1) You are right in your first point. When I originally re-read my paper, I realized it seemed like it was informative and I'd much rather have a point in my paper which is why I wrote what I did in the second post. So I will have an ultimate thesis, but haven't exactly figured out what its going to be.

You are right, there hasnt be as much backlash for having laptops closed and patriarchal. But I think that's because there is little post-sale money making potential compared to that of mobile devices that need data streams to function. So I think Apple hasn't had a need to be patriarchal as much with its laptops. AT&T, and Verizon aren't weighing in the situation when Apple sells a computer. It's just Apple and it makes most of its money off the sale of the device itself. But, when Apple is making 30% of every mobile phone service plan from AT&T (back when they had an exclusive agreement), there was a much bigger incentive for APple to close the system so that people couldn't use their phones on T-mobile or Verizon. So you're point about computers being not as patriarchal is well received but I think its less applicable to iOS and iDevices because of the post-sale potential to generate substantial revenue

2) I think I read that it was between 6-10% of people jailbreak their phones. But that also doesn't account for the number of users who don't even buy iphones in the first place because other phones are more "open" (at least that's what they say...it bugs the hell out of me when most of my friends say that who don't have iPhones because I ask them what it means and they can't tell me and even if they do know what it means they run nothing on their phone that can't be run on an iPhone...but anyways...back to the point)...So perhaps some overall statistic of not only people who jailbreak but also people who believe other systems are more "open" and for that reason choose against purchasing an iPhone.

3) Talking about tethering I think would be a great idea. They didn't allow it for the longest time and now they do allow but. The example of tethering is probably great to also show the interplay between mobile phone service providers and the handset providers themselves, and ultimately how much control the service providers have. Now, if you want tethering (legitimately from AT&T, for example), you have to pay for a tethering plan; which is absolutely stupid because you are already paying for a data plan so if you pay for tethering it is like paying for the same data twice. I think this example would be great to include because it shows how Apple and the service providers reacted to free tethering. Thank you for that example. I'll do some research on that. I'm not sure I agree 100% with your point about Apple taking a while to integrate things into their system because of a long product development cycle. And perhaps you can elaborate more on how the fact that they are a "large company with standards and a lot of inertia" matters and what that actually even means. Apple takes a long time to integrate these things into their phones because they ultimately want to give users enough reason to upgrade. Apple could release minor software updates to whatever current OS is operating and add a simple copy and paste function. I'm sure it took developers not long at all to develop their own copy/paste feature and the same is true for jailbreakers. Apple seems to hold off on keeping useful functions from their native OS until they can package them a year later all together into a new iOS, on a new phone. I'm not sure if they still are charging for software updates on iPod touches, but they used to charge money to upgrade your iPod touch software to the newest iteration.

I guess my overall point then is that while Apple tries to be (and I think really is) a company that does a lot of great innovation, it subordinates innovation to making money. Free software is about figuring out the best way to implement a task and send it out for whoever to use and to improve. Apple implements innovative programs in yearly cycles into its native iOS and not incrementally because it wants to give people reasons to switch over. It seems like a marketing technique. If Apple comes out with a new OS, and it has all these great new features, it is more dramatic and more persuasive to switch, than Apple incrementally updating software as their new ideas come to them. I shouldn't need to go to a third party for a simple copy and paste function, because you're right, it definitely is better when it runs natively...But, I also don't want to wait 1 year, 2 years, etc., until Apple releases an official native copy/paste function either. The open source movement would probably could have given me any function I have on iOS5 two years ago when iOS3 came out.

4) I have almost no knowledge about specific open source movements in general like the ones you have listed so I don't know if I would be able to talk intelligently about them and how Apple has benefitted from those specific ones. But I will look them up and see if I read anything that I can use.

-- AustinKlar - 15 Oct 2011