"In multitasking, if you see a task manager... they blew it. Users shouldn't ever have to think about it." -Steve Jobs
"You know, there's a porn store for Android. Anyone can download them. You can, your kids can. That's just not a place we want to go." - Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs confirmed the Apple philosophy during today's event with the above two quotes. That philosophy is that Apple controls the entire experience leaving few customization or tweaking options for the end user. The user shouldn't have to think, as "it should just work".
This is exactly why on forums like this, and blogs like Engadget, we see people who aren't excited about Apple's announcement today. We are geeks. With that geekdom comes a desire to want to tweak a gadget, to really get to the guts of a gadget and "fool around" so to speak.
That's not what Apple wants their users to do. Apple's objective with the iPhone is to keep it so simple, anyone can grab it and do things on there. I equate it to a bicycle with training wheels that is limited to a set path. You won't fall down on your journey, and you have a single gear to choose from, and the path is already set for you so getting to your destination will be safe and easy though at the cost of "fun". Android on the other hand is a 10-speed bike. There's a bit of a learning curve, and you might crash along the way but once you figure it out you can go down a path of your choice and have fun along the way.
I believe Apple could easily address both groups. Instead of fighting jailbreaking at every update, embrace it like WebOS has. Let users decide to load applications from outside of the app store, so we can access porn or Google voice if we want to. Don't be scared of the tweakers and the jailbreakers, they've done some cool stuff over the years and are in fact the sole reason Apple sold many iPhones.
Your average iPhone user has no idea about today's event. Maybe in the next few weeks they'll hear from one of their geek friends that the iPhone will do multitasking this summer and that'll excite them. That's Apple's target audience.
"You know, there's a porn store for Android. Anyone can download them. You can, your kids can. That's just not a place we want to go." - Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs confirmed the Apple philosophy during today's event with the above two quotes. That philosophy is that Apple controls the entire experience leaving few customization or tweaking options for the end user. The user shouldn't have to think, as "it should just work".
This is exactly why on forums like this, and blogs like Engadget, we see people who aren't excited about Apple's announcement today. We are geeks. With that geekdom comes a desire to want to tweak a gadget, to really get to the guts of a gadget and "fool around" so to speak.
That's not what Apple wants their users to do. Apple's objective with the iPhone is to keep it so simple, anyone can grab it and do things on there. I equate it to a bicycle with training wheels that is limited to a set path. You won't fall down on your journey, and you have a single gear to choose from, and the path is already set for you so getting to your destination will be safe and easy though at the cost of "fun". Android on the other hand is a 10-speed bike. There's a bit of a learning curve, and you might crash along the way but once you figure it out you can go down a path of your choice and have fun along the way.
I believe Apple could easily address both groups. Instead of fighting jailbreaking at every update, embrace it like WebOS has. Let users decide to load applications from outside of the app store, so we can access porn or Google voice if we want to. Don't be scared of the tweakers and the jailbreakers, they've done some cool stuff over the years and are in fact the sole reason Apple sold many iPhones.
Your average iPhone user has no idea about today's event. Maybe in the next few weeks they'll hear from one of their geek friends that the iPhone will do multitasking this summer and that'll excite them. That's Apple's target audience.
