“Apple’s approach to computing since it entered the PC market in the late 1970s has been an attempt to wrangle processes, activities and behaviours that were becoming increasingly unruly,” Farrer reports. “The company’s co-founder and creative driving force, Steve Jobs, has been on a mission to streamline channels of information, to make navigating technology simpler, then to bring it all together in fashionable devices.”
Farrer reports, “Virginia Heffernan, a writer with The New York Times, has a theory about the role of apps in Apple’s order-and-control process… Heffernan sees a parallel between what happened last century to the great American metropolises of Chicago, Detroit and New York and what is happening to the internet now. Closed communities, pay-walls, subscription-only programs and other invitation-only groups have popped up to nullify the danger, control the environment and make the place feel safer.”
“Much of this, says Heffernan, has been driven by the invention of apps, those mini programs invented for the iPhone that allow you to do everything from balance your budget to communicate with friends, access newspapers and bank accounts, and check everything from the weather to stocks to email,” Farrer reports. “By operating within the borders of the Apps Store, the tightly regulated online shop through which apps are sold, users of iPhones and iPads are able to avoid the web’s more distasteful and chaotic features. Think of it as living in a gated online community — an eWorld for the 21st century.”
Farrer reports, “This Apps Store community is a sanitised place — beautiful, sleek, lovely to behold, wonderful to be part of — but many feel it lacks the energy, raw unpredictability and exciting sense of anything-can-happen that gives the real world its soul. The millions of people who live there, says Heffernan, consign themselves to an increasingly limited relationship with the web.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Blah, blah blah. Until Apple stops shipping Safari on iPhone OS devices this meme is nothing more than hackneyed drivel.
News flash: The term “app” has been around for decades. The iPhone just took it mainstream.
Its like saying that if you buy a 4×4 you are cutting yourself off from the mainstream of those that experience the roads somewhat differently. And like that analogy those who wish too can perfectly well access that other experience should they choose to do so. As MDN says unless safari is removed that choice is always there.
Yes, “anything can happen”, right. I rather live in a control environment when it comes to my data than in a “anything can happen” environment.
I’ll take Apple’s “walled garden” over MS’ malware infested back alley anytime.
Regardless of MDN’s take on the article, it is thought provoking, as is the original article in the NY Times that this article cites.
In a sense the internet does resemble an unruly big city with crime (viruses, malware, etc.) rampant on the streets. I grew up in the inner city of a large city years ago, so I can understand the similarities.
Apple’s world is like the leafy suburbs. A place of peace, quiet, and beauty where people can live their lives without constantly looking over their shoulder wondering if they are going to get mugged.
Maybe, just maybe, a place exists for both environments. For those who want excitement, let them have the cities and Windows and the open internet to play in and sometimes get bruised. For others, the suburbs (Appleland) lets us enjoy life as we go about doing our everyday tasks.
Cities and suburbs need each other, just like it would seem the wild west of the internet needs a wall-garden like Apple to provide sanctuary to those of us who are tired of constantly looking over our shoulder for danger.
Ah Yes:
The old “Chaos is Creativity” BS that is destroying our schools keeps popping up.
No, it’s just chaos.
If you live in a walled garden, who needs windows? I mean you’re in a garden for crying out loud.
1. Apps via the App store for rich, customized experiences.
2. Safari for the unbridled web.
3. You don’t need a number 3 (and it sure as hell isn’t Flash).
It sucks that this sort of “philosophy” has some clunkers, such as their decision to cut matte screens from the iMac. Sometimes, the person sitting in his Apple campus office pats himself on the back that he is bringing order to the world of computer — but you only have to read the reasons 1,000+ people give at http://macmatte.wordpress.com to see that people with great theories – Marx, Stalin, Mao – don’t always get it right. Jobs thinks he’s making it easier for us to buy computers because we now have the choice of one iMac screen – glossy. But he’s never sat by a sunlit window and worked all day on the computer with the sun streaming in behind him. And remember, some lower level office workers don’t get to choose the location and orientation of their desk, unlike CEO’s!!!!
This writer should not talk like Apple is the evil empire forcing their wares on us. What they give us is choice, and I choose order over chaos.
84 Mac Guy: one man’s inner city view ain’t necessarily another’s, inner cities are always alive and not all dwellers worry or look over their shoulders…
Bottom line Apple stuff works, is transparent to the user and instantly usable and useful.
Except that there are several times the variety in Apple’s “limited” App Store, compared to all the other mobile phone platforms combined. It’s a very large “walled garden” indeed. This “theory” is bogus, even without considering the freedom that Safari provides.
Apps help sell more hardware for Apple. Apps are giving Apple the same advantage that computer programs gave Windows in the 1990’s. Since there were many times more programs for Windows versus Mac OS, that was a key reason for customers to choose a Windows PC over a Mac. And once users had a significant investment in programs, that became an obstacle for making the switch to Mac.
Over time, the Internet nullified that advantage, because people were doing more and more in a generic web browser instead of specific programs. But now, Apple is making the availability and variety of “apps” very meaningful again on the mobile platform. It is a key reason for choosing iPhone. And once they have an investment in apps for iPhone OS, they do not want to lose it by going to another platform.
Attracting more and more developers to create more and more apps is way to sell more hardware by increasing the app advantage. Apple does this by keeping control of the platform to make developing for iPhone less burdensome (more efficient) for developers. Apple extends the iPhone OS platform to iPod touch and iPad to make the potential customer base for developers even larger. And with iAd, Apple is making the development of free apps financially rewarding for developers without adding complexity on their end to implement it. Since the majority of apps are free, I expect to see brand new explosion of apps on the iPhone OS side.
That is why Apple’s App Store is a big deal for Apple, and why it will continue to be one of Apple’s key advantages that the competition cannot match any time soon.
You can bet that all the asshats, let by the Google Chief crook that poopoo the Apple Walled Garden and call for Freedom, live in gated communities… wonder why?
Hypocrites!
“Apple’s approach to computing since it (entered) created the PC market in the late 1970s…”
There I fixed that for you.
@breeze
40 years ago if you were in the inner city I was, you would be worrying too as you looked over your shoulder constantly.
84 Mac Guy : not really… ” to live in this town, you gotta be tough tough tough, shattered”
The people who wary of the walled garden are the same ones who are addicted to apps and find it so difficult to use Safari.
Walking in the inner city is just like walking in the woods, in grizzly bear country. The bigger the gun you carry, the more comfortable you are.
@ubermac thank you that was an annoying error.
MDN … ur slackin
@RL… apparently so will Google.
“…raw unpredictability and exciting sense of anything-can-happen….” But who wants virus, malware and spyware from outside: not me! I love the smell of the garden. But I do find myself not using Safari much on my iPod touch; it’s mostly apps. I never thought of it until now.
First, the author can’t even get the name of the store right. It is the App Store, not the Apps Store. Kinda like you don’t go to the furniture_s_ store to buy a sofa.
Second, the analogy is terrible. Apple may provide you with a beautiful garden, but they also give you a seriously tough and comfortable off-road vehicle for when you want to go into the jungle. That is unlike Microsoft, whose Windows is like sending you into the jungle in a K-car with the doors missing and a flat tire.
The Microsoft K-car has TIRES?!
Apple is no walled garden. This is simply BS.
You can anywhere on the web with Safari.
I am tired of this nonsense.
It reminds me of the global warming -“when the icebergs melt the sea level will go way up” silliness.
(Archimedes and objects displacing their own weight in water…)
Add ‘go’ between can and anywhere…..