Comments on: How free will the tablet be? http://www.asfarasicantell.com/2010/01/tablet/ I'm Simon King, an interaction designer at IDEO and citizen of the great city of Chicago. Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:56:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Jake http://www.asfarasicantell.com/2010/01/tablet/comment-page-1/#comment-8 Jake Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:34:12 +0000 http://www.asfarasicantell.com/?p=8#comment-8 I believe that the iPhone is exactly the kind of environment that they'd like for everything, similar to the Apple TV, no system directory and no file system that the user can see. And, for 95% of the population, that's cool. The thing is that for all the Richard Stallman types, there will be ways to crack, bend and manipulate the device the way you want. That's just inherent human nature concerning technology for the other 5%. The problem I have is that Apple doesn't want it that way and they enforce it with warranty allowance. You want to use software to allow you to use the hardware you bought with the software we did not implicitly approve? Don't come crying to us when it breaks, even if it's Apple's fault. With the phone, this worked because it was a brave new territory that was feasible due to the newness of it all. The problem with the tablet is that it's very borderline between the phone and laptop, an arena where we can install what we want, how we want. I somewhat fret for the future when Apple is the gatekeeper for what applications get produced and takes a 30% cut of it all. It will be interesting to see if that model is accepted or rejected by the 95% who don't care. I believe that the iPhone is exactly the kind of environment that they’d like for everything, similar to the Apple TV, no system directory and no file system that the user can see. And, for 95% of the population, that’s cool.

The thing is that for all the Richard Stallman types, there will be ways to crack, bend and manipulate the device the way you want. That’s just inherent human nature concerning technology for the other 5%.

The problem I have is that Apple doesn’t want it that way and they enforce it with warranty allowance. You want to use software to allow you to use the hardware you bought with the software we did not implicitly approve? Don’t come crying to us when it breaks, even if it’s Apple’s fault.

With the phone, this worked because it was a brave new territory that was feasible due to the newness of it all. The problem with the tablet is that it’s very borderline between the phone and laptop, an arena where we can install what we want, how we want.

I somewhat fret for the future when Apple is the gatekeeper for what applications get produced and takes a 30% cut of it all. It will be interesting to see if that model is accepted or rejected by the 95% who don’t care.

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