(As always on this blog, I write only for myself.)
Yesterday the Reality Distortion Field totally failed me. I've never come away from an Apple keynote as disappointed and pessimistic as I did today. It all comes down to choice, and Apple isn't offering us a lot of it today.
First, the iPhone. Mobile security is not easy: it's very hard to encode the notion of "do you want to allow this application access to your hardware?" in a small space and make it easy for users to understand what their choice means. Furthermore, monopolistic carriers want total control, and allowing developers to run code directly on the device opens up the mobile software market in a way that threatens a business model centered around $3.99 ringtones.
All that being said, allowing only, in Apple's words, "applications created with Web 2.0 Internet standards" (whatever those are) is a slap in the face to Apple's developer community. Don't get me wrong, the Web stack is wonderful, and it's the future, and for 95% of the apps that people develop, it's totally the way to go, but there are simply some things that cannot be accomplished without direct access to the OS like any other first-tier application. Cool stuff gets made when people have both easy ways to do easy things and limitless options available with which to be creative, to do the kind of things that no one has even thought of yet. Killer apps push the boundaries of what is possible. When all you provide is a small set of pre-defined APIs to hardware features defined by Apple, you limit developers to a small set of options, and that's hardly creativity at all.
Second, Safari on Windows. This is huge, and great for everyone, because it provides everyone committed to an Open Web the chance to say that the Web is more than a blue e, that standards and innovation on the Web are as alive as ever, and that the future is the Web. Apple has been firmly on the right side of this with Safari, supporting innovative work on the Web like the WHATWG and clearly is committed to an open Web.
And yet, just like the iPhone, Apple offers us "choice lite" with Safari, giving us something that looks kind of like choice, but only if your choices happen to line up with the options provided by Apple. Safari gives you a choice of search engines, but only if you choose Google or Yahoo. Even IE7 provides a one-click link to install new search plugins, and a great feature that helps advanced users build their own search providers. Want Windows Live, Ask, Technorati, IMDB, or a Wikipedia search in your Safari search bar? Too bad. Apple's decided that you get exactly two "choices." No more, no less.
And the lack of choice is more than surface-deep. Every day, developers upload extensions and themes for Firefox and Thunderbird. Mozilla prominently features the Shaver would say, Firefox Add-ons democratize innovation, making it easy for users to become authors and authors to become developers. Mozilla has guides and documentation and community resources available for the thousands of extension developers out there. The next great idea about Web browsers doesn't have to come from someone inside Mozilla, or Microsoft, or Apple; it can come from anywhere, and be available for anyone who wants it to install into Firefox as an extension. Extensions aren't just about developers; extensions give Firefox users the choice to use their browser as they see fit. Furthermore, Many great companies have based their products on the Mozilla platform, and used our work as a jumping off point for their own creations and innovations.
Apple refers to Safari as "open source," but when you look closely, they always choose their words quite carefully, describing it as "open source rendering." That's because, of course, Safari isn't really open source. Its rendering backend is open, but the Safari front-end, the user interface through which we actually use the browser, is all proprietary closed source. Sure, people have written several "extensions" for Safari, but these alterations are essentially hacks, software that hooks into Safari's closed infrastructure without permission from Apple. Apple doesn't write documentation to help people extend Safari, and they certainly don't have tools to make it as easy as possible for people to do so. So yes, Safari's rendering engine is open source, but if you actually want to innovate, do something new, or take advantage of the innovations of others, Apple doesn't offer you much in the way of choice.
In short, what Apple announced today isn't really choice, it's a kind of preschool-esque choice lite: "Son, tonight you get to choose whether to eat brussels sprouts or broccoli for dinner!" You can choose to write your own applications for the iPhone, but not if you want to do something not on Apple's approved list. You can choose any search engine you want, as long as it's Google or Yahoo. You can choose to take advantage of Safari's open source backend, as long as you don't want to do anything to the frontend. It kind of looks like choice if you don't know any better, but eating carrots or cheesecake for dinner instead isn't a valid option: you've got to eat the sprouts or the brocalli or your parents won't let you go out and play.
There once was a time when Apple encouraged us all to Think Different, to be creative and do things that were never possible before. The Web is the ultimate creativity platform, and the one thing we know about creativity is that it flourishes in an environment of innovation and choice. Choice not only between a few pre-defined options, but from a palette of possibilities as limitless as the current technology allows. I might think sprouts are good; you might think broccoli is good, and we both should get to choose, but the truly creative one makes a totally new dish, combining the ingredients together, adding their own secret sauce, and serving up something new for everyone to try. Mozilla hands you the kitchen, gives you a few recipes that have worked well in the past, and lets you be the next Ironchef and serve your creation to the world. What Apple gave us at WWDC looks kind of like choice if you don't know any better, but really, it's not. The Web needs the true freedom for all of us to choose, create, and innovate.