No bricks, please.
Tuesday, September 25th, 2007
You know, I’ve really enjoyed the tiny pocket-sized chunk’o’ user interface magic that I’ve been toting around the past couple of weeks…as much because I can connect to it and its UNIX-y file system via standard tools like ssh, grab screenshots thanks to enterprising third-party developers, and install programs that can do, well, darn near anything.
The iPhone is a wonderful, thoughtful, game-changing piece of design. My fingers are crossed that Apple won’t screw that up by screwing down the pathways that access all of its internal delights. The best UI in the world won’t succeed in the marketplace if the experience of the users is that they have to work in the shadows to use the device to a fraction of its full potential.
I read somewhere that the overwhelming majority of iPhone users within Apple (every employee got one, you know) have unlocked the phone (which is, by the way, not the same as cracking it so that it can be used with every carrier.)
How could they not? It’s too much fun.
Will greed or bad deals (with the likes of AT&T) take that fun away? Hard to say. But on a day where Amazon pushed out a fine, promising DRM-free competitor to iTunes, the answers are likely to become more and more interesting. I’m hoping Apple again will choose the paths of openness…there’s way-plenty of revenue to be gleaned there, from a universe of happy users.
