What Apple are essentially doing is turning computers and related gadgets into consumer items like cd players, TVs etc which "just work". You cannot really do that without controlling the hardware and the software and without severely limiting consumer options. Earlier generations (well, at least it will be earlier generations to a lot of people here) of geeks had to spend their time with soldering irons or in garages with oil and spanners.
The Microsoft stage succeeded in separating OS from hardware in computers and thereby provided the incentive and impetus for computers to get very cheap. Apple have now been able to take advantage of the cheapness by giving a lot of people what they think they want. Designer labels are the order of the day, and that is what Apple have created.
-Dormouse
Both parts of this are quite true, and show sort of what we have to look for in regards to the phoneos wars. I'm a tech person, and have resisted the call of the iphone for a while, but I finally gave in. Why? Because, in the end, a phone is a phone. I don't care what you add to it, it has to be able to make calls, and do so *reliably*. No matter what apps are available, or what cool things you can do- if you can't make and receive calls when you need to, it's not a phone. This is also one of the reasons that I've dealt with the limitations and haven't jailbroken it. Because I have too many memories of answering a call and my phone locking up. Or having no ability to make calls until I 'rebooted' my phone. I can count the number of times this has happened on my iPhone on one hand with 3 fingers to spare.
As far as the second part, it bodes ill for the android platform. When the G1 came out, I was impressed. It was functional, and the experience seemed very good for a first generation device. Then the G1 without the keyboard came out- and I was still impressed. Then a plethora of devices followed and I saw the same fracturing of the platform start that happened on every other device with an open (or semi-open) platform. If you don't control the hardware, then anyone can decide to add or remove features based not upon the end user experience or solidity, but upon gaining market share and making money. And whenever you are dealing with a money-making proposition, this will become paramount- it's the nature of the companies, if not all of the people that drive them.
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