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4 Responses to “History Says That Now Is The Time to Unbundle the iPhone OS”

1. Idris Says:
   July 15th, 2008 at 12:57 am

   To say that Apple should unbundle iPhone OS from the iPhone hardware now shows a complete misunderstanding of the company that is Apple. Apple has reasons for controlling the hardware that their software runs on. For one, they want to keep a very specific image of their company. What would you and the people around you think of Apple if you thee “iPhone” you owned was a big, bulky Nokia flip phone? Furthermore, Apple can optimize iPhone software and hardware together, creating a coherent whole which is more stable, more reliable, and faster than an OS that runs on any old phone (why do you think Java is such a pain on most devices?).

   The way Google is headed with Android is very problematic. The reason people can so easily write rich applications for iPhone is because they know the form factor of the device, and the screen size, and what inputs the device has (touch, accelerometer, gps, etc). If you are developing for a Google Android phone, you don’t know if the phone will have a keyboard or not. You don’t know if the phone will have a touch screen or not. You do not know the screen size or resolution of the device you’re developing for. Accelerometer? Who knows.. one device may have it, another may not. Developers making apps that take advantage of these advanced features will have to spend a lot of time writing “degraded” versions of their software for less-capable Android phones. This is not an efficient use of time for a developer, nor is it an optimal solution at all.
   Don’t get me wrong, I love Google, but they try to spread themselves too thin sometimes. Take Google Friend Connect for example. Friend Connect is a fantastic idea. Allow users to use their social data from any social network anywhere on the internet, on any site they want. Because Google wants Friend Connect to fit in with any site, and because they think like programmers, they want to make Friend Connect as generic as possible. This is the problem with having a non-controlled environment. To solve this problem, they decided to use Gadgets and iFrames to display social data/widgets on your site. Sounds like an OK solution, until you actually put one of these iFrames on your site and see it in action. You get ugly frames all over your website, with Times New Roman text that doesn’t match your site’s fonts.
   Would Apple ever allow a product of theirs to be so uncontrolled? Absolutely not. Apple is a company that controls their entire user experience, from the store, to the consumer’s pocket, all the way up to the consumer’s mind. Everything Apple does has the same message, and the same look and feel. To get rid of this part of Apple is to get rid of the very core of Apple as a company. Apple has made a fantastic, revolutionary software platform to run on their revolutionary device. Why should they settle for letting their platform run on anything less?

2. Lee Lorenzen Says:
   July 15th, 2008 at 9:44 am

   To Idris:

   I agree that life is easier for Apple and for their developers when there is only one platform configuration to deal with. Users also benefit by having a single choice at a single price from a single provider — which at least simplifies their decision making process. However, my point is that this is not good for Apple, the developers or the users in the long run.

   Even if Apple doesn’t unbundle their OS, developers will need to cope with different platform issues via some type of system configuration check. Remember when the first 128K Mac shipped? Developers were happy to check for extra memory, screen size, 2nd monitors, color screen, special printers, CD-ROM drives, etc. as the Mac evolved. Users also were happy that Apple skillfully managed these transitions with the right level of backward compatibility and forward adoption of new hardware.

   This is no different than what Microsoft did with Windows to adopt to a myriad of hardward platforms from different OEMs. The difference for Microsoft is that this work led to billions in software licensing fees and 96% market share to Apples 4%.

   I contend that this time Apple will be smart enough to see this. They can still build their own hardware, but they shouldn’t use their software as a differentiator with consumers. Let each hardware vendor build the best and cheapest hardware possible and have it all run the iPhone 0S 2.0 and all the cool iPhone apps. Part of the license would be that the hardware manufacturers would have to promote App Store and iTunes and their software upgrade and sales channels (with a share of this revenue flowing to them). In this way, Apple maintains the key choke point which is where and how the software for the platform is purchased. If the OEMs want to make extra money from their now dormant software groups, they can have them build Killer Apps for the iPhone 0S and make tons of high margin software revenue.

   Thanks,

   Lee Lorenzen

3. Ronan Says:
   July 15th, 2008 at 10:25 am

   Lee,

   From a developer stand point two things really suck about the iPhone OS/platform:
   1. You can’t run an application in the background. This is actually a bigger issue than most pundits give credit for; and Apple’s “push notification” server doesn’t address the issue.

   2. Being limited to selling iPhone applications through only one, monopolistic sales channel (the iTunes AppStore) is bad business.

   I don’t believe that the likes of SonyEricsson or Nokia would ever sign up for an OS that has these restrictions, even if it was made available to them.

   Roll on opensourced Symbian and Android.

4. Lee Lorenzen Says:
   July 15th, 2008 at 12:27 pm

   To Ronan:

   WRT your points:

   1. I’m assuming the iPhone OS platform will continue to evolve and address any obvious shortcomings in version 2.0.

   2. I agree that allowing Apple / iTunes to control the AppStore is a major concession for SonyEricsson and Nokia, but I have faith in Steve Jobs’ sales ability to let them see that getting 15% of all App Store sales (and possibly music sales) vs 30% of their own competitive offering that potentially no developers support. Building and marketing a competing platform and App Store and iTunes alternative is a huge cost and extremely risky. These companies make hardware and just want to make a lot of money in that area. They would also be able to sell software in the App Store and make a 70% developer cut plus a 15% OEM cut.

   Apple can kill the open source alternatives by having the real thing available for all the hardware manufacturers. There will be some license fee that these folks have to pay but it will quickly be offset by their share of app revenue.

   Thanks,
   Lee Lorenzen