Rip Ragged

I really have to stretch out, lately to find anyone to assault electronically.

Dan Frommer over on Silicone Alley Insider made some stupid noises today. First, he called AppleTV 3.0 lame, then he proceeded to offer Apple some unsolicited advice.

Let’s be clear, here. Dan is a typist for a business website.

Anybody who criticizes the way Apple designs, builds, markets, or supports products from a business perspective must be one of three things:

An Apple-bashing flame-baiting hit-whore.

Utterly ignorant of any business sense.

Dumber than long johns in hell.

There is a fourth possibility. The critic who has had more success selling similar products might have a valid point. I wonder which consumer electronics company with 34,000,000,000 United States Dollars in the bank Dan runs.

You’d think he would have mentioned it.

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Earlier today, I found an interesting blog called “Shiny Shiny.” It bills itself as “A girl’s guide to gadgets.”

The writer of the post that caught my attention is Anna Leach.  She opines that the iPhone killer is more likely to be an app store than a handset. As you might guess, she has one in mind. It’s called “Getjar.” It’s open source.

Listen, kiddies. I’m only going to say this a few hundred more times: Open source stuff is not going to take market share away from anything except other open source stuff. End users – dopes like me – want their stuff to just work. The only way that happens is for somebody to take responsibility for the widget to work.

Do you really think Motorola is going to be able to monitor every system conflict caused by every permutation of Android versions and software melanges on their handsets? Is Google going to assume responsibility for every piece of hardware running every different app on their OS?

Google could become the Windows of Mobile – making a generic handset OS that forces all of Apple’s competitors to build handsets with generic guts differentiated only by the degree of trailer-park-chic exterior design. Apple moved into the phone market again building the whole widget.

The Whole Widget.

Steve Jobs told the world about building the whole widget years ago, when he was CEO of Apple the FIRST FRIGGING TIME. Nobody listened.

By the time anyone figures it out it will be way too late. Apple will own tech before anyone else catches on. The tipping point is nearer than most people think. When Microsoft and Dell disappear it will be sudden. I give them two years at the outside. All the punditbots will predict it in retrospect.

One company taking responsibility for the entire user experience will eventually win. Why?

In the Windows universe, neither the hardware makers nor Microsoft will assume complete responsibility for anything. They’ll blame one another for every glitch.

With open source software, it’s even worse. Who’s responsible for the software that just erased your hard drive and overwrote your system preferences with a new set of defaults? Good luck with that.

To summarize:

The iPhone killer will have to be a really cool piece of hardware that works really well, has great software built in, and a great app store with a lot of apps.

That’s like saying that the winner of the Superbowl will have a great quarterback, good receivers, a solid running game and a good defense.

Those are the things you need to be in the game. The iPhone killer will have to be in the game. But that’s just the minimum standard. There isn’t a handset in the game, right now. Before we can even call something a contender it will have to meet those minimum requirements and get in the game. To win the game it will have to do all the things Apple does better than Apple is doing them. And not just a little bit better. Rock the house better.

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