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Stealing Farmville's thunder one player at a time. 1 down, 80 million to go.
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David Barnes
Breaking News: FBIndie No Longer Supports Quicktime, iTunes
Hell yeah. My computer is now an Apple-free zone and it feels great. One benefit of having control over your computer is that YOU can decide what to support on your own machine. For too long I've seen Firefox slow to a crawl every time I tried to open an MP3 file. I've been confronted with non-standard "updates" windows pop up for Apple software that I never use. And I've had to deal with iTunes almost never working when I actually want to use it to put a few new tracks on my aging iPod Nano. FBIndie's computer no longer supports Apple. Does yours? I conducted a survey:
Posted
by David Barnes
One more thing... Apple's dubious defense of the Open Web
I saw a tweet a few days ago that said: "When you own something you want it closed. When you don't own anything you want it open. Bloggers and ideologues just don't own much." If it was you, let me know and I'll add some credit.
In any case, here's a quote from Jobs' Thoughts on Flash. It's a classic case of Apple supporting "open" for something that it doesn't own:Apple even creates open standards for the web. For example, Apple began with a small open source project and created WebKit, a complete open-source HTML5 rendering engine that is the heart of the Safari web browser used in all our products. WebKit has been widely adopted. Google uses it for Android’s browser, Palm uses it, Nokia uses it, and RIM (Blackberry) has announced they will use it too. Almost every smartphone web browser other than Microsoft’s uses WebKit. By making its WebKit technology open, Apple has set the standard for mobile web browsers.
Only one company doesn't support this open-source rendering engine. Just one company. The fools! Can't they see that openness is better?!
Posted
by David Barnes
Thoughts on Apple
FBIndie has a long relationship with Apple. Despite being a Facebook-centric blog in name, our three most popular articles have all been about Apple.
I wanted to jot down some thoughts on Apple's business model, how it works, and what it means for "partners" who try to build businesses on a platform that exists solely as a way to sell a limited set of hardware products. Apple has characterized itself as being interested in openness, but their whole business model is based on building platforms that only work on their own hardware devices. Apple claims that they are open and interested in standards, but in fact the basis of their success is to avoid standards. Let me explain.
First, Apple launches innovative products that are way ahead of their time.
There is no doubt that Apple has launched one revolutionary product after another: from the GUI-based PC, through the iMac, iPod, and iPhone. All of these products leap into emerging markets but feel mature and desirable straight away.
Apple controls every aspect of their new products. This means that they are able to realize a strong, singular visions and produce a stronger product than other major companies (such as Microsoft and Google) that try to innovate using committees, relationships, consortiums, and standards.
Second, Apple ensures that these products remain the most desirable in their class.
Competitors try to catch up with Apple using copy cat products that feel rough around the edges, or trying out innovations that fall flat. In the early stages of competition Apple remains loyal to their vision, consistently creating more desirable devices than the opposition.
But watch out because that advantage can only last so long. Eventually competing products come out that get a compelling mix of features, quality, and price -- and advantage of the Apple product starts to erode.
This is happening now with the iPhone. Android, Windows Phone, KIN, and other sexy phones are at last going to give Apple some real competition.
Third, they use first mover advantage to turn their product into a platform.
Apple has learned the hard way that having the best product doesn't give you enough to win. Everybody always thought the Mac was better than Windows, but Windows PCs were cheaper, anybody could build one, and their distribution was many times better than Apple.
But throughout the 90s, the Mac held its dominant place in one sector -- art and design. This was the one place that the Mac wasn't just a better computer, it was a platform that most designers were locked into.
The iPod is in this phase now. It no longer stands out as a much better music player than any other device. But with the power of iTunes it doesn't have to. People no longer buy iPods because they're the best music player -- they buy them because they know they'll find the music they want on iTunes.
Fourth, they use this platform to remain the dominant player for as long as possible.
Apple is only really interested in selling products. That's what they're all about. But Apple still wants to remain dominant even once their products have been successfully cloned by competitors. They do this by using their products to establish a closed platform.
Apple has turned the iPhone into a platform with the App Store. They don't market the iPhone on the basis of its features any more. It's all about the App Store. Which is why they're so protective of it. If every App Store becomes the same, holding the same apps, then Apple ceases to be a platform.
This ends up becoming a problem for Apple's partners. They see other devices coming on the market and getting bought, and they want to provide content for those devices too. But Apple wants partners to remain loyal to them.
Record labels now feel locked to Apple. They don't like the power that iTunes has in the market place. The irony is that it's the labels that gave iTunes that power.
App and game developers who stick with iPhone development through the App Store are putting themselves in the same position. They're helping Apple build a strong, closed platform that will end up keeping them locked in.
Fifth, they use the profits from these cash cow platforms to invest in their next innovative product.
These platforms are where the money is. The products keep selling, prices don't erode too much, auxiliary income comes from royalties on music and application sales. The devices don't need much new innovation or much new marketing, and they keep selling.
Apple takes this money and invests it in developing new and innovative products that will keep them fed for the next few years.
Sixth, they let dead products die.
A closed platform won't beat an open one for ever. Eventually, somebody will figure out how to build a platform that works across every non-Apple device. This is what happened when Microsoft introduced Windows. Suddenly any computer made by anybody could run something resembling the Mac OS. It wasn't a question of Apple vs. Microsoft, it was a question of Apple versus every other computer manufacturer in the world.
This is what's happening now with MP3 players. Amazon and other stores sell MP3 files that will play on any device. It's no longer iPod vs. Zune or iPod vs. Creative Xen. It's iPod vs. any hardware manufacturer that can link an MP3 decoder, some flash memory, and a pair of headphones together.
Somebody will figure out how to give an iPhone-like experience using commodity phone hardware. It won't be as good as the iPhone, but it'll mean that the iPhone won't be competing with just a few other smartphone manufacturers. They'll be competing with anybody who can throw the components of a phone together.
When this happens, Apple quietly moves their focus away from those products. You don't hear much about non-Touch iPods these days do you? And the lack of news about Mac Books and other Apple computers is starting to get people down. These are now stable markets where Apple's ability to innovate creatively doesn't give a lot of benefit. It's time for the Microsofts to take over.
Seventh, the platform and partners die with the product.
People who partner with Apple think that Apple's there for them. In reality partners are only interesting to Apple as long as the platform keeps supporting product sales. Once that stops, the platform and partners are no longer useful.
This is how to understand Apple's public disparaging of Adobe. Apple relied on Adobe to support the Mac platform and keep it the leading platform for design work. But the importance of that is eroding now, and Adobe has nothing to offer Apple's new products so they're out in the cold.
Conclusions.
Apple is about building products. They will build a platform to support their own products. But once a platform emerges that commodity products can use, the Apple products enter decline. When that happens, businesses built on the Apple platform will see the foundations fall from under them.
It's not yet clear who will build that commodity platform in mobile yet. Somebody will. When they do, it will become a dominant force quickly. The iPhone will still have loyal fans because it will remain a beautifully realized product. But it won't dominate the market.
Adobe Flash is pretty well placed when it comes to building a platform that can run on any hardware. Microsoft doesn't want that to happen because they want to build the platform themselves. Apple doesn't want it to happen because they want to keep the iPhone dominant.
Widely distributed platforms that run on commodity hardware always win eventually. Perhaps Apple should focus more on building innovative new products, and less on trying to lock users to expensive, over designed premium products in established markets.
FBIndie
April 2010
Posted
by David Barnes
