blog.unix-security.net

   Apple's never been a very open company. On the desktop Apple controls both the main computer hardware and the OS - This ensures Apple can guarantee a certain level of performance on the systems they sell. I get that, and actually I think it's pretty smart. Apple has built a reputation around the quality and performance of their systems and it would be silly of them not to protect that. 

  Just like on PC, anyone can create an application that runs on a Mac. Some applications are good, some are bad. Some are fast, others are slow. Some cost money, some are free. The key thing here is at the end of the day the users have the freedom to choose which applications they install. Choice is never bad. 

  The problem I have with the iPhone, iPad, and the App Store in general, is that at some point Apple decided that we weren't smart enough to decide which applications were good enough to use. Apple took away our ability to choose which applications work the best for us. Instead we must chose from a subset of applications that have met Apple's seemingly arbitrary and constantly changing rules for approval. 

  A perfect example is the whole Flash/HTML5 fiasco that's been going on. Is HTML5 better than Adobe Flash? I'm not sure, but I'd like to have the opportunity to make that decision for myself. I'm sure both technologies have their pluses and minuses. Some people will prefer one over the other. It's my opinion that both end users and content creators should be able to make that decision for themselves and not be forced to go one way or the other. 

  I read an article today about how Safari's new reader feature could negatively impact ad revenue on a lot of websites accessed using the Apple browser. At first glance this doesn't really seem like a big deal - Safari's market share is only 5% of the desktop market. However, according to the article Apple's got over 58% of the mobile browser market. This means that potentially 58% of mobile users will not be viewing the advertisements that fund much of the web. However, Apple offers a way around this - not even Safari can block the advertisements served by applications (other than the browser) running on the iPad and iPhone. Did I forget to mention that Apple's now in the advertising business? Couple that with the fact that Apple's updated developer agreement prohibits developers from using 3rd party analytics in their applications and things start to look pretty bad.

  Unfortunately, as much as I want the iPad, the reasons above are why I won't be giving up my Droid any time soon.