Category: Reviews

Book, Movie, Television, and Product Reviews

Every Man is an End in Himself

Bradley Farless2 Comments

“Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.”

~Ayn Rand

I’ve read Ayn Rand’s short story, Anthem (click here to (legally) download for free from Project Gutenberg), and I thought it was really great.  I also have Atlas Shrugs on my ‘to read’ list, but I’m not too familiar with the rest of her work.  This quote, though, is very thought provoking and inspiring, so I wanted to share it.  It’s the third of four tenets of her philosophy of Objectivism.

Unthinkable Is a Brutal, Must Watch Movie

Bradley Farless13 Comments

unthinkable-review The movie Unthinkable uses the current problem of Muslim extremists attacking the US as a backdrop for a psychological thriller that wants you to question how far you would go to protect your country.  The big issues in the film are justice versus torture and whether the good of the many should be sacrificed for moral uprightness.  I think the use of Muslim extremists in the film was meant to keep the story contemporary and give it a modern backdrop that people could understand and relate to.  It could have been any terrorist of any ethnicity or religion in that chair.  It could have been any country, well, any democratic country that respects human rights anyway.

I had no idea what the movie was about when I started watching it.  I just saw that it was popular and got a copy.  As the story unfolded I became completely engrossed in it.  The acting was done well, the sets are believable and the storyline is well written.  I was kind of shocked at how graphic the movie is.  There’s a lot of violence and a lot of bloody visuals.  It doesn’t pull punches.  It wants you to know just how extreme the measures being employed are.  It wants you to connect with the characters and become emotional about the outcome.  For me, it succeeded.  I was hooked.

The weird twist in the movie are the demands that the terrorist has.  They’re not demands in the usual idea of demands because what he wants isn’t something that’s going to be detrimental to the US.  In fact, they’re demands that most Americans have of the government that are being unmet by the administration, regardless of the promises Obama made during his campaign, or they’re just demands that make sense anyway.  I won’t give it away because I don’t want to spoil the movie for anyone, but I think his demands were completely reasonable.  Even so, his methods for trying to reach his goals are insane, and there’s no way to justify them.

As for the torture, I’m sure that somewhere, right now, someone is being tortured, backed up by US funding.  It’s been done before, and I’m sure it’ll continue to happen.  It just won’t be done publically.  Does that bother me?  Sure, but only because the US government is, by and large, ineffective and I’m sure that innocent people get caught up in the meat grinder.  But, if the person that’s being tortured is definitely in possession of information that could save lives, I don’t see why every means necessary shouldn’t be employed to extract information.  Can you really say that it’s not worth it to torture one man, when it could save 10s of millions of people?  But how far would you take it?  Would you take it past him?  Would you use his wife and children against him?  Would you put them in the torture chamber right along with him?  Those are tough questions.

At the end, I was left thinking over the issues that the movie presented.  It’s really quite good.  I think the biggest question I had for myself at the end of the movie was, ‘What would I do if I were in their position?  Could I justify it to myself?’  Would I take the moral high ground or would I be practical and save millions of lives?  The answer is yes.  Yes, I could and would.  Being ethical and morally upright is great, but how would you tell millions of relatives of victims that they can rest easy, because you took the moral high ground and stood up for the terrorist that killed their children, brothers, parents, or spouses?  Personally, I’d rather have blood on my hands and know that I saved millions of lives.  That would be my sacrifice, but it would be one that I could easily live with.

The caveat to this is that this is just a movie, and this type of ideal situation, with all of the concrete evidence and things falling so smoothly into place probably doesn’t happen very often.  I’m not advocating the widespread use of torture, but in particular instances, like the one in the movie, I wouldn’t have a problem with it.

Review: Clash of the Titans (2010)

Bradley Farless8 Comments

Clash of the Titans is an exciting movie that delivered exactly what I expected: an action packed, special effects extravaganza that kept me entertained from start to finish.  If you haven’t seen the movie yet, it would be a mistake going into it thinking you’re going to walk away with any deep revelations about the mysteries of life, or leave with some profound new sense of well being.  That’s not what Clash of the Titans is about.  This really isn’t as serious a movie as I thought it would be.  It felt more like Scorpion King, where you’re meant to focus on the fun and action, rather than the storyline.

I really enjoyed that the movie didn’t try to be something it wasn’t.  The movie was all about action, and they kept the dialogue light, with lots of wit and humor thrown in to keep the audience engaged.  The only time the story veered from that style was at the end, when Perseus had to deal with the main antagonist, which is fitting.  It can’t all be fun and games.

I’ve always been a sword & sorcery fan and enjoyed reading about Greek mythology as a kid, so it was very cool to see the mythological characters and stories I’d read about come alive on the big screen.  I’ll definitely be adding this movie to my collection, to be re-watched when I want to see fast paced action and get a thrill.

It also didn’t hurt that the main female characters were all pretty hot:

Princess Andromeda

Io, cursed with agelessness for refusing the advances of a god.

Also, the boatman who ferries souls across the River Styx was pretty cool too.  Looking at this guy, and his boat, really makes you feel like you’re on your way to hell.

Update: We watched the 2D version, because the 3D effects reportedly suck pretty hard. The movie wasn’t filmed in 3D like Avatar was. It was done through rushed post-processing to try to capitalize on people’s excitement over 3D.

Book Review: Atlantis by David Gibbins

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As the title suggests, this book deals with the legend of Atlantis and the chain of events that lead up to its fictional discovery by Jack Howard and his colleagues from IMU.  Jack Howard and IMU are both fictional and play a role in quite a few of David Gibbins’ books, all dealing with archaeology and the discovery of lost secrets and treasures.  The first ‘Jack Howard’ book I read was called The Last Gospel, which dealt with a possible alternative history of the Catholic church (a pretty popular theme over the last decade).

By itself, Atlantis was a fairly good book, especially if you have an interest in history.  The reason I say that is because Gibbins weaves fiction and fact together to create these stories, conveniently leaving a section at the end pointing out what was fictional and created for the purpose of telling the story.  So, you can learn something and be entertained at the same time.

That’s also where it fails.  The story is so heavily reliant on the reader knowing details about actual events that there always seems to be a multiple page character discussion, or a monologue, where certain elements of history are spelled out in great detail to the reader.  This also applies to every tool or piece of equipment that’s being used.  They’re described in excessive detail, from what the control panel looks like to how it works, to the theories behind why it works.  For a while that’s great, but after seeing devices and ideas consistently spelled out like this throughout the book it starts to get a bit tiresome.  Some things should be left to the reader’s imagination, or for the reader to infer from the story.

This is really noticeable at the end of the book.  There are actually two endings.  There’s the point where it should’ve ended, and the part where the text actually stops.  I won’t spoil it by saying exactly where it should’ve stopped, because for anyone interested in an alternative history type novel, this is certainly worth the time it takes to read, but Gibbins went overboard and filled the last few pages with another ‘explain everything’ character discussion.  Instead of leaving the reader to use the grey stuff between their ears and realize what was really going on with Atlantis, Gibbins spends multiple pages spelling it out to you, just in case you’re too stupid to figure it out on your own.

Despite that, I still enjoyed the book because I do have an interest in history and archaeology and I enjoyed being able to learn about those two topics in story form, rather than as a straight-up text book.

So, don’t go out and spend a bunch of money on this book, but if you see it on the bargain rack go for it.

Book Review: The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry

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The Templar Legacy is a book by Steve Berry that details an adventure involving American agents, holdouts of the centuries old Templar brotherhood and the quest for the Great Devise.  The Great Devise is a factual cache of treasure and knowledge that was hidden away from the French King, Phillip IV, during The Great Purge in 1307 when the Templars were wiped out for political reasons.

The story is very compelling, if a bit flimsy in parts.  Some of the characters’ actions are a bit questionable compared to how I imagine people would react (and act) in real life, but if you just take the book at face value you’ll definitely be entertained, especially if you love religious mystery books and you might even learn something new about Church history.  That’s one thing The Templar Legacy has going for it.  As I was reading it, I wasn’t sure how much of the story was based on fact and how much was based on fiction, but the author was kind enough to include a section at the end of the book detailing what parts of the story were based on history and what he made up for the sake of the fiction.

I’ve always been attracted to religious mystery stories.  I really enjoyed watching The Da Vinci Code, though I haven’t read the book yet.  I also really enjoyed reading Angels & Demons, though the movie couldn’t hold my interest for more than 20 minutes.  So, it was really easy for me to pick up The Templar Legacy and thoroughly enjoy it.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=talovecof-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0345504410&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrReligion is one of the greatest mysteries and greatest influential forces in the world.  I think that at some point everyone realizes that there must be some greater force at work and they want to know and understand what that force is.  For Christians, that force is God.  The nature of God and Jesus Christ is a subject that this book deals heavily with.  The author takes aspects of actual history, like the Templars, the Great Purge and the Great Devise, and crafts it into a story that will both educate you (if you’re not familiar with Templar history) and cause you to question what you believe.

Some people, like the Catholic Church, ban certain items from the consumption of ‘good Catholics’ because it may make them question what the Church has said about certain subjects.  Years ago I had a friend that refused to watch the movie Stigmata with me because the Catholic Church said it wasn’t proper for good Catholics to watch it.  Personally, I think that we should all question our beliefs regularly.  It’s only through questioning what we believe that we can gain greater understanding.

If you enjoy religious mystery books, Church history, or even just a good mystery / thriller, I think The Templar Legacy will definitely be worth your time.

More Thoughts on Avatar

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(Read my Avatar Movie Review.)

Some of the comments I’ve seen on Twitter about Avatar say that the movie has a weak storyline and that you should just watch it for the special effects.  It’s true that some plot elements of Avatar can be found in other movies, but I think people are being over critical.  Think about it.  Movies have been in production for about a hundred years now.  Some plot elements are bound to be reused.  You can see the same thing happening in books.  So, instead of watching the movie with the intent to tear apart the plot, you should appreciate the movie for what it is, and for how artfully the story is told.  Besides, it’s really not that weak.  The movie itself is symbolic of a problem that we’re all facing now, in the world around us.

The humans in Avatar have traveled across a vast distance to Pandora in search of raw materials.  They’re there to mine for an ore that’s very valuable on Earth.  I got the impression it was a fuel source of some kind.  In their pursuit of this raw material, they ruthlessly destroy the environment around them without regard for the impact it has on the native population.  The same could be said of what we’re doing to our own planet.  In the pursuit of industrialization we’re polluting our planet at an ever increasing pace.  We’re destroying the habitats of animals.  We’re causing the extinction of whole species.  In some places, like parts of China, we’ve caused the environment to be so toxic that the people living there are seeing massive increases in birth defects and cancer related deaths.

I think that Avatar is trying to teach us that we should be more aware of what we’re doing to our world.  We should take the time to find ways to reduce our impact and to learn to coexist with nature, rather than destroy it for our own ends.  For all our technology, if we continue to pollute our world we’ll one day find ourselves without clean sources of food and water.  The Earth has limited resources after all.  I’m not saying we should all become vegetarian ‘tree-huggers’ but if we can start making a conscious effort on an individual level to reduce our impact, it can add up to a huge difference.  Think about how much better the world would be if everyone recycled, if no one littered, if firm controls were put on industries everywhere as to how their toxic waste was disposed of.  We have the tools available to us already.  We just need to use them.

Avatar is a great movie with a great message that we can all enjoy and learn from.

Avatar Movie Review

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Avatar is the best movie I’ve seen in years.  It’s so good in fact that it’s also the first movie to come out in years that I feel is worth paying more money for, to own a copy.  Before going to see this movie, I hadn’t really heard anything good about it.  People were all speculating about the budget and whether or not it would be justified.  I heard a lot of people predicting that it would be flaky.  I’m glad I didn’t listen to them.

Avatar is a breathtaking movie.  From beginning to end you’ll be amazed by the stunning visuals.  The imagery is vivid and lush.  The level of detail is astounding.  But it’s not just the visuals that will keep you glued to your seat.  The movie creates and entire world with depth, history, and tradition that’s full of life.  The Na’vi even have their own language. A sequel would only ruin it, but there’s enough room in the world James Cameron created in this film to spawn an entire series of books, expanding on the history of the Na’vi, the native population of Pandora.

Even though this movie takes place on Pandora, another planet, the human element isn’t lost.  The movie is all about bonds that people form with each other and with the world around them.  The Na’vi are a primitive race on the surface, but their society is very advanced, especially in how they interact with their environment and the role it plays in their lives.  The Na’vi live a simple lifestyle but they’re in tune with their surroundings and they live happily.  There’s also a romantic side to the movie that is predictable, but done in a way that’s touching and interesting.  It adds to the story, rather than serving as a distracting element.

The movie is fast paced and has a lot of action in it.  There really isn’t a boring moment.  With every scene you get to learn more about Pandora and the Na’vi.  There are also bits of humor thrown in, but tastefully.  Some of Sigourney Weaver’s lines are a great example.  This movie will probably appeal most to people who love epic fantasy stories like Lord of the Rings, but it’s hard to compare this movie with others I’ve seen.  It’s really in a league of its own.  It was like watching the rich world of a book come to life on screen.  There’s really something there for everyone.  I doubt anyone’s going to be disappointed coming home from this one.

At the end, you’ll find yourself lost in the world of Pandora and it’s people, wishing for more and reminiscing on the more poignant scenes of the movie.

(Read my follow-up post on Avatar and the symbolism present in the plot.)

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My Thoughts on Redux, An Entertainment Portal

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Like the title says, Redux is all about entertainment.  It does it well too.  It’s currently in a private beta, but I signed up for and received an invitation.  I’m not sure how limited the invites are, having picked mine up through a Mashable link, but it’s still a small community.  That small community is pretty dedicated though.  You see people’s avatars popping up all over the place, commenting and giving “props” on people’s shares.

The way Redux works is that it acts as a link sharing center for videos, pictures, and web address links.  If you look at the image above, you can see that across the top of the page there’s a share box.  Whatever you share can be added to your profile as well as to any “channels” you’ve joined.  There are a couple different channels and there’s the option to create your own channel if you want. (See the screenshot below).

If you look at the left sidebar in the image above you can see that I have my Twitter and Facebook feeds linked into Redux.  This works in two ways.  One is that if I click on one of those options, I can see the content that my Twitter friends are sharing in one long stream, inline.  Even web page links get a thumbnail.  The same goes for Facebook.  I can see links and content shared by Facebook friends right in Redux.  The other way that works is that if I like something I see in Redux I can click the Twitter or Facebook icon to share it directly to my Facebook page or Twitter stream.  That’s pretty nifty.

The interface is pretty nice.  You can select to see (like I said above) just your Twitter friends’ content, just Facebook, both together along with content from the “channels” you’ve joined under My Network, or if you’re really feeling frisky you can just click “Everyone” and see everything that’s on Redux mashed together into one stream.

I think one of the defining characteristics of Redux is its TV mode.  It works similarly to YouTube’s full screen mode, except it’s continuous play.  You can set TV mode on a particular channel, the Everyone or My Network sections.  It’s pretty versatile, and it’s highly entertaining.  In fact, I would say that once you get it going it’s hard to pull yourself away.  From the full screen mode you can skip back and forth and give “props” to the video.  Unfortunately you can’t comment on it yet, but when I mentioned that via the feedback form I was informed that they were actually discussing implementing that feature and would take my feedback under advisement.  The team seems pretty cool too.  I mean, how often do you get a feedback form from a company that starts off with “Yo Brad, …”?

So, why should you bother to use Redux when you’re already getting this content in other places?  Well, that’s a good question and the answer is that it’s easier.  First off, you can check one place instead of two.  Second you have easy sharing options built in and you can watch it in TV mode.  Another great thing about Redux is that the content you find there is what people feel is worth sharing, which means you’re going to get to skip past most of the frivolous crap.  There are still things there that aren’t going to suit your taste, but that’s why there are descriptions and thumbnails.  You can get an idea of whether or not you actually want to see what’s behind the link.  Also, Redux is another community and another way to meet and engage other people interested in sharing good content.

Oh, and did I mention it looks good?  It didn’t take long for me to figure out the interface and it’s got some great built in backgrounds to choose from:

The only thing I would caution people on is that you shouldn’t run Redux if your laptop isn’t in a cool place.  Watching in TV mode puts the fans on high after a real short amount of time.  Most internet video seems to be like that though.

If you want to give Redux a try I have 5 invites available.  Let me know in the comment section or send me a Tweet at @BradleyF81 and I’ll pass one your way.

Google Wave Is Not Impressing Me

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Google Wave was supposed to be the hottest thing since sliced bread, but it’s really not that great.  I’ve been using it for a while and I’m just not that impressed.  It’s still in a development phase, so who knows?  It may be completely different on official release and really blow everyone away, but as it stands now it’s interesting at the most, and damn sure not an e-mail killer.

It’s got its perks, like being able to drop in all sorts of files and embed videos, but that’s really nothing revolutionary.  The ability to watch people type in real time is a frill, but not really anything to get excited about.  In fact, I would say it’s a step backward, because if anyone wants to use this seriously, for business purposes, then it’s going to cause embarrassment.  When you’re typing a document you go back and forth rewording things, fixing spelling mistakes, or reworking sections.  Well, in Google Wave other people can watch you struggle along, or if they aren’t there to watch it in real time they can use the Playback feature to watch you do it anyway.

Speaking of business, one thing I heard about Google Wave is that people think it can be used for company wikis.  Well, maybe.  I’m sure there are other platforms that are more apt for something like that though.  The Waves and Blips just don’t seem conducive to hosting documents.  They don’t seem all that conducive to sharing large amounts of information or pictures in either, unless you have a very big or very high resolution screen.  It’s not bad when I’m using my 1680×1050 17″ MacBook Pro to view, but on my wife’s laptop, which doesn’t have a widescreen and runs on a lower resolution, the content often runs off the right edge of the Wave frame.

Now, let’s talk about another aspect of Google Wave that’s supposed to be game changing: the ability to edit other people’s Waves.  That’s great in theory, except that you get people editing things out that you don’t want edited out.  Or they add things you don’t want added.  The worst part is that there’s no authenticity to who input the information.  Sure, the particular Blip will say who all has contributed to it, but who said what exactly?  You could use Playback for that I suppose, but when you’re looking at a Wave that’s had 600 changes or more, it becomes pretty rough trying to sift through it all.  Not to mention it’s slow.  In short, I think this image can sum up this problem for us fairly well:

Daniel Lewis erased an entire Wave because he didn’t like the subject and there was nothing anyone could do to stop him.

That brings me to another point.  Google Wave is heavy on resources.  It spins up your fans pretty quickly and will drag at times, especially in larger Waves.  It’s probably going to be hard to run this on any older systems.  My wife’s laptop is only two years old and was struggling in larger Waves, most especially with the Playback feature going.

I think Google reached way too far with this one.  I think a much simpler solution would’ve just been to create a hosted e-mail that you could invite other people to look at and comment on.  Well, that’s sort of like a blog post.  Or, you could just use Google Docs, which already allows multiple users to view and edit documents.  The only part of Google Wave that really seems neat to me is that you can share files.  Though, that’s not really that special.  You can’t modify the contents of the attachments within Wave, so you still wind up with say, 10 people opening it and making changes and then re-attaching 10 different versions.

I suppose Google Wave does pull a lot of things together, but it just feels way too crowded and way too complicated.  This is the age of easy.  People want things that are fast, simple to learn, simple to use, elegant, and time saving.  Wave is a great idea, but I just don’t see myself getting all that much use out of it, even with all of my friends aboard.

Posted via email from Bradley’s Posterous

iPhone: Open vs Closed

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A few days ago I had a really interesting conversation with Sachin Agarwal, co-founder of Posterous, one of the hottest new blogging sites on the internet.  (If you haven’t checked it out yet, you have no idea what you’re missing).  We were discussing Apple, iPhones, and how much control over their iPhones users actually have, especially when it comes to what a user is “allowed” to put on their phones.  The conversation was just so good, I wanted to repost it here.

Bradley Farless said…

I enjoy my iPhone but Apple’s policies annoy the hell out of me too. They’ve given us an amazing piece of hardware but then not allowed us to actually use its full capabilities.

They’ve also told us that we’re not smart enough to make our own choices when it comes to what we want to install. They have to babysit us and make those decisions for us. I’m pretty sure I’m not a dumbass and I’m pretty sure I can decide on my own what I do and don’t want on my phone, and whether or not I want to see boobs in pocket-size goodness. It’s my damn right. I bought the thing. Why can’t I use it the way I want to?

Sachin Agarwal said…

The iPhone is an amazing piece of hardware/software/ecosystem *because* it is closed.

Only by controlling the entire experience can you make it as great as they did.

I love how my parents *never* need tech support with their iphones. If they could do anything with them, it would be a disaster.

Personally, there’s nothing i wish i could have on my iphone that i can’t get through apple’s system


Bradley Farless said…

Then perhaps the answer to everyone’s concerns is an opt-out method.

You either stay onboard with Apple’s “protected” experience, or you opt-out, and your guaranteed satisfaction is no longer guaranteed, not that people are always satisfied with the current iPhone anyway. But you see what I’m saying.

People want choice. They don’t want to feel limited in how they use something that they’ve paid for. This is essentially the same as Honda telling you that you can only drive your car within a 70 mile radius of your house after you’ve bought it and own it.


Sachin Agarwal said…

If Honda wants to set those rules, they have the right to. I’m not saying I like that, but I am saying that it’s their own ecosystem. If you don’t like it, buy a BMW 🙂

It’s really along the same lines as people wanting Disqus and other advanced features on posterous… we want to make the platform as flexible as possible, but sometimes you have to draw lines. It’s definitely hard

Bradley Farless said…

But Sachin, in that case you would have bought a car, not a license. Honda would have no more right to tell you how to operate that car than a home builder has to tell you what you may use each room in your house for. Once you buy it you own it and it’s up to the purchaser to maintain. If, on the other hand, we were purchasing licenses I could totally ‘get’ Apple monitoring what’s allowed on the platform (though they don’t do that with OS X and it’s still great) but this is a physical piece of hardware.

By the way, as far as Disqus goes, good move with keeping it simple and in-house but these days isn’t it more classy to at least support threading? 🙂

Sent from my iPhone


Sachin Agarwal said…

True, you are buying hardware, not a license.

So hack your phone and run whatever you want on it. You aren’t breaking any laws, Apple can’t really stop you.

But you can’t complain to apple because they aren’t welcoming you to mess with their device.

it’s like if you modify a car, you void the warranty. Granted you are right, at least you *can* modify the car if you choose to do so


Bradley Farless said…

Good analogy with modding the car. I shouldn’t have to “void the warranty” on my iPhone to add the apps I want to use on it though.

I still don’t feel good about having the Apple thought police telling me that I shouldn’t, let’s just use this as an example, have an app on my iPhone that acts as a remote control for a remote uTorrent program because it could possibly be used for copyright infringement. That was their argument with an ebook reader recently as well. They also won’t add apps that have any nudity because it doesn’t fit the company’s wholesome…. oh hang on while I close this porn site on Mobile Safari… anyway, it doesn’t fit the company’s wholesome values.

When you mod a car, you’re replacing parts to make it work in a new way. When you want to put whatever app you want on the iPhone, you’re just trying to use what’s already there to its full potential.

Now that I think about it more, there should be an app approval process, but the only tests done should be to make sure the program itself is sound, not the content.


Sachin Agarwal said…

Installing apps on an iPhone is more like adding a turbo charger to a car: you are trying to use what’s there (engine etc) to its full potential. But then when your engine explodes, your transmission dies, Honda is the one who gets the bad reputation. That’s what Apple is trying to avoid.

1. Yes there should be an app approval process. And yes, it should mostly be to make sure the apps run and don’t do anything malicious. I wouldn’t mind if apple was more lenient in what they allowed

2. It’s their platform and it’s an amazing experience. They should have the right to control it. Just like I have the right to control how Posterous works.

Bradley Farless said…

Well, I guess we both agree that there should be an app approval process, but only for keeping out malicious ones.

Your comparison between Apple’s right to control a piece of hardware and your right to control Posterous is a bit flawed though. Posterous is a platform. It’s free even. It’s not a physical product that I can hold in my hand and claim ownership of. The iPhone on the other hand is a piece of hardware (albeit with an OS inside) that, just like the MacBook Pro I’m typing this comment on, I have purchased and fully own. However, unlike my MacBook, it’s not left to my discretion as to what I put on my iPhone. It should be.

Do you think Apple would get away with it, or stay in business, if they had tried to keep a choke hold on the applications that are installable on Macs the way they’re doing with the iPhones?

They have no more right to say what I put on my iPhone than they do to say what I can put on the laptop they sold me. Once I own it, I own it. And the ability to freely install the software of my choice, even if it’s sometimes the wrong choice, hasn’t tarnished Apple’s image. There are always going to be stupid people, but the vasty majority know that if something goes wrong with a Mac, it’s 9 times out of 10 a user error, and that’s not Apple’s fault.


Sachin Agarwal said…

“the vasty majority know that if something goes wrong with a Mac, it’s 9 times out of 10 a user error”

I’m not sure sure that’s true. People always blame the platform. I know, based on questions I get about Posterous 🙂

Ok, so back to the main point:

When you buy an iPhone or a Macbook Pro, you are buying hardware. You can do anything you want with that hardware. I agree with this. So if you want to wipe your iPhone and install Android on it, go for it.

But by owning OS X on the Macbook Pro or iPhone, that’s a software license you own to run that software. You have to abide by the rules of that agreement. If that agreement says you can only run Apple software, then that’s how it is.

Now, please understand that I don’t necessarily agree with this. As you point out, this might be the downfall of the iPhone. If after a few years the Palm Pre improves, Android gets better, maybe the fact that the iPhone is closed will be what causes people to switch away.

Or maybe Apple will be forced to adapt and open the platform up (remember back when there wasn’t even an iPhone SDK? Now that’s closed!)

But for now, I’m quite happy with the closed Apple ecosystem, just as I’m happy with the Posterous ecosystem, or the fact that my BMW runs all the parts and software created by or approved by BMW, so I don’t have to worry about anything at all. Could they be more powerful? Yes. Is it worth it to me? No.


Bradley Farless said…

Well, user error usually gets blamed on something else, because no one likes to feel stupid. ^_^

I guess I can’t really argue with what you said about the license agreement. I think you’re right in that Apple may be forced to reevaluate its game plan when or if Android and Pre become more popular.

I guess it all just boils down to people wanting to feel like they actually own what they bought.

This argument is really starting to drag out to the point of almost being annoying. I won’t argue anymore for my side of things, as that’s basically what this whole post is about, but if you want to weigh in on it, feel free to do so in the comments here, or on the original post by clicking this link.