

Wikipedia Wales says Apple's App Store is a threat to openness online - Mithrandir
http://www.thinq.co.uk/2011/1/15/wikipedia-wales-apple-could-ruin-internet/

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ghshephard
There might be something to this if Apple had a monopoly on the "Mobile
Internet" (the portion that Wales is referring to) AND forced everyone to
interact with the "Mobile Internet" through applications acquired through the
AppStore - two problems with this thesis:

    
    
      o Apple does not have a monopoly on the Mobile Internet.
    
      o Apple's support for open HTML 5 protocols is stronger
        than any previous generation of Mobile Platforms that
        connected to the internet.
    

We can critique Apple in a lot of places with regards to their AppStore
(though, it's gotten much better lately) - but, ruining the Mobile Internet is
not one of them.

I seem to recall that the iPhone was actually the _first_ really decent phone
browser that you could use to connect to the internet - if anything, Apple
spawned the "Open" Mobile Internet.

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stcredzero
Also, compare Apple's impact through the app store with the potential of:

    
    
        - Mobile providers throttling particular apps
        - Mobile providers and bandwidth caps
        - The balkanization of networking (Facebook)  
        - Pushing a patent-encumbered standard for video 
          (Apple is involved here, but is only one player of several.)
    

EDIT: Technically h.264 is "open"

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ItsBilly
It can't be "technically" open because there's no technical definition of
open. Under one side's definition, just having a lot of industry players
collaborate on it in public makes it open (the definition you're using)
whereas the other side says if its freedom is encumbered by patents then it's
not open.

Open is a horribly diluted word and there's no way imaginable you can say
anything is "technically" or "not technically" open.

~~~
stcredzero
This is the reason for the scare quotes.

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ghshephard
Compare Apple's impact to openness online to Microsoft's back in early 2000.
There were a lot of banking and corporate websites that only worked with IE
and Active-X. As a result, every corporate machine (and many users of these
banking sites) - had to have a copy of IE floating around to fully access the
Internet - and good portions of the internet just weren't usable for many
Linux/BSD users.

Now - how much of the Mobile Internet requires that you use an Apple product?
Apple just doesn't have enough market dominance to result in more than a
trivial portion of the Mobile Internet to be written _specifically_ for
Safari/IOS Browers.

Wales is completely off his rocker here. As long as Firefox, Opera, Chrome,
and yes, IE, continue to have a strong presence as browsers (and I don't see
that changing anytime soon), and as long as Anddroid, WP7, and others start
rolling out first class smart phones, Apple will not be a threat to the Mobile
Internet.

This is one of those cases where lack of a market leader actually results in a
better adherence to standards. As long as the focus is "Build an ACID3
Compliance Browser" for the vendors, and developers write "ACID3 Compliant
Websites" - we'll be in fine shape (modulo the recent Video controversy)

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zdw
Title is linkbait.

He doesn't like that Apple is the gatekeeper on their App Stores, as if the
consumer doesn't have any other hardware options out there...

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Mithrandir
Fixed. Sorry about that. Didn't see it until it was too late. :)

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cletus
If Wales had his way, the Apple Inc Wikipedia entry would read:

> Founders: Steve Wozniak, Ronald Wayne and DEFINITELY NOT Larry Sanger

