> After the iPod, the Mac, and the iPhone, I don't think geeks still get why Apple is successful: they build devices that normal people actually want. I think there is some collective head-in-the-sand in the geek community because what people apparently want is not at all like what geeks want. The average user doesn't want freedom, doesn't want an open kernel, doesn't give a shit about standards, they want to have a slick, usable, and intuitive user experience, and so far netbooks are failing hard at it.
Just saying, but having an open kernel doesn't prevent Apple's user experience. If Apple were to post their source code to apple.com right now the iPad's user experience would not take an immediate nose-dive due to the universal law that "open source != good user experience." Please don't act like freedom and good user experience are mutually exclusive.
I'm not - but geeks fight the wrong battles regardless. Instead of realizing and building what our users want, we constantly tread water and waste our time on issues (important to us, and us only) like opening our code. This has no tangible benefit (nor harm, to be fair), yet it's something we fight about instead of spending this time building slick, efficient UIs.
For example, I just read a most interesting exchange on a board, where one guy was going on about how the video experience sucks because there's no DVD drive - it's completely missing the forest for the trees, getting hung up about a single insignificant detail that's at the very best a nice-to-have. This sort of tunnel vision prevents the broad view required to execute this sort of device.
Just saying, but having an open kernel doesn't prevent Apple's user experience. If Apple were to post their source code to apple.com right now the iPad's user experience would not take an immediate nose-dive due to the universal law that "open source != good user experience." Please don't act like freedom and good user experience are mutually exclusive.