How do you boil a frog? Slowly. Apparently the same is true for endusers and even software developers. That at least is what Apple seems to believe. And while this has been debunked for frogs (they do jump out as the water gets too warm), it’s not clear that the same is true for humans. We seem all too willing to trade off having a shiny device for accepting ever more restrictions on what we can do with that device.
I wonder how long it will take before people realize how much they are losing when instead of a general purpose computer they have a locked down device controlled by a central choke point. I am especially curious when developers like Marco will conclude that this is no longer in their interest. And I am fascinated to see Gruber write a long post arguing that Apple’s new ebook “standard” is not a classic case of embrace, extend and extinguish. What line of control does Apple have to cross for him to say it’s actually a step too far?
The latest tightening of control by Apple is making some APIs accessible only to applications sold through their store. I am not talking about apps for the iPhone or iPad here but applications for laptops and the Mac Mini. You can read more about it here. This whole direction is rather upsetting because I really like my MacBook. But I don’t enjoy being boiled, not even slowly.
