This year I plan to bitch about the iPhone one day every day until its release. This article on Ars Technica’s Infinite Loop journal links to confirmation that the iPhone will be closed to independent developers, because Steve Jobs wants it that way.
That article makes plenty of good points, but the best was raised in the forum discussion. One poster mentions CoverFlow. That’s the feature that Apple’s making a big deal about in regards to the iPhone. Turn the thing on its side, and you get to flick through all your album cover art with an incredible interface that the geniuses at Apple invented.
Except, wait, they didn’t. It was made by an independent developer and released as freeware until Apple bought up the IP to incorporate into iTunes 7. What could be better proof that independent developers come up with good ideas? And how can you get off demanding total control over a platform and still insisting that you’re leading in innovation?