[api]

A platform as closed as iOS is a devil's bargain. You get cleanliness, ease of use, simplicity, and in many ways improved security. But in exchange you give up freedom, control of your own property, and ultimately the potential for any innovation beyond the imagination or agenda of the platform's benevolent dictators.

The same, I think, is true for closed proprietary cloud platforms like those offered by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. They're the enterprise version of iOS, and the trade is very much the same: do things our way and get a clean experience, but give up the opportunity to ever leave or to ever do anything in any way other than ours.

[specialist]

With Apple, one gets (more) freedom from harassment.

My partner is switching back from Android to iPhone. Her latest software update embedded ads everywhere and borked the contacts. It's too much.

Some of us are older, tired of doing tech supp, and just want stuff to work.

[izacus]

And you can get stuff that works without supporting closed ecosystems. Age is a bad excuse to not take a moment to check what you're buying.

[kup0]

Or maybe for some of us it's okay to use a closed ecosystem as long as we understand the limitations that come with it? Maybe it's worth it for what we perceive as the benefits of such a system?

"Age is a bad excuse" Do we need an excuse for using a closed ecosystem? It's a choice and one that doesn't have to be justified to anyone but ourselves.

[izacus]

You can choose to use whatever you like, but implying that good user experience requires closed ecosystem is a false dichotomy and those two aren't connected. There is absolutely no reason why iOS couldn't provide current user experience for majority of users and still allow applications with advanced functionality to be sideloaded.

Also you may choose whatever you like, but painting non-Apple ecosystems as being homogenous is completely wrong. There are several manufacturers providing other OSes with different features and throwing all Androids (and others) with same stroke does annoy people. Just because you cannot be bothered to check a difference between a Samsung and a Nexus device it does not mean that such difference does not exist.

[api]

I think you're exactly right and I wish people wouldn't downmod. I've been downmodded to hell for bringing up the same point on several occasions.

Open platforms have crummy UX, especially for people who are not computer experts. This explains why people are willing to make the bargain I outlined above. If open systems advocates are ever to offer a compelling alternative, they need to find alternative non-dictatorial ways to respond to these rather severe security and usability problems.

The first step to fixing a problem isn't to pretend it doesn't exist.

[elliptic]

How is that a 'devil's bargain'? Just seems like an everyday deal to me.

[throwaway2048]

the web is also similar, you are locked into a restrictive api that vendors choose to support (or not...)

[dustingetz]

if a web problem is worth solving we can build a new browser which solves it, which is what google did vs microsoft. That is simply not allowed on apple hardware.

[throwaway2048]

you could also build a new cellphone, the point is the barriers are extraordinarily high.

[tshtf]

How are the PaaS offerings of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google closed? You use their API or website to deploy standardized VMs, from which any open-source or COTS software can be used for configuration.

[api]

If you build your app around things like Amazon's databases, lambda, etc., then you can't run it (easily) anywhere but on Amazon EC2. It's basically a giant mainframe that runs a proprietary mainframe OS.

Of course you can use a-la-carte VMs in EC2 and do it that way and avoid platform lock-in, but Amazon is increasingly steering users away from that toward managed systems. These managed systems do have short term benefits (just like iOS does), but the long term bargain is similar.