iPhone/iPod Touch Third-Party Apps: Another Revenue Stream for Apple

October 15, 2007
By

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

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Apple has become greedy and expects an ever-increasing amount of control over the consumer electronics it sells. Customers have become consumers and Apple wants to have a hand in their pocket over the lifetime of the product. In fact, even thinking of these devices as products is wrong - they’re revenue streams.

Over the months I’ve said some very unkind things about the iPhone and vowed that I wouldn’t buy one because, while it has the makings of being a good mobile platform, I’m just not seeing that in practice just yet. A locked down, black-box system isn’t a good start.

Given how incredibly strong sales of the iPhone have been I doubt that Apple will change the way it operates enough for the second generation iPhone to be a much better gamble. I’m betting that the next iPhone will be even more locked down than the current incarnation and that Apple will have come up with more innovative ways to make more money from it.

What I’m hoping is that other companies will take a critical look at the iPhone and decide there is money to be made from developing a really good convergence device and come out with a robust, open mobile platform. I’m happy at having paid-for apps on offer but I’d also like to be able to dip into the wealth of open source offerings without fear that my cell phone will be smited by the next update just because I dared to think a little different and want a little more.

I’m confident that decent mobile platforms will emerge over the next year or so, and that these will be friendly to open source applications, but I’m also certain that these devices won’t have the Apple logo on them.