ware), do what you want' i.e. mod the hdd, add options to the menu, use the apple tv as a server, use the mac mini in your car!. that's a grown up way to be. control freakery this is not- the money people are dabbling Steve, stop them!
Bah.
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Alexis said 5:08PM on 9-20-2007
"But, Shipley says, Apple plus another company doesn't equal Apple anymore. As much as Apple seemed to have brought record companies around to its point of view, it turns out that the record companies have brought Apple over to their side as well."
You're right, Apple + another company doesn't equal Apple anymore. However, 2 + 2 doesn't equal 2 anymore, either. Without AT&T, Apple has to buy up wireless lines and become their own mobile phone carrier. Which would be fine, except people would then be crying about Apple being a monopoly. As for Apple "being on the side" of the record companies, the only way I see that being true is because they are forced to deal with them. I thought that's what negotiations were about: meeting half way. Without the record companies, Apple doesn't have any music other than indie labels. Which is great, except then Apple doesn't become the #3 music reseller in the US. Without Apple, the record companies make even less money and piracy is even bigger than it currently is.
"Case in point: ringtones, in which Apple is asking us to pay three times for the same song just so we can play it when people call us. And then combine that with Jobs' harsh requirements for locking down the Apple aesthetic, and suddenly, instead of finding ourselves locked inside a closed system we like (iPod + iTunes), we're trapped inside a closed system that charges us for no reason (iPhone + ringTones)."
While I totally agree that the ringtone price scheme sucks, I refuse to believe that Apple went into those meetings and said "So we're gonna charge our customers three times to make ringtones for the iPhone. You cool with that?" Had Apple given the record companies the finger on this, we wouldn't have legal ringtones for the iPhone, and everyone would be complaining about that.
"How to fix things? Shipley says an SDK for iPods and iPhones, which is a big duh. Apple should have done that long ago, and developers have been saying so ever since."
Here's what gets me about this argument: Who knows if the SDK already exists? Not you, not me, not Wil Shipley. So if/when Apple releases an SDK for the iPhone (I don't believe one will come out for the iPod, ever), it's not going to be because the developers thought of that idea first, or because WIl Shipley said so. All these people crying about no SDK need to calm the hell down and just wait it out. Last I checked, the hacking community has been doing alright without an SDK so far.
"And he says Apple needs to open up-- either let their music out, or let others' in."
It's as if you guys have completely forgotten Steve's own words. There is DRM on these songs because otherwise there would be no songs on the music store. Same goes for movies, tv shows, and ringtones. If Apple "frees" the music, the record companies take the music back, sue Apple, and the iTunes Store dies.
As someone who I'd assume knows business pretty well, being the founder of the Omni Group and co-founder of Delicious Monster and all, I'd think that Wil would know better than this. As for everyone else, I don't know how this logic makes any sense to you people.
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BdeRWest said 5:30PM on 9-20-2007
"Case in point: ringtones, in which Apple is asking us to pay three times for the same song just so we can play it when people call us."
Err, don't you mean pay twice? Once for the song and once for the ringtone?
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Galley said 5:27PM on 9-20-2007
Say what you will, but there have been more than 25,000 PalmOS apps developed.
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Reg said 5:38PM on 9-20-2007
I agree with just about all of the commentary on ringtones, but I'm kinda finding it hard to be upset over a few bucks.
Even if you buy 10 ringtones, which has to be some sort of maximum before the novelty wears off, it's.... $10.
Yawn. Yeah, I know, it's the principle, but c'mon, it's a few bucks. Ringtones are stupid. It's a stupid tax. They go together.
But the closed nature of the iPhone, its lack of SDK and lack of publicly announced plans to remedy that, is far more serious. As is the continuing shadow of DRM on everything.
I wouldn't like to see a fairly trivial thing like ringtones costing more than they should take attention away from more serious matters.
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dave said 7:27PM on 9-20-2007
I gotta come out on the other side of this - ANYTHING to keep ringtones off people's phones - and all you people who ride mass transit more than 20 minutes at a time know what I'm talking about.
Ringing phones in public spaces are a sign the end is near.
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duscrom said 8:00PM on 9-20-2007
Pay 3 times if you bought the CD. Own the CD, have a song you like, buy the song on iTunes, then buy the ringtone.
So the whole Shenanagins with the Ringtone thing almost, for me, isn't even cost. If i had to pay $0.99 for every ringtone, I'd be okay with that.. as long as I got to choose the ringtone. Be it a snippet from a TV show, Song, or another annoying sound that will draw my attention to my phone (Since ringtones are also alarm sounds).
You know what might be an even better deal? Apple maybe Licencing the SDK for the iPhone. Do it like a console biz. Or partner up with someone other then Google. Solve the needs of your users. We need IM, We need MMS, we need functions, you aren't doing. So Let somebody else do it. But if you must, make it go through an approval process. Put on the iPhone, something like install.app, or Handango (WinMo version).
The Web 2.0 only apps is slow, and unuseable over EDGE. And from the point of a game maker, needing to work within the confines of Safari's interface is not good either. ie. Why can't we drag in iPhone Bejeweled?
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roz said 7:14PM on 9-20-2007
I'd really like to see the platform open to developers. Ringtones and games are not big issues to me.
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Hawkman said 7:16PM on 9-20-2007
I'd love to know what happened to my long, thoughtful comment on that piece. It took me ages! :/
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