“The Apple Tablet is rumored to be a cross between a laptop and an iPhone. The iPhone isn’t really a cell phone, rather, it is a handheld computer employing a touch interface with a cell phone built-in. It uses a slimmed down version of Apple’s MacOS X operating system that Apple uses on all its computers,” Love writes. “This makes it easy to make an actual laptop-like device that uses the iPhone’s operating system complete with the special cell-phone associated attributes of the handheld.”
“In PopSci’s thinking, this is a problem because the iPhone’s default setup only allows people to use software written by independent developers but approved by Apple installed exclusively by being downloaded from Apple’s App Store. According to PopSci, this is bad because if this model spreads to all computers, people wouldn’t have the same level of flexibility to run any software they please on the new type of computer as they do on current ones,” Love writes.
“PopSci needs to rethink that because without a new business model to pay for the creation and distribution of software, there won’t be any software for people to run. You can’t make money anymore writing and selling software using the current business models. PopSci isn’t saving freedom for end users, they’re killing it,” Love writes. “Apple is saving the freedom of end users by making it possible for software developers who aren’t giant corporations to make a living at writing software.”
Love writes, “The iPhone and its App store recently convinced me to return to writing software directly for end users and I am far from alone in doing so. The iPhone app store has ignited a renaissance in software development… The App store makes it simple for small developers to write, distribute, sell and — drumroll please — get paid for, computer software. The App Store has created a boom time for small, creative software developers and provided iPhone users with a staggering degree of software choices. At the time of this writing, there are an estimated 65,000 iPhone apps.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.