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A comment on Wikipedia Wales says Apple's App Store is a threat to openness online.

Re:Wikipedia Wales says Apple's App Store is a threat to ope... by ghshephard on Saturday January 15, 2011 @05:20PM (#2107980)
There might be something to this if Apple had a monopoly on the "Mobile Internet" (the portion that Wales is referring to) AND forced everyone to interact with the "Mobile Internet" through applications acquired through the AppStore - two problems with this thesis:

  o Apple does not have a monopoly on the Mobile Internet.

  o Apple's support for open HTML 5 protocols is stronger
    than any previous generation of Mobile Platforms that
    connected to the internet.
We can critique Apple in a lot of places with regards to their AppStore (though, it's gotten much better lately) - but, ruining the Mobile Internet is not one of them.

I seem to recall that the iPhone was actually the _first_ really decent phone browser that you could use to connect to the internet - if anything, Apple spawned the "Open" Mobile Internet.

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Re:Wikipedia Wales says Apple's App Store is a threat to ope... by stcredzero on Saturday January 15, 2011 @05:45PM (#2108030)
Also, compare Apple's impact through the app store with the potential of:

    - Mobile providers throttling particular apps
    - Mobile providers and bandwidth caps
    - The balkanization of networking (Facebook)  
    - Pushing a patent-encumbered standard for video 
      (Apple is involved here, but is only one player of several.)
EDIT: Technically h.264 is "open"
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Re:Wikipedia Wales says Apple's App Store is a threat to ope... by ItsBilly on Saturday January 15, 2011 @08:01PM (#2108273)
It can't be "technically" open because there's no technical definition of open. Under one side's definition, just having a lot of industry players collaborate on it in public makes it open (the definition you're using) whereas the other side says if its freedom is encumbered by patents then it's not open.

Open is a horribly diluted word and there's no way imaginable you can say anything is "technically" or "not technically" open.

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Re:Wikipedia Wales says Apple's App Store is a threat to ope... by stcredzero on Sunday January 16, 2011 @08:59AM (#2109341)
This is the reason for the scare quotes.
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Re:Wikipedia Wales says Apple's App Store is a threat to ope... by ugh on Saturday January 15, 2011 @05:47PM (#2108032)
h.264 is an open standard.
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Re:Wikipedia Wales says Apple's App Store is a threat to ope... by Mithrandir on Saturday January 15, 2011 @05:51PM (#2108041)
h.264 is also patent and royalty encumbered, which is the real issue here.
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Re:Wikipedia Wales says Apple's App Store is a threat to ope... by ugh on Saturday January 15, 2011 @06:00PM (#2108054)
It’s still what is usually called an “open standard”. Saying it is not open is confusing and misleading. If you don’t like the commonly used definition you are obviously free to redefine your terms, but you should mention that you are using an uncommon definition. Saying “patent and royalty encumbered” would be preferable because it’s not as misleading and much more precise as calling h.264 “not open”.
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Re:Wikipedia Wales says Apple's App Store is a threat to ope... by ItsBilly on Saturday January 15, 2011 @08:03PM (#2108279)
No, using a vague and loaded word like "open" at all is what is confusing and misleading. It's watered down to "Web 2.0" levels.
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Re:Wikipedia Wales says Apple's App Store is a threat to ope... by metageek on Saturday January 15, 2011 @05:41PM (#2108016)
Third problem: Apple doesn't have a monopoly on smartphones, and is steadily losing ground to Android.

(Which is not to say they're doomed. They'll probably keep a healthy marketshare, just not the dominant position they used to have.)

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Re:Wikipedia Wales says Apple's App Store is a threat to ope... by ugh on Saturday January 15, 2011 @05:43PM (#2108028)
(Your third problem is the same as the first problem.)
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