Let me explain.
First, there’s “Open”.
Apple's iPhone OS products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Apple, and Apple has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Apple's iPhone products are widely available, this does not mean they are open, since they are controlled entirely by Apple, available only from Apple, and Apple controls which apps are allowed to run on the platform. By almost any definition, the iPhone is a closed system.Apple has many other proprietary products too. The DRM schemes used for movies, books, and pretty much everything sold in the iTunes music store are proprietary, as is the software used to sync content to Apple's media players.
Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, Apple strongly believes that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards. Apple’s mobile devices all ship with high performance, low power implementations of these open standards. HTML5, the new web standard that has been adopted by Apple, Google and many others, lets web developers create advanced graphics, typography, animations and transitions without relying on third party browser plug-ins (like Flash). HTML5 is completely open and controlled by a standards committee, of which Apple is a member.
Apple also 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.
Then there's "money".
Besides the fact that the iPhone OS is closed and proprietary and has major technical drawbacks due to the limited API calls that Apple makes available to third-party developers, there is an even more important reason Apple does not allow third-party SDKs or unapproved apps to run on iPhones, iPods and iPads--other vendors may innovate beyond the carefully maintained walls Apple has built around the iPhone OS. Third party SDKs might enable developers to adopt non-Apple APIs or to create unauthorized apps that run on our mobile devices, and as such, those SDKs are a massive threat.Apple knows from painful experience that letting third parties come between the platform and the developer ultimately disrupts the iPhone's carefully tended ecosystem, which can affect iPhone OS-related revenue streams, as well as Apple's carefully laid plans for gradual enhancement of the platform. If developers utilize non-Apple libraries and tools, they can enhance and extend the iPhone platform, without Apple's permission. Then third-party developers will be able to take advantage of any platform enhancements and new features that those third parties add to the iPhone without Apple's permission. Apple doesn't want to risk a third party enhancing the iPhone OS and disrupting its release schedule.
This becomes even worse if the third party is supplying a cross platform development tool. The third party may carry enhancements from one platform to the iPhone and vice versa. Rather than build apps to the lowest common denominator, developers may extend the iPhone to compete with others, from Google, Palm and Microsoft. Again, Apple cannot accept an outcome where developers are allowed to utilize innovations and enhancements that we haven't chosen to make available in the official iPhone SDK.
It is not Apple’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps--after all, Apple has been painfully slow to enhance its platforms.
Apple's motivation is simple – Apple wants to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to developers with strict limits on API usage and constant supervision by the App Store's minders. Apple want to control the pace of innovation on the iPhone platform, so that developers can create even more amazing, powerful, fun and useful applications, which will drive continued adoption of our products within Apple's carefully planned cycle of small updates and planned obsolescence.
This is why Apple wins – they sell more devices because the iPhone has the best apps, and Apple makes money on every single transaction that occurs on every single iPhone OS device in the world. In turn, iPhone app developers reach a wider audience and customer base (assuming they can keep up with the App Store's unwritten and frequently changing rules), and users are continually delighted by the best and broadest selection of apps on any platform.
Conclusions.
Apple was created during the PC era. Despite that limitation, the iPhone is a successful business for Apple, and Jobs can understand why other companies would want to pluck fruit from Apple's money tree. But the mobile era is about open web standards, not open software platforms – so we're not going to let them. Perhaps other companies should focus more on creating great tools for the future, and less on stealing the customers that Apple has trapped inside its walled garden.A wild bastardization of Steve Jobs' comments about Adobe Flash
April, 2010
