The appliancization of the PC :: The Future of the Internet

The appliancization of the PC

July 28th, 2008 | by jz | Published in Book, Future of the Internet, Generativity, iphone | 2 Comments

One of the more contestable claims of the FOI book is that tethered information appliances like the iPhone, that either block outside apps or subject them to much more gatekeeping by the platform vendor, will not only complement the more open PC, but overtake it — that PCs themselves will become appliancized.

Already there’s talk of expanding the App Store to PCs themselves. From Venturebeat:

While it may not make sense for huge applications such as Photoshop or Microsoft Office, does it not make sense to eventually get items such as Dashboard widgets through the App Store?

Perhaps a stretch, but worth thinking about would be Apple using the App Store as a competitor to something like Adobe Air. The apps run so beautifully on the iPhone and iPod Touch, just imagine would they could run on a more powerful desktop or notebook computer.

The App Store model is very powerful — and has some real benefits with it, not least of which is keeping the user experience a “quality” one, to include screening (or later killing) apps that appear malicious. But it is a wholesale shift of our IT ecosystem when a vendor or vendors are in position to screen the apps coming from the “dark energy” of nerds at large.

–JZ

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Oh dear. The applicancization of the PC. « Vendorprisey says:

July 28th, 2008 at 2:50 pm (#)

[...] please tell me you are using the work applicancization for a [...]
Kevin Donovan says:

July 28th, 2008 at 7:55 pm (#)

JZ, it would seem that the current App Store needs serious work before they can expand it (http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/07/28/iphone-app-store-problems-causing-more-than-just-headaches).

No recourse for the developers, either, since they are under NDA: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080728-iphone-nda-doing-more-harm-than-good.html

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