Comparing iPhones To Lefty Socialists
November 2, 2009 / 7:37 am • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierI must be a paradox: I’m a free-market capitalist and I love the iPhone. From Weissthaupt at Townhall:
Essentially the iPhone is safe from the Droid because most iPhone users are liberals. They are people who WANT a Mommy and Daddy watching over them. iPhone developers must navigate a Byzantine approval process that is so bad, that some even stoop to using Microsoft’s .NET to get things done. Apple tests and approves every application offered on the iPhone to make sure they all play nice together. This of course ensures the phone will deliver the beautiful and slick user experience Apple has decided its users will have. The iPhone is a good example of the “one-size-fits all” top-down mentality of liberals. If you want a different experience from what your masters thinks you SHOULD have and SHOULD want, you are just SOL. The lowercase “i” in iPhone doesn’t occur by accident. The individual just isn’t as important, and the “Phone” takes precedence. Many iPhone and Mac users come near to worshipping Apple and their products, going so far as to genuflect when they turn on a Apple device, ensure they face San Jose 3 times a day to give thanks for their iLife and to pray for the saving of the pagans who do not yet have one.
In contrast, Verizon’s Droid in Particular, and the Android OS in general are created for a different set of users who are interested in an I-Phone rather than a iPhone. They are interested in a “MY LIFE”, rather than an iLife. Open Development is a form of freedom that comes with its own attendant problems: some applications might conflict, the interface will be bit rough around the edges, and you have to look out for and solve these difficulties yourself. I-Phone users will sit down and write applications that fit them, break the new ground they want to explore , and they don’t need nor want a Master approving what they can and can’t do.
Wait just a minute.
There is a fallacy that people who are for free markets don’t want some sort of order. The mistake that the Microsoft and Android makers of the world, and for that matter, some libertarian types make, is that most people would prefer an unordered environment to a hyper-ordered environment.
That is simply not true. People want freedom within order.
The economy cannot flow when anarchy abounds. Exhibit “A”: Detroit. Or any war-zone for that matter. Too often, my PC was a war zone. It crashed. It spluttered. It had freedom to customize. But all I wanted it to do was stay stable so I could do my poopy word processing and multi-media stuff.
Apple, and now the iPhone met that desire while also giving flexibility. It’s not that someone cannot innovate on the iPhone, it’s that they must do so within the laws of the land. So, sadly for some, no porn Apps. Well, the Android will have them. The Android will also have all the weird bugs and viruses that come from this unprotected, aka “open,” platform. Like the PC, it will end up a war zone.
Will there be more innovation? Time will tell.
The lesson the conservatives and libertarians should take from the iPhone is that people want a user-friendly experience with enough flexibility to make it their own. That is, they don’t want to be inhibited by chaos. They also don’t want to be inhibited by over-regulation.
If people believe that Apple is getting too tyrannical, they’ll stop buying the iPhone. They’ll buy the Droid and Apple will have to respond and become more flexible or go out of business.
The iPhone metaphor failed from the beginning.
3 Responses to “Comparing iPhones To Lefty Socialists”
November 2 2009 / 12:40 pm
Reply
The column you cited is the perfect example of an attempt to make something larger than what it really is. It’s borne by a fear of looking vapid for not having a reason to dislike something. There is more intellectual honesty in Weisshaupt simply saying that Apple is run by Commie b*stards and that he won’t give them one patriotic cent.
November 2 2009 / 1:50 pm
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I like your comments about Apple and the iPhone. I do not own one because I do not really need a cell phone with a camera and I don’t want to pay the monthly fee. I can stand to be out of phone contact with most people for a few minutes. A phone with a built in camera would be a security risk where I work. But I do own an iPod Touch that I enjoy a lot. And I prefer to own and use Mac Computers when I have a choice. Why? Because I have found the Mac to be much nicer to own and use than the generic Windows PC, even if the Mac appears to cost more initially and is not as “PC”. I have found that Apple has better Quality Control than most of the others, which is a result of the controls they put on the processes. So I find it more odd that people who claim to be “conservative” object to the very controls that help make it work properly and also help keep the porn and other inappropriate stuff out.
Jim
November 2 2009 / 3:19 pm
Reply
There is a fallacy that people who are for free markets don’t want some sort of order. The mistake that the Microsoft and Android makers of the world, and for that matter, some libertarian types make, is that most people would prefer an unordered environment to a hyper-ordered environment.
That is simply not true. People want freedom within order.
This is why most people with any sense are libertarians and not anarchists… it maximizes both freedom and productivity to have a limited imposition of order.
The iPhone (which I’m sure has lots and lots of advantages, but I wouldn’t buy, if only because I wouldn’t voluntarily give a dime to those #$%$%^$%&^ at AT&T, if nothing else) is not “a limited imposition of order” — it’s a straight jacket.
You do recall who the most common wearers of straight jackets are, correct?
I love the Mac concepts that Xerox PARC developed, expanded, and popularized. If Apple wasn’t a bunch of idiotic fascist SOBs (fascists, not communists) they would STILL own the market.
Many, many years ago, Apple could have, and would have, ruled the world in computing, providing a positive, encouraged-by-dominance direction for computing. Microsoft was a fraction of its size and power, then. Apple was the organization who pointed the way to the future, had the public’s eye, and had the absolute power to say “that way!” and have everyone eager — pantingly so — to follow.
Wired Magazine detailed how one arrogant Gallic idiot, thinking Apple held the public’s leash forever, screwed Apple’s pooch. And in so doing, gave us the chaos of Microsoft instead.
All Apple had to do was to point the way, rather than to yank the leash. Everyone would have happily followed. But leading wasn’t enough, Apple had to own people.
And people don’t like to be owned. Most people would rather live free in poverty than relax in the sheerest luxury with a chain around their necks.
And this is most particularly true of programming types, who are the most cranky, libertarian grouping by class you can find on the planet. These are the people who will produce apps for the Droid, en masse. Mark my words — as many apps you have available for your iPhone, Droid will probably match it inside of a year or two, assuming Droid takes off, as I suspect it will with Verizon behind it.
Sooner or later, Apple will make the same mis-step with the phone they made with personal computing. And a company like Droid will rule the world of pocket aps.
And then Microsoft will buy them out…
What hath Gallic arrogance brought us?