“While Apple’s products have many virtues, they are marred by an ugly set of restrictions on what users and programmers can do with them. This is most especially true of iOS, though other Apple products sometimes suffer in the same way,” Micah Lee and Peter Eckersley write for The Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“In this article we will delve into the kinds of restrictions that Apple, phone companies, and Microsoft have been imposing on mobile computers; the excuses these companies make when they impose these restrictions; the dangers this is creating for open innovation; why Apple in particular should lead the way in fixing this mess,” Lee and Eckersley write. “We also propose a bill of rights that need to be secured for people who are purchasing smartphones and other pocket computers.”
Lee and Eckersley write, “Apple’s recent products, especially their mobile iOS devices, are like beautiful crystal prisons, with a wide range of restrictions imposed by the OS, the hardware, and Apple’s contracts with carriers as well as contracts with developers. Only users who can hack or ‘jailbreak’ their devices can escape these limitations… Unfortunately, Apple is building more of the restrictions that it pioneered with iOS into Mac OS X for laptops and desktops. Apple started running the Mac App Store in early 2011 to sell Mac software. Like the iOS App Store, Apple takes a 30% cut of all software sold.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Certain people need to realize that Apple doesn’t just “take a 30% cut” for nothing. They provide very valuable services to software developers (distribution, visibility, increased unit sales which means increased profits, etc.) Most savvy developers understand this. For users, Apple’s curated App Stores provide, among others things, convenience, peace of mind and lower prices as developers who move multiple times more copies than they could on their own are able to lower prices due to markedly increased volume.
Sometimes “freedom fighters” looking from the outside in don’t quite grasp that Apple gives much more than it takes.
