I’m a little late on this one, but we’re still in the middle of this entire mess. Let me first make a few points very clear…
I can think of no company in my lifetime that has undergone the turn around that Apple has. Going from a fringe computer manufacturer that make overpriced and underpowered computers to one that has become the trend setter and cutting edge personal electronics creator in the span of a decade. However, this is still Steve Jobs at the helm… a CEO that acompanies some of the biggest egotistical assholes running (Ellison, Ballmer, Gates, Eisner…)
Apple has become incredibly successful at innovating and has caught many of the big name players napping at the wheel (Creative and Sony for mp3 players — Nokia, Samsung, et al in cell phones). Lets pause a minute for a quick tangent — man it must suck over at Creative. Prior to the iPod, they were the mp3 player — complete with ugly form factors and incredibly poor user interfaces (and I mean incredibly poor), topped off with abysmal software support, crappy drivers, and loads of adware. MP3 players were a geek’s toy only. Then came the iPod and Apple trounced Creative and brought that technology to the masses. Creative blew it… and are now a shell of what they were in the 90’s.
However, with all this success, Apple (particularly Steve Jobs) has become arguably more arrogant (if that was possible). They’ve poorly managed their once touted relationship with the record labels — insisting on “our way or no way” rather than “our way is better, but feel free to go it your own… oh and here’s the technology you should use (ie FairPlay, man what a misnomer).”
They shat upon their most rabid customers with the $200 iPhone price reduction weeks after release (and rumor has it there will be a new version before Christmas — there are lots of people who feel particularly screwed). The latest iPhone firmware update wiped out all the user application hacks (as well as the SIM unlocks), basically restoring everyone to a vanilla iPhone (if it didn’t turn it into a brick in the process). Nokia released an add campaign lamblasting the iPhone’s closed nature, though if you didn’t see that coming, you don’t understand Apple at all — even if Apple adopted the open source BSD operating system for OS X, there was no chance in hell that Apple under Jobs would give anyone an open system. There is not a single Apple product that is truly open, so expecting (or even wishing/hoping) the iPhone would be open was tantamount to willful ignorance.
If Microsoft pulled anything like this, it would be plastered everywhere. If Sony pulled anything like this, they would be vilified in every tech press. The rumblings of discontent with Apple are starting, and I’m wondering how far it will go, or will it just subside with Apple’s next innovative product. If rumors are true though, Google might have a smart phone up their sleeve… and if you could tap into Google’s suite of apps, and still be open to user customization, I think you’ll see a big shift. I’m still waiting for the open source phone OpenMoko, though I’m afraid it will be slow in developing a robust and dare I say sexy user interface to really capture mainstream notice — even though the feature set will be nigh impossible to beat at the price.
I don’t see anyone challenging the iPod monolith anytime soon, though there is no way I’m moving over to buying digital music with DRM. As long as the bands/labels I like continue to press CD’s, I’ll be a happy camper.
So what does the future hold for Apple, Jobs and co.? I don’t know how fatal their iPhone mistake will be, but there are a lot more embedded players in the mobile phone market wanting to pounce then there is in the mp3 player market where everyone is still playing catchup and copy. Given that the federal government is looking into this SIM lockout situation (you know its bad when the federal government gets involved), I will be fairly supprised if the Apple/AT&T contract isn’t renegotiated within the year.
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