It seems like the immediate future, at least, is diverse. Thin, thick, everything in the cloud, your machine is also a server, closed, open, appliance
The PC has been extraordinarily open so far, when you think about it. Imagine users of a phone or music player being given easy tools and encouraged to tinker with the way it stores music or contacts. Sounds outrageous.
The reality is that many (maybe most) users are confused by the fact that they can to music via itunes or via the file system. They definitely don't want to think about whether or not itunes is making a copy of that mp3 file in a different format, just remembering its location or moving it.
Not necessarily. You can have a tightly integrated system that is not a closed system. There was nothing (technical) preventing Apple from implementing their libraries/framework/graphical frontend on top of a Linux backend. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems more like a business decision (i.e. 'Not invented here' or "We don't control it") and/or license issue (i.e. 'GPL is viral') . (I know that Steve was CEO of NeXT and brought that platform with him and that's what they used, but it wasn't necessary for them to do so.)
I think we're talking about different parts of 'open.'
I'm taking about access (sanctioned and encouraged), for regular users. Basically, the front end. In the backend, low level stuff these things take on a different meaning. You're probably right about the business decision.
In the sense that I'm talking about, Android or ChromeOs may be closed. I'm probably using the wrong words and being confusing, but I think there is a relevancy here.
The PC has been extraordinarily open so far, when you think about it. Imagine users of a phone or music player being given easy tools and encouraged to tinker with the way it stores music or contacts. Sounds outrageous.
The reality is that many (maybe most) users are confused by the fact that they can to music via itunes or via the file system. They definitely don't want to think about whether or not itunes is making a copy of that mp3 file in a different format, just remembering its location or moving it.
Open comes with a learning overhead.