Microblog Memes

I will never forgive Apple for fucking over the open web. When the iPhone launched it was web-only. You could 'install' web apps, and any device APIs - accelerated graphics, hardware sensors, location, offline storage, intents, contacts lists, push notifications - were user-selected and presented as standard JavaScript interfaces. One app, literally every platform, and iPhone was there first. It was in a period where every platform was rushing to support web applications with high-performance browser engines and Apple looked like they were going to do for websites-as-applications what they had done for USB ten years earlier: recognise it as the best way forward and push it hard, compatibility be damned.

Then the iPhone started selling well and they got fucking dollar signs in their eyes, realising how much money there was to be made forcing everyone to develop on their platform, in their language, for thier devices. Apps, distribution channels, operating system, services, devices, development, all of it on their terms and on thier platforms. The second they became mainstream they started locking everyone into their vertical ecosystem and wringing as much cash out as they could, exposing their hipocracy and showing that they were as anti-competetive and destructive as Microsoft at their 1990s worst.

In 1980, a large number of experts in business and general tech predicted that by 1990 most written communications would be fully electronic, something akin to email. What they didn't predict was the appearance of the fax machine, which was novel enough to be exciting but simple enough to be understood, and people flocked to it. As a result, electronic communication was stalled for about twenty years. I have no doubt that at some point in the future, Apps will be seen the same way but I think it will take a lot longer to get there.