Apple Is a Magic Maker
One of the bigger pieces of tech news this week is the release of Apple's iPad tablet computer. The device looks very spiffy: it's fast, it has good screen quality, and it provides the user interface to which people have grown accustomed on the iPhone. However, many bloggers have expressed concern about the openness of the platform. Apple has directly interposed itself as the gatekeeper of development for the device; the iPhone store is the only practical place for most people to acquire new software, and Apple is charging developers $99 to publish via their store. People are expressing concern that it breaks the traditional flow of software development for PCs, creating a world of technological "haves" and "have-nots."
But such a world already existed. Apple is just monetizing it. And that may not be a bad thing.
Apple's approach to software development is a bit like magic. Specifically, it's a bit like the commercial practice of magic as an entertainment art. In the professional magic industry, there are two consumers: the audiences who come to be entertained, and the magicians themselves who develop and practice new tricks and acts. The funny thing about magic is that it's an industry in which most of the participants are willfully, voluntarily kept in the dark about how it works. Indeed, most audience members prefer to be surprised by the magician; knowledge of the inner workings of the craft would spoil the trick.
In the Apple ecosystem, the developers are magicians. They have the tools and skill to make the machine do amazing things. The end-user is the audience; they aren't there to practice magic, they're there to experience magic safely. It isn't their responsibility to make the magic work, and it is the magician's responsibility to wow the audience and not harm them. Apple has placed itself in the role of a magician's guild; by sanctioning practitioners (and reserving the right to revoke the sanction if their work becomes harmful to the audience), Apple is trying to keep the overall public perception of the craft pure. They want to guarantee that everyone's experience is, above all else, magical.
It's not an approach that sits well with me personally. But I've had the training to know that computers don't do magic. Whether Apple is successful with this approach will, in the end, depend on whether there are more paying customers out there who would rather sit in the audience than be on the stage.
My guess is that there are a lot more.
Take care,
Mark
But such a world already existed. Apple is just monetizing it. And that may not be a bad thing.
Apple's approach to software development is a bit like magic. Specifically, it's a bit like the commercial practice of magic as an entertainment art. In the professional magic industry, there are two consumers: the audiences who come to be entertained, and the magicians themselves who develop and practice new tricks and acts. The funny thing about magic is that it's an industry in which most of the participants are willfully, voluntarily kept in the dark about how it works. Indeed, most audience members prefer to be surprised by the magician; knowledge of the inner workings of the craft would spoil the trick.
In the Apple ecosystem, the developers are magicians. They have the tools and skill to make the machine do amazing things. The end-user is the audience; they aren't there to practice magic, they're there to experience magic safely. It isn't their responsibility to make the magic work, and it is the magician's responsibility to wow the audience and not harm them. Apple has placed itself in the role of a magician's guild; by sanctioning practitioners (and reserving the right to revoke the sanction if their work becomes harmful to the audience), Apple is trying to keep the overall public perception of the craft pure. They want to guarantee that everyone's experience is, above all else, magical.
It's not an approach that sits well with me personally. But I've had the training to know that computers don't do magic. Whether Apple is successful with this approach will, in the end, depend on whether there are more paying customers out there who would rather sit in the audience than be on the stage.
My guess is that there are a lot more.
Take care,
Mark