On 11/12/07, James Nick Sears <lists@jamesnsears.com> wrote:
> To chime on this thread again (and hopefully this time closer to the
> original topic), I think the reason openness doesn't show as a major selling
> point for devices is that at this point it's merely an abstract concept.  In
> time, as meaningful applications are developed on open mobile platforms,
> these apps will contribute to the platforms' success, even when their raw
> "openness" may not.

Thanks for going back to the original topic. Sorry about my Mac OS X
rant.

I think you have a good point here.

By the way, by Open, I think there are two meanings.

One is open standard, open specifications/API or even open source.

The other is kind of pseudo industrail standard or defacto standard.

> Give this a few years for mobile app designers/developers to do their thing
> and the climate will be entirely different.  Even the iPhone is opening in
> the coming months.  As the phone becomes less "phone" and more "mobile
> device" these third party apps will become major selling points.  The fact
> that the word processors of 20 years ago were totally closed platforms
> wasn't such a negative when there were few interesting applications for the
> PCs of the day.
>

Still I think Apple is different. Jobs does not believe in openess and
he is perhaps right on this since the slogan of Apple is "to think
different". After pusing out the Mac clones (buying one), he
seems to succeed on that frount. So Macs will still have a niche
but will remain a niche.

Oops but hopefully this is not considered a rant for Mac fans.

Regards,
Xiaofan
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