notes and views on crm, social media, and the human side of information technology

Apple’s way isn’t the only way

Dare Obasanjo made an excellent argument about user experience and the open ecosystem can fail when it doesn’t deliver that. It was particularly painful for me to read and acknowledge. Openness is a virtue but virtue alone doesn’t make a viable business model.

Developers go where the users are. Users go where they can get the best user experience for the right price. Openness of the platform only helps if it improves the user experience, thus attracting more users and reinforcing the virtuous cycle.

He then goes on and compares the Windows Mobile way of installing software versus the iPhone way. Needless to say, Windows gets quite a beating.

As someone who has recently had his WinMo smartphone go nuts to a point it had to be re-flashed, I am not blinds to the faults of the platform. Neither am I turning my head away from the unfulfilled promises of the Linux-based handsets. It’s bad.

Is the Apple model worth following, then? Should Google play their game with Android?

I believe not. Though mobile phones are not PCs (and Windows Mobile fails most when it makes you think differently), they are not iPods either. They fall somewhere in between. So it’s OK if they are married to laptops for the purpose of installing software and/or maintenance - as long as the guy manning the laptop doesn’t have to do much thinking.

It’s the platform’s jobs to make that marriage a success. Everything else can be left to developers. And they will come if that experience makes sense. If Android or any other platform can start making sense, I don’t see why it wouldn’t attract its share of hearts and minds.

Additional reading

September 29, 2008 | Filed Under Software delivery, Telco 

comments

Leave a Reply