June 29, 2007
Sideloading Wizards In Walled Gardens
Apple’s iPhone went on sale today. It has received an enormous amount of pre-sales publicity. I am not about to contribute much to the buzz around the Apple tree; no doubt it’s a fine design and a decent product. But it’s just another device, or is it?
I quite like one prediction about the impact the phone might have. It just might help end the walled garden concept that mobile carriers are so keen to impose on us: restricting internet access to predefined content and premium charges for services such as getting a conventional ringtone on your phone (heck, I nearly got suckered into buying one myself when a newly purchased device included only teeny bopper polyphonic tomfoolery).
Perhaps it is just part of an evolutionary process, and comparable to the development and adoption of the web:
- 1st stage: a new useful technology is adopted by few (think early internet days).
- 2nd stage: more people adopt the technology (hail the dancing baby animations, fishtank webcams, pop-up ads, and x-rated sites). At this stage (think internet boom), the marketing pirahna’s have jumped on the bandwagon (show me the money!).
- 3rd stage: the novelty has worn off, and the technology actually has to deliver the goods, and prove itself useful to the masses (like the internet after the bubble burst).