Oxford University Professor Jonathan Zittrain in his new book, The Future of the Internet–And How to Stop It, according to NetworkWorld, states that:

…today’s Internet appliances such as the iPhone and Xbox hamper innovation. That’s because these locked-down devices prohibit the kind of tinkering by end users that made PCs and the Internet such a force of economic, political and artistic change.

Zittrain argues that if the cybersecurity situation doesn’t improve, we will migrate to a different kind of Internet. The new Internet will have as its endpoints tethered appliances such as iPhones, which are controlled by their manufacturers, instead of open, changeable PCs attached to an open network that can foster the next round of disruptive innovation.

A bold statement. And he’s got a point.

Now these devices are innovations unto themselves, and some even are positioned as development platforms. Take the iPhone, for example. Apple just released the latest version of their Software Development Kit (SDK) and developers everywhere are coding away, looking to build the next great iPhone application.

But in classic Apple style (i.e. heavy DRM within iTunes), Apple remains the gatekeeper. Applications can only be distributed via their App Store, and will only be distributed if approved by Apple. Apple will explain that this is for security and quality-assurance reasons, but it still puts them in control of what’s available, with the ability to shut an app off if they so desire. So yes, you can be as creative as you want on their platform, but it’s up to Apple if anyone is going to see it at all, or in perpetuity.

There’s a similar situation going on with Google’s new App Engine (the preview version was launched on 4/8, then taken down on 4/9). Google’s vision is that instead of freely building apps with their API, you can develop applications using their APIs and host them on their servers, free of charge. Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud and Salesforce’s Appexchange are also providing similar opportunities for developers. Sounds great, right? But there’s a catch, as ArsTechnica reports.

Perhaps the most blatant downside is being locked into Google’s platform. Existing projects will have to be ported or written from scratch, and those that rely on traditional relational databases will probably have difficulty making the transition. Even more difficult would be transitioning your application to your own servers if you choose to leave Google’s tender embrace. Once you’ve created an established application on top of Google’s authentication service and stored all your data within the company’s datastore, removing all this code and data and moving it to another location would appear to a be fairly onerous task.

Once again, applications — and even more importantly, data — are locked into someone else’s platform. And this is precisely what Jonathan Zittrain is talking about.

This is a disturbing trend and runs afoul of what led to the creativity that yielded many of the most popular websites of the last few years. Imagine if Warhol was free to create any art he wanted, but someone else owned the canvases and could destroy or bury them at any point if his art offended someone? That’s what’s going on here.

It doesn’t seem that this is a trend that will let up anytime soon as companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon have way too much to gain by housing and hosting application engines. Doesn’t feel like ‘do no evil’ anymore does it? And a little more ‘PC’ than ‘Mac’, if you ask me.

Food for thought…

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Ok. So I just saw an iPhone commercial solely focused on its Facebookability.



Anyone else see this? Anyone know if/where it is online? This is as close as I could get.

UPDATE: Video below.

Are mobile utilities finally going to start catching on? Is Facebook usage going to spike because of this commercial?

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So technically, I’m not at MacWorld, but I’m there in spirit.

Last year, his Jobsness revealed the iPhone, and all but upstaged CES. This year, in case you were wondering, there were some pretty big announcements that will likely touch you in one way or another.

In no particular order, these were:

Movie Rentals
Apple will be delivering movie rentals via iTunes for around $2.99-$3.99. You’ll be able to download rentals, and will have 30 days to begin viewing. Once you start viewing, however, you’ll have 24 hours to complete viewing. Additionally, you’ll have the ability to transfer those movies from device to device — even if you’re in the middle of watching them. Yay portability! And the videos start streaming instantly. At launch, studio partners include MGM, Miramax, Lions Gate, Fox, Warner Bros., Walt Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Sony.

Apple TV
Apple TV will be relaunched as a standalone set-top box capable of accessing the movie store, without a reliance on another Mac on the network to support it. Movies will be available in full HD 5.1. There’s full integration with Flickr, too. All this for $299.

MacBook Air
Ahhh. The world’s thinnest notebook.

It fits into a manilla envelope. Zoinks!

LED backlit display, backlit keyboard too. And fast. No optical (CD/DVD) drive, which is partially how they achieved the size. No ethernet connection either. Just Wi-Fi. And 5 hours of battery life. $1799, and shipping in two weeks.

It’s amazing, but with one major drawback that will keep me away from it. No replaceable battery — or any other parts for the matter. At least none that I can replace myself. It’s what’s ticked me off about iPods all these years, too.

Thanks for the AMAZING blow-by-blow coverage (as usual) of this event go to Engadget (the source of the photos, as well). Way to go, guys.

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Check out this post on Deep Focus’ internal blog by Associate Creative Director Nick Braccia:

So you’ve probably all seen this student-made spot from the UK for iPod Touch, featuring Cansei de ser Sexy’s “Music is my Hot, Hot Sex.

It’s a fine piece of editing, but when I saw it, I thought, heck, all he REALLY did was pick an awesome song and time some animations. Big deal, right?

Here’s the irony: a year ago, Microsoft had a ZUNE spot running with the SAME SONG.

What’s the moral of this story? Well, the amateur kid kept it simple: Music = HERO. Interface = Easiest way ever to hang with HERO. In the Zune spot, the song is part of a schizophrenic execution that’s trying to: a) be irreverent with stylized, anthropomorphized illustrated animals b) cycle through a list features (music, wireless, tuner, community) c) bring it all back to music and “social” by building a narrative.

Wow, that’s a lot. Just listening to a Brazilian girl sing “Music is my Boyfriend, Music is my Girlfriend” seems to sum all that up, with like, 1/1000th of the work. It’s just an ironic slap in the face that they had the perfect weapon (the song) and didn’t know how to use it properly.

Just found more assessments of the two spots.