Apple in Control
I’ve gotten a lot of flack for my recent “iphone bashing” post. Opposed to what people thought I was saying, I was not bashing the iPhone at all. It is, by far, the best user experience for any mobile user. But my belief that Apple won’t take over the mobile world (specifically in the business sector) still stands. And to prove my point, check out this post by Erik Schonfeld over at Techcrunch.
Just yesterday, Michael Arrington at Techcrunch used a picture of a nuclear blast to infer that all Apple rivals in the mobile world will be obliterated. Only one day later, Erik Schonfeld explains that Apple is in control on whether Flash will be available on the iPhone. Why wouldn’t Apple allow Flash for the iPhone? It’s the same reason why you can’t install any app on your phone and must go through iTunes. Apple wants control. Everything has to meet up to their standards. This limits innovation and opens doors for competitors in the future. The iPhone is awesome but it’s not the best phone it could be. And if Apple doesn’t ease up, we’re going to see much better devices out in the wild in a few years.
Apple make awesome products _because_ of that control.. They have a great user experience because of the rules, and they want to extend those rules to any apps that run there.
I think a move like that will always attract flack from developers who wish THEY had more control, but in the end the majority of consumers won’t care.
Ross, I agree with you about Apple making great products. But opposed to an iPod that is built for one main function, the iPhone is a mini computer. And a computer needs to be more open.
I think the quality that Apple produces brings in a certain consumer. That is why their OS is the best, but it’s also the same reason why they have less than 20% of the market. The same will happen with the iPhone. High quality, but not a 90% market share product.
Im usig livebusters famous http://ipod.livebuster.com page — for now the best solution for watchin videos on ipod and iphone as long as there is no flash.
Maybe we dont need flash – mp4 is the much better gormat in video. Youtube has their clips in mp4.
Flash is not a quality experience for a few reasons.
(a) Flash video tends to be over-compressed and low-quality.
(2) Flash standards for the desktop are not perfectly compatible with Flash distributions for other mobile devices.
(b1) Flash is incompatible with Flash players even among the desktop distribution.
(c) Flash breaks usability standards of the internet and has been rejected by usability leaders in the field like Jakob Nielsen. (see http://useit.com or http://nngroup.com )
As an iPhone user, and if I’m in Apple’s shoes, I do not want:
(a) bad quality video on a device I know can play high quality video
(2) websites which work on my desktop but break inexplicably on my mobile, when my mobile is capable of delivering the same internet as my desktop.
(b1) to deal with websites that recommend upgrading my Flash player. These are annoying on the desktop and deadly stupid on my mobile, where I may not be on a wi-fi connection.
(c) The iPhone delivers a highly usable interface. Apple should not diverge from that by providing Flash, which violates usability.
The counter argument is, “Flash is everywhere!” To which I say, not on the millions upon millions of handsets Apple has shipped. YouTube originally stored video in Flash only. With Apple’s assistance and the desirability of YouTube to be on AppleTV and iPhone, YouTube is converting all their users videos to h.264 mp4, a superior format.
Apple made the right choice.
Save us all the stupidity and simply not offer Flash, as Flash is a substandard solution.