Some people think “open” systems are “better” than closed ones and cite this as a mantra. These are easy terms for fanboys to coalesce around but rather meaningless when you’re a serious business creating products for sale, especially if your goal is to create an extremely user friendly mass market product.
On a more sophisticated level its possible to analyse the problem differently.
In Apple’s case when they started to create iOS they looked back at their long experience (since before 1984) with the Mac. When the Mac was first being developed in the early 80s, Steve Jobs hired a very bright engineer named Jef Raskin, a specialist in Human Computer Interface design to lead the development of MacOS 1. Raskin’s chief idea was that a computer should be like an appliance, like a toaster. People should just use it and not have to deal with all kinds of technical details (eg setting up a wifi network or updating the OS or wondering where you saved files, etc.). Raskin’s used the term “information appliance” for this vision of a computing device.
Raskin was one of the driving forces in the development of the MacOS but in the end, to his mind and to Jobs’s (to the extent that he felt Raskin made powerful arguments for his case), the Mac was (and is) a failure because it’s still too complex for the average joe. An early rallying cry of the Mac was “a computer for the rest of us”. But as we know, the rest of us turned out to be geeks and engineers and designers and illustrators and writers who at least learned to do the more common computer tasks necessary to get some work done. It’s important not to fall into the trap of thinking that geeks and IT sophisticated people are the majority of potential computer users, they’re not “the rest of us” that Apple has in mind for iOS.
It’s Apple’s analysis that although Macs are relatively easy to use by PC standards they are still extremely complicated for a large population of potential users. Typical users don’t know where they saved their files, have a neighbour help them set up their wifi and email, get confused where the app they downloaded went to, etc. What’s more, a lot of people who do know how to fiddle with a computer actually don’t want to, they find it robs them of time they need to do other stuff, either physically or mentally.
It’s Apple’s analysis that if you take away a lot of the complexity of how a machine works, inexperienced users can get to doing real things far more quickly and convincingly and experienced users can be more focused and productive.
It’s their analysis that If you spend enormous amounts of time working out design details that affect usability, you can make an OS which is both powerful yet simple and which helps users “discover” hidden powers (the Human-Computer Interface Concept of discoverability).
So basically Apple set out to design a new class of computer without the complexity of PCs but with a large proportion of its power. This required a closed system to achieve. Yes you give up that power to tinker with the system but its Apple’s analysis that tinkering is not why people buy computers. When you analyse all the complaints about Apple’s so called closed system for example, that apps have to be approved through a vetting process or you can only buy apps through the app store, etc, you can see that Apple’s goal is to simplify the user experience (avoid viruses, scamware, etc) and make it trustworthy.
That certain people are offended by this approach is obvious though its not quite obvious why its so offensive to them when it comes to computers but they drive cars that are closed systems, shop in shops which are closed systems, route for sports teams which are closed systems etc.
Steve Jobs said at all things digital that this concept of simplicity is Apple’s bet for what people want. He said, if people think we’re wrong they won’t buy our products. Right now, he said, we’re not getting that message.
