Within a couple of years it is likely that many of the user interface features that currently distinguish the iphone will become a commodity. The first phones with similar features are just now coming out. It is possible that the iphone will then follow the path of the apple II and macintosh, which were just as innovative but failed to give apple the success of competitors who eventually produced similar products on an open platform. Will andriod be the open platform that steals success from the iphone as windows and dos did from the macintosh and apple II?
The article includes a quote suggesting that there are no successful platforms that NDA bans public developer discussion.<p>This is only true if you ignore the entire gaming industry, where I can think of not a single successful platform that allows public discussion.<p>I hope that Apple eventually realizes that a healthy developer community is actually in their best interest.
dr. phil should start doing apple cult deprogramming on his show<p>"now, ya say ya stood in line fer 22 hours to buy a phone? that ain't right"<p>"ya know other operatin' systems do have web browsers"