No it was just easy enough to dismiss it as a harmless eccentricity of a niche player. Now that they're in the driver's seat in many ways it takes on much more sinister overtones. If Apple succeeds in driving Android out of the market they will be the sole arbiter of what's allowed on the devices that mediate most users' interactions with the net.

I have no problem with curated app stores or app DRM, by the way. I just think that there has to be a way to side load apps that don't meet the censor's approval for whatever reason.

This is par for the course for Apple:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microso...

It's cool to hate Apple because elite hackers don't like closed systems, despite the fact that their walled garden is actually better for 99.9% of consumers out there.

I wonder if folks said the same thing for AOL's walled garden approach to the internet once upon a time too.

Yep. But for people like my grandma and parents it was absolutely true. My apologies that I have nothing to cite but my own experience and analysis, but closed ecosystems are a temporary solution, at best, for building trust in a new market paradigm. Any attempt to justify extending the life of a closed ecosystem once the market has matured enough to adapt to it will have a tragically shrinking effect on that company's market allowing other competitors to wedge themselves in by differentiating on greater flexibility and convenience.