The iPad is an enemy to openness

Touché. However, you of all people should understand the distinction between openness for web content and openness on a specific computing platform. I think the Internet (to the extent possible) should not be controlled by proprietary formats — after all, everyone uses the same Internet. Openness (or lack thereof) on a particular platform is (to me) a much more personal matter, and only affects those who opt to use that particular platform.

If someone purchases a computing device such as the iPad, they (should) do so with a tacit understanding about its limitations. People who value openness above all else won’t buy it — people who value the experience Apple offers over openness will. That’s capitalism at work, and it doesn’t mean that Apple prevents anyone else from developing and selling a more open platform. It also doesn’t mean there aren’t different challenges and drawbacks associated with open platforms — everything is tradeoffs.

Also, though I view Flash as an enemy to openness AND innovation, I make a distinction there as well. One could certainly argue that iPad is an enemy to openness, but not innovation. (Of course, I never asserted that iPad is “the perfect friend to openness”, though I feel that most criticisms of the supposed risk its closed ecosystem represents to users are exaggerated.) Flash is an enemy to innovation because its dominant market position has left it devoid of any significant competition to drive improvements, and Adobe manifests little desire to improve it from within. By and large, Flash is stagnant, whereas Apple is not. Apple drives its own innovation, and by extension, others’ as well.

Thanks for the thoughtful, well-written post. Hopefully, preconceptions will fall by the wayside when both of us actually get to lay hands on an iPad and see for ourselves.

Good point. However, I believe the problem is having the expectation that this product should be a more “open” device. The non-openness of the iPhone simultaneously allowed Apple to control every aspect of the end user experience. This experience is what made it so successful. This is what everyone else just can’t seem to get right.

The masses bought the iPod, and the iPhone. I doubt the majority of those customers even know or care about what it means to be “open”. Verizon touted the Droid as being “more open” than the iPhone, and look where that got them.

Most people can’t even use a computer without driving themselves off a cliff. The iPad professes to put you in a safe, easy to use, and “it just works” environment. That’s probably more than good enough for the majority of people who try to use computers these days.

Whether or not the market accepts this new concept, we shall see.

Also Quinn, if we are keeping score, your proposed alternative to flash, H.264, isn’t really open either. It is plagued with actively guarded patents. That is why it won’t be supported in Mozilla Firefox.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/02/03/h264-free-2016

The ball’s in your court, Firefox.

Quinn – Your sublime folks don’t seem to be doing anything to put H.264 into Firefox. Firefox supports Ogg Theora video (which is patent-free, but not the HTML5 standard) and the sublime folks seem to be supporting both Ogg video and HTML5 H.264 video.