“The rise of gadgets like the iPhone, Blackberry and Xbox threatens to unravel the decades of innovation that helped to build the Internet, a leading academic has warned in a new book,” Peter Griffiths reports via Reuters.
“Professor Jonathan Zittrain says the latest must-have devices are sealed, ‘sterile’ boxes that stifle creativity and turn consumers into passive users of technology,” Griffiths reports. “Unlike home computers, new Internet-enabled gadgets don’t lend themselves to the sort of tinkering and collaboration that leads to technological advances, he says.”
“Zittrain contrasts one of the first mass-produced home computers, the Apple II from the 1970s, with Apple’s latest gadget, the iPhone. He says the iPhone is typical of what he calls ‘tethered appliances,'” Griffiths reports. “‘They are appliances in that they are easy to use, while not easy to tinker with,’ he writes. ‘They are tethered because it is easy to for their vendors to change them from afar, long after the devices have left warehouses and showrooms.'”
“They are a world away from the ‘generative Internet,’ a term Zittrain uses to describe the open, creative, innovative approach that helped build the Internet,” Griffiths reports.
Full article here.
If Zittrain’s so smart, why hasn’t he changed his name?
The answer to the headline is an emphatic “No.”
Professor Jonathan Zittrain thinks not being able to tinker with his iPhone “threatens to unravel the decades of innovation that helped to build the Internet.”
Then get your fellow professors, who you think are responsible for this innovation, to build you something for you to tinker with.
Some of us see the iPhone as the best evidence of the continuation and acceleration of innovation with respect to the internet.
Olternaut: “You know he has a point. You could be polite and actually admit that. There is a growing danger here.”
Maybe they don’t know that.
But <u>PLEASE</u> explain why you think there is a “growing danger”. I see the opposite happening especially with the SDK and the potential for collaborative mobile applications.
Yeah, we all know how “productive” those folks are who spend their days “tinkering” with their PC. They’re just trying to keep them stable enough to do something useful. The iPhone and iPod Touch are providing a stable platform and the tools to build on that platform. How will that not spark streams of creativity?
The next name should be “Cage” in OS X all the cat’s are in the cage.
This is your typical computer geek who is crying fowl because more and more people are interested in using the technology instead of tinkering with it. They had to tinker with it back then because either it wasn’t well built or it needed to be built by hand. Zittrain…this isn’t the 70’s, it’s the 21st century.
I don’t care about opening and tinkering with an iPhone, I rather just use it.
At the bottom of this guy’s article is this:
Current rating: 1 by 10 users
Look, Oxford may be a great university in many areas, but in the area of the internet, it clearly is a laggard, based upon this nut’s nonsensical ramblings.
If tinkering equals innovation, then why is Linux not the most popular OS in the world and why does it still look and handle like it came from the late 80’s/early 90’s.
We need to get back to the good old days of tribal warfare, survival of the fittest, living simply off the land and the flesh of our enemies. Technology has threatened to bring an end to all of that, but I foresee a day (maybe not in my lifetime, but certainly in some of yours) when it will be technology that returns it to us.
In the meantime, I’ve made a wooden handle to tie my iPhone to when the power goes out and I need the iClub.
The people who mention cars make a good analogy. Cars started out as hobbyist-type things, needing plenty of tinkering and extra care to get them to work. Then, as the technology improved, they grew out of the hobbyist/tinkerer arena into technology people can use without having to think too much about it.
Computers and the internet are following the same path. From starting out needing lots of tinkering and attention, to becoming more user-friendly and self-sufficient – the end result is the same, an information superhighway people can use, rather than having to necessarily tinker with.
There’s nothing wrong with tinkering, but in my opinion something that *needs* a lot of tinkering isn’t fully mature technology. I don’t mind the *option* of tinkering, but it shouldn’t be a necessity.
WHAT?!
The iPhone has increased productive and innovations for me. I can check ideas, patents, or companys before it goes into the ether. Sorry, like the calculator- progress speeds forward. New tool and we are the ones in control of the ideas or methods.
GGGggggezzzzzzzz.
“We need to get back to the good old days of tribal warfare, survival of the fittest, living simply off the land and the flesh of our enemies.”
Man, oh man. What kind of scary ass neighborhood did you grow up in?
Is this the same moron who, many years ago, whined and complained about the complexity of modern computers by using an iMac as an example of “complexity”? 4 goldarned connectors was too much for this moron.
Further, these jerkoffs simply don’t get it. The iPhone is a tool. The creativity, the floodgates of which are about to open, is in the applications that will be installed on these “sterile” gadgets to get them to do the neato super cool things they are capable of…
I have nothing but contempt for this kind of expert moron whose is so far behind what is happening with technology he thinks he’s ahead.
zunetang and zittrain sitting in a tree….
@Gabriel…Hobbyist is the perfect word for his kind of thinking. That was the exact word I came up with when I tried out Ubuntu recently.
This is the same dude that thought the Altair 8800 was the pinnacle of personal computing because all you could ever do with it was tinker. It is the software you, asshat, I can’t believe that someone gets paid for this crap.
@Ampar
Explain my point? I thought it was pretty clear in the article. First of all I love the iphone SDK and all it has to offer and all that.
BUT………
The sdk does not totally open up the iphone to all of its features. I don’t have time to go through everything but you must know what I mean. Bottomline is that there will be an ongoing need to jailbreak the thing if apps need to get full access to it.
In truth the iphone is really a misnomer and its actually a minuturized mac…..but they named it iphone and treat it as a phone. Tell me….can you play an .mp3 on a iphone without first converting the tile? I don’t want to type forever but thats just one example of a closed system. As the future becomes more and more mobile the desktop will become less and less important…..even laptops will become less important.
And if the dominant form of computing becomes closed mobile systems then I think thats going to be a big big problem.
Gawd I hope the mactouch or itablet isn’t treated the same way as an iphone.
“I don’t have time to go through everything but you must know what I mean.”
And we will probably always disagree on whether or not it’s important.
“can you play an .mp3 on a iphone without first converting the tile?”
Never thought about. Never had to think about. Don’t care. Don’t need to care. It plays my legally purchased downloads and syncs beautifully.
For me, the iPhone is a sophisticated tool that exceeded my expectations. The new apps as a result of the SDK will continue to make it more useful and amazing. I don’t tinker as others here have also said. I’m guessing that the vast majority of consumers also are not tinkerers. There’s also nothing wrong with wanting to jailbreak your iPhone if you want to add some hack. That’s your prerogative. Just don’t expect support after that from Apple.
The iPhone does have a few minor annoyances that I’m sure will be fixed with updates as some already have with past updates.
I tinkle while holding my iPhone.
OMG – Is this guy serious?
@NGC598: By the way, have you seen any astronomy software for the iPod Touch yet?
@Olternaut,
Yes of course, any iPod device will play native .mp3 files – next.
@Olternaut,
And technically you don’t “full” access to any computer unless you happen to be fluent in raw naked machine code.
“MacDailyNews Take: If Zittrain’s so smart, why hasn’t he changed his name?”
Actually, his name used to be Smith. But everyone in his family has suffered at some point from severe acne. Growing up, whenever the family would go out together, folks would point and say “hey, check out the zit train”. Sadly, it kinda stuck.
“We don’t get car improvements because I can tinker with my car.”
No, but you do get car improvements because racing teams tinker with cars, sometimes starting with stock models.
“This “theory” overlooks the simple fact that the preponderance of users have little or no interest in tinkering or modifying, and that for those users that do, there are any number of platforms and options available.”
You don’t need everybody to tinker, just for the tinkerers to be able to create something new and get their stuff out to the sheep on platforms the sheep use. Then of course somebody buys the tinkerer’s technology and takes it to the next level. Seems like 99% of this forum are content to be those sheep rather than those who lead innovation.