

Is Steve Jobs Big Brother? - fr0man
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/06/is-steve-jobs-big-brother.php

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CodeMage
_At the risk of sounding like an Apple apologist_

I agree, you do. Let me elaborate why.

 _I think it’s a stretch to say that Jobs is "deciding what content people can
view on the iPhone and iPad."_

If you choose to interpret it literally, then it's more than a stretch -- it's
unfeasible. On the other hand, I believe Robert Wright didn't really mean it
so literally. You've probably heard about Steve's (in)famous line about
"freedom from porn". Please don't tell me you believe that Steve Jobs has
nothing to do with decisions Apple has been making about what their users can
or cannot view on their "iDevices". Sure, a lot of the stuff -- like that
political cartoonist example -- can be attributed to incompetence and chaos of
a typical bureaucracy, but even the most chaotic bureaucracy has someone or
something to give a general direction. Implying that Steve Jobs isn't
providing that direction to Apple is, well, a stretch.

 _You can do almost anything you’d like on the iPhone or iPad, provided you’re
willing to use the browser as your main portal._

Except run Flash, for example. Or, for that matter, even know _why_ you can't
see the content of a site that serves Flash, unless you're web-savvy:

[http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2010/04/return_of_the_...](http://www.gskinner.com/blog/archives/2010/04/return_of_the_b.html)

 _If you’re bothered by Apple’s decision to rely on the web and curated
applications to provide content to its users, then don’t use an i-Device._

Yeah, I've heard that one before. It's a standard non-argument used by
apologists and, in general, by people who want to deflect criticism. I won't
bore people with repetition of what I already said about that kind of
statement, you can read it here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1395364>

 _I think Android is a fantastic platform, if fragmented and a little
unpolished_

Cue the popular buzzword, "fragmentation". It's fashionable, like calling
Microsoft evil. Crying "fragmentation" is getting old:

[http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/05/on-android-
co...](http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/05/on-android-
compatibility.html)

Not to mention that, using the criteria in the post you linked to, we can call
Python fragmented, too, and yet it's immensely popular and a great platform to
boot.

 _Google and Apple are companies looking for the best way to make a dollar_

Yep. Microsoft and AOL, too. Microsoft had authoritarian tendencies and AOL
promoted the walled garden. We all know that the purpose of a company is to
"make a dollar". That doesn't automatically excuse or justify everything they
do.

------
k33n
First sentence:

    
    
        The short answer is…no.
    

Thanks for saving me the trouble of reading the rest of the article.

~~~
hugh3
Tune in next week for "Is Steve Jobs Justin Bieber?" on _Adventures In Click-
Whoring!_

~~~
fr0man
He's a blogger, can you blame him? He got my click from his Twitter feed with
it, because I was interested to see a non-IT guy's take on the recent spate of
Apple-bashing. Yglesias is usually very measured and insightful. I just didn't
think so this time.

Edit: Odd, when I submitted it, I titled it with something other than his
post/page title to describe it as "Matt Yglesias Asks: Is Steve Jobs Big
Brother? (Matt says no)", but it didn't take for some reason.

------
DrSprout
>If you want to implement a Google Voice solution, you’re more than welcome
to, via the browser.

The browser is completely inadequate to the task. I don't even think Webkit
has the audio input features implemented yet, and if they exist they're
completely useless for any real-world applications, especially on a phone.

Telling people to use APIs that don't exist yet is nonsense.

~~~
SamAtt
The whole argument of "you can use the browser" has always been a straw man
that falls apart when exposed to even the least bit of scrutiny. You can't
access much of the hardware via the browser (no audio, camera, etc...) You
can't charge for a browser app. You can't play video with any kind of content
restrictions (which Flash video offers). And so on. The whole line of
reasoning is ridiculous.

I won't say this article is inappropriate for HN but I think it's unworthy of
HN.

~~~
zck
>You can't charge for a browser app.

This line jumped out at me. What definition of "browser app" are we using that
requires them to be free? Obviously a browser app can't be a website, as it's
trivial to put a website behind a paywall. What else are we talking about?

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not_an_alien
_I think it’s a stretch to say that Jobs is “deciding what content people can
view on the iPhone and iPad.”_

That made me stop reading the article right away.

~~~
pohl
I agree that it's a stretch.

Nothing prevents me from pointing the browser where I want to, or from syncing
over any audio file, or movie, or ePub book that I want to.

The only thing they're curating is the contents of the shelves of their own
store, and this is nothing that brick-and-mortar stores don't do every day.

Sure, I can't get my boob-jiggling app approved. But I also can't shoot
amateur porn and get it on the shelves at Blockbuster.

~~~
confuzatron
Good point. If you dont like Apple's app store policies, just shop at one of
the other iPad app stores. Simple.

~~~
pohl
Exactly. Like some Android market.

 _Edited per below_

~~~
smokinn
You forgot the s on Android market _s_.

Unlike Apple, there's more than just the default.

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WiseWeasel
What's so frustrating to me about the iPhone OS platform, especially in the
iPad, is that as a jailbroken iPhone user, I've GOT the ultimate next
generation general-purpose pocket computer already, and I know that a
jailbroken iPad would be a total revolution in general-purpose computing. But
the fact that I must fight my vendor at every update, and that the jailbroken
platform is seen as completely marginal or even detrimental (due to the piracy
it facilitates) by most developers, takes away most of the value. It's
frustrating that Apple is so close, and yet it's unclear whether they will
ever make the leap into a real general-purpose computing platform. That is the
core of most of my animosity towards Apple's implementation of the iPhone OS
platform. If they were way off the mark, I wouldn't even care.

~~~
ghshephard
Steve Jobs isn't so much big brother, as he is passionate about the user
experience.

Open = Security Issues, Performance Concerns, Viruses, Battery Concerns,
Piracy Concerns (resulting in poor software availabilty)

Closed = Secure, predictable performance, virus resistant (if not proof), well
known power utilization, and commercially friendly.

But, the good news is we have _both_ now - Android is the open version of
iPhone (minus a bit of UI polishing that will be cleaned up, soon).

I'm looking forward to seeing how this all works out over the next three-four
years, particularly if the iPhone is available on a reasonable wireless
provider in the Bay Area. (AT&T continues to be the bane of my existence.)

~~~
WiseWeasel
My only problem with Android is the lack of direct syncing and backup to my
own computer, rather than doing everything through the cloud.

------
hubb
i think the author misses the point about itunes, whether purposely or not,
like so many others: it's not the functional capabilities of itunes apps vs
webapps, but the financial capabilities

------
alsomike
Maybe he is Big Brother, but is that a bad thing? Today's authorities wrap
themselves in "anti-authoritarianism", constantly demanding that we express
ourselves creativity, think for ourselves and be unique. Far from being
subversive, this reflexive self-fashioning and self-expression is harnessed to
create profit for the powerful, from the simplest blog post generating page
views and advertising dollars, to the creation of new tech start-ups
innovating new products to periodically revitalize the aging bureaucratic
global corporate status quo.

In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman claimed that Huxley was correct
and Orwell was wrong: we're being oppressed by being drowned in irrelevant,
trivial entertainment, not through censorship, explicit control and
regulation. For the internet age, this idea is out of date. Today's form of
control isn't making us passive, instead, it makes us active in ways that
further the interests of power. We're told our creativity is subversive, even
radical and revolutionary and therefore deeply significant, and yet nothing
really changes. What's most interesting about all this supposedly disruptive
change is how in the end, it's purpose is for the exact opposite: the smooth
functioning of global capitalism.

Perhaps you can argue that this is a good thing, but it's impossible to argue
that anything truly revolutionary is happening. Steve Jobs and Apple are not
necessarily good, but they are a kind of progress because they demonstrate
that the emperor has no clothes - the supposed revolutionary, world-changing
potential of technology is a sham, it's the same old capitalism as usual.

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fr0man
Yeah, Yglesias is a super smart guy, but he's just way off on this one.

