The blogs are buzzing with Windows 7 news. The first item that caught our eye was that Microsoft’s Next Big Thing will only allow app installation via their Marketplace. By “only allow”, we of course mean “only officially allow”, as I am sure the bright fellows at xda-developers or ppcgeeks will find a way around that.
However, it made us think. Remember when you didn’t need to Root/Jailbreak/Homebrew to get what you wanted out of your smartphone? Maybe it’s the curse of being an early adopter of smartphone tech, but I recall when I could go to thousands of sites and get whatever Palm or Windows Mobile/Pocket PC app I wanted, without Microsoft, Palm, or anyone else having to “approve” it. This certainly started shifting once OTA (that’s over the air for the two people who did not know) installs were allowed by the OS, but it was a shift to more freedom, not less: Suddenly one didn’t even need a desktop to install the latest and greatest apps. Sure, there was app piracy, but as a recent article cites, we even have that with the current business model, and it’s less a big deal than people are lead to believe.
Then came the iPhone, and with it the idea (or maybe obsession) with the original manufacturer controlling the content on your device. You have one (official) place to get your apps, period. One can jailbreak one’s phone and get around that, but it’s still a work-around. The other big three in the US added Marketplaces of their own, but you could still go anywhere. With WebOS, Palm ditched that philosophy, giving us an App Store. True, Palm has been insanely supportive of the Homebrew scene, but it’s still a solution that requires a (built in) hack. I know you can sideload on Android, but why when everything is right in the included Marketplace. Now Microsoft will be joining the “Walled Garden” business model, which basically makes it the official, accepted business model for smartphones.
The oddest thing, to me, is that this is something Windows Mobile Developers and users used to mock iPhone devotees about. Now, they’re stuck with it as well. For all their sneering, Redmond apparently saw that it was a legitimate business model, and that people would actually go for it. I don’t know if anyone can really blame them, but it seems odd as hell.
With that said, there’s certainly one thing we can blame them for, and that’s the removal of the ability to cut and paste. I seriously want to know who thought this was a good idea. To me, the downsides of the iPhone have always been:
I can actually deal with 2 & 3 if I have to, and 1 & 4 are “fixed” via Jailbreaking. But 5? I blog off my smartphones and cut and paste is one of my “killer apps”. I could cut and paste on my Palm V and my HP Jordana, for goodness sake. Heck, even Apple has reversed their stance on the matter, and added C&P. With the function built into Android, BlackberryOS, WebOS, and even iPhoneOS, this will make Microsoft the only US Smartphone OS without this very, very basic function.
In a previous article, I likened Windows 7 to a village finding out that the sleeping giant hasn’t been asleep, and has in fact been taking notes. Now I need to amend that; it looks like the giant is at least half asleep.
