[MatthewPhillips]

> I think the article misses one of the fundamental reasons that mobile is a closed environment: fear. It seems we treat things we can put in our pocket as more personal and much different than the twilight zone we expect out of computers.

Mobile is closed because Apple is closed, were wildly successful when they entered the market, and everyone else followed suit. There success wasn't due to the closed nature, but as is always the case, it became the standard way of doing things.

[adestefan]

Mobile is closed because the network providers are terrified of letting devices that they cannot control on their network.

[MatthewPhillips]

There are more than one layer of closed, and you're right, that layer has always been closed, but from the software side it's a new phenomenon. Pocket PCs and Palms did not share the modern security model. Apple gave us that.

[protomyth]

If the phone OS originated on a PDA, it wasn't locked on the phone version, but for all the other phones, it was a serious PITA to get software out there. Remember BREW and the costs to deploy / get approved (that was the easy one).

Apple didn't give up that. Apple followed the non-PDA path.

[adestefan]

Apple has also repeatedly said that iOS upgrades have been delayed because of carrier review. Same for Google Nexus updates. We all know the disaster that has been 3rd party Android updates because of vendor and carrier review.

[rolux]

In addition to that, mobile is closed because hardware manufacturers, software companies and network providers all seem to agree that the combination of mandated personalization and permanent tracking is a potential gold mine.

[jlgreco]

Remember though that there are no carriers in the world that only permit phones as locked down as the iPhone.