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From a product design standpoint, what's really significant about the fact that Steve Jobs is finally opening up the iPhone for 3rd-party development?
For us, it illuminates a simple fact often overlooked by the Cult of Mac: as cool as Apple is, they're just as motivated by profit as un-cool Microsoft--they just do it with better industrial design. We believe Apple's industrial design is so good that people often feel a non-commercial kinship with the company, because we're so used to dealing with crappy products that anyone who's designed a good one becomes our friend.
As nice a guy as Jobs may seem, and as much as we may admire him and the products he champions, we think it's important to remember he's probably got a dog-eared copy of Atlas Shrugged somewhere in his office. No judgments, we're just saying.
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Comments
Here Here. In my eyes Apple is simply a friendlier, more polished Microsoft.
A sad view. Apple realizes the power of community that has existing on the Mac for a long time. Why not open the iPhone earlier? As a new product they first needed to prove it reliable, which means keeping control.
Ummm... okay. Doesn't this announcement really indicate that Apple had planned all along to release an SDK and that, in fact, doing so is in the best possible interest of the customer.
That Apple was a for-profit company was made obvious in the original Apple-software-only release of the iPhone locked into a Cingular network for a $600 price tag.
This is clearly a step toward making the iPhone a better value (as 3rd party software development will clearly add value to the device), which should be the definition of good design. This is something that iPhone users have been clamoring for from the beginning. That Apple now intends to make this available at no extra cost to existing iPhone users seems to completely contradict the lesson learned.
There's nothing wrong with making a profit for yourself, especially when you've worked as hard as Apple to put out superior products that people can benefit from. That's what makes capitalism great. This post makes it sound like doing good for yourself is bad. Without Steve Jobs, Apple would have drifted into obscurity. With all the hard earned success Apple achieved, Steve Jobs deserves all the profit coming to him.
As a practicing industrial designer, I know how difficult it is to bring a beautifully, well designed tech product to market, and I'm amazed with Apple's products. These product's weren't easy to produce.
What's wrong with Atlas Shrugged? Ayn Rand is one of my favorite authors, and if there were more people like John Galt, Howard Roark, and Steve Jobs, the world would be a better place.
Don't want to judge, then allow me: We would be far better off as an industry, a discipline, and a society if everyone of us read and understood (notice I didn't necessarily say believed) what Rand's novels puts forth. I applaud the reference, and moreover the perspective to make such an observation (albeit a somewhat incomplete analogy). Steve is clearly in a quest for success, he has to be as he oversees a public company. However, has he indeed "shrugged" and gave in to the collective masses, or were his collectivist board members to blame for locking the product in the first place? So, why not complete your analogy and observations: If Steve Jobs = John Galt, who is Michael Dell? Is maverick Mark Cuban really Ragnar Danneskjold. And damn it, who's going to play Dagny now that Carly is out at HP? I'm not interested in sparking a debate here on Rand's morals, merely some applause for an insightful blog post. Besides, if you're a consumer product designer and you object, you best first check your premise (and career choice). Besides, that's a whole other article to debate. Stu? ;)
I don't think Apple can be compared to Microsoft yet..Microsoft is a least 50 times richer and larger then Apple ...Microsoft is Goliath with 98 % market shares and Apple is David with
2 % market shares but with a shotgun ...LOL!
Is this post meant to imply that John Galt somehow represents evil? If so, I'd be very interested in seeing you elaborate on that point, hipstomp.
We should be so lucky to have more real-life John Galts in the world...
Oh, so Jobs is John Galt and that's bad? Why do you think Macs work so well? :D