I use a lot of Apple products, and I like them. I’ve come to depend on the versatility of Mac OS X: rather than having to choose between Windows for good productivity tools and Linux for good engineering tools, I can have all those tools together in one OS X system. The iPhone combines a lot of useful functionality in a compact device that allows me to stay connected wherever I go. The Time Capsule combines two essential features, a backup drive and a wireless router, in one turnkey appliance. MobileMe synchronizes my calendar and address book seamlessly across all these devices.
Among the themes that unite these products are vertical integration and a consistent, centrally-controlled design language. Those themes are not always virtues, however.
With the iPhone, Apple controls not only the design of the device and its built-in software, but also the only distribution channel for third-party software. Yes, be fair, there is at least one independent alternative to Apple’s App Store. To shop there, though, a consumer must “jailbreak” the iPhone. Because there is no supported way of installing an alternate operating system on the iPhone, the people who provide jailbreaking tools have to engage in reverse-engineering and clever hacking simply to enable a customer to install their choice of software on the hardware they’ve bought.
The lack of an alternate distribution channel might not be troubling to me if the official App Store were an open marketplace. Alas, vendors can only sell their software in the App Store if Apple approves and reviews it. Apple has blocked products from competitors such as Google. Greeting card parody website someecards recently submitted an iPhone application for Apple’s approval. Apple refused to allow the app to be sold in the App Store because it contained “content that ridicules public figures“–specifically Roman Polanski and Adolf Hitler. Presumably Apple was just enforcing editorial standards in order to maintain a high quality of content in the App Store, right? Well, maybe not. When someeecards relented and created a version of their app without the contentious content, Apple finally approved it for sale in the App Store, right alongside other apps that met Apple’s standards for quality and tastefulness: apps like, well, I’ll let TechCrunch explain that part.
As a consumer, I’ve come to expect that retailers will apply their own biases in deciding what products to sell. And in a free market, I will buy from businesses whose biases are compatible with my own. Thus what bothers me about Apple is not the apparent hypocrisy of an App Store that banned the dark humor of someecards but approved the controversial Pepsi “Amp up before you score” app. No, what bothers me is that Apple owns the only store and has attempted to wield the DMCA as a means to prevent anyone from building a competing store.
Even OS X, my favorite part of the Apple ecosystem, allows me no choice other than vertical integration. I can buy Windows and install it on any compatible brand of computer. I can download Linux and install it on any compatible brand of computer. I can buy OS X and install it on, well, any “Apple-labeled computer.”
Apple’s strategy of centrally controlled, vertical integration has yielded some fine products. Furthermore, it has produced substantial profits for the company. As a user of Apple products, I am happy. As a shareholder of AAPL, I am happy. As a customer, I am increasingly disappointed.
