This is not news, product or a software review blog post. This is more of a opinion piece regarding Jason Calacanis’ emails. My opinion one the subject matter. This blog post is long, I hope you read it through the end.

I’ve been on Jason Calacanis mailing list for quite sometime and have been reading most the emails he had send. First of all I would like to say that I actually like Jason Calacanis, I tent to agree with most of what he has to say, and I think of him as a kick-ass entrepreneur, a gangster super-star CEO.

I subscribe to his show This Week in Startups and I love hearing him on Leo Laporte’s show This Week in Tech, as long as he doesn’t do any impressions. Can’t stand that.

In his last two emails he writes about his dissatisfaction against Apple, the company and its ideology. On the first email he gives 5 reason why he is ending his love affair with Apple. The reason isn’t something new, we hear it all the time. Mainly it’s due to Apple being a close platform.

Personally these reason doesn’t bothered me at all.

When I buy a MP3 player I expect it to ship with software that allows me to sync/manage my media on the device. My first MP3 player was the Rio 500 by Diamond Multimedia. So I don’t really mind that iTunes doesn’t work with any other non-Apple products. It’s Apple’s software, they decides what device to work with.

By not having to support other devices, this gives Apple more control on iTunes future roadmap. To develop iTunes based how Apple wants it, not on what the hardware market trends is heading.

Regarding the monopolistic practices in telecommunications, the case of iPhone stuck on one official telco provider, I couldn’t say much about AT&T just because I live in Malaysia, and here we have Maxis.

I don’t own an iPhone because I don’t think I could afford Maxis rates and it’s plans, and I could not afford the iPhone sans contract at full price. What I’m saying is that it’s not the end of the world, there are other phones and other telco.

Regarding the Apple’s draconian App Store policies, I’ve nothing against it. Other App Store on other platform are popping up. Mobile App developers are free to develop with whatever platform there is. As I see it, Apple could do whatever they wishes with their store.

Let’s say I own a book store, somewhere in Kuala Lumpur. I have the rights to pick and choose which books and which publishers I would want to sell their book on my store. Right? Just because it is My store.

The iTunes App Store is Apple’s store, it’s not a community store, it’s not the developer’s store. That’s how I see it anyway.

2nd email, Apple’s Master Plan (and why even fanboys should be scared).

However, regardless of what I’ve write so far. Jason’s second email did got me, a fanboy, scared. It’s more of a ‘what if’ at the moment.

Imagine two or three years from now, there will be a new revolutionary version of Mac OS X, let’s say it’s the Mac OS X Pussy Cat. This version of OS X has the successful revolutionary iTunes App Store build into the system.

Yes folks, now you can buy apps for your Mac OS X Pussy Cat directly from the App Store! Say you need Textmate, search it on the App Store, one click and it purchases the app, download it and, as how Steve Jobs would put it, ‘Boom!’ it’s on your application folder.

Isn’t that great? But wait. With the revolutionary App Store also comes the draconian App Store policies. Apple has total control of what apps are available on the App Store and what apps to reject from the store. Would this also means that Apple has total control of what Apps you may or may not run on your machine? Your Mac becomes just like your iPhone.

The fanboy in be says this is illogical. Apple would never do something like that.

Then again this reminds me of what Microsoft was proposing sometime ago. Along the line of ‘Trusted Computing’ where the computer will consistently behave in expected ways, and those behaviors will be enforced by hardware and software. In a way the OS becomes a dictator that dictates what apps run on it and what not.

What Microsoft fails, Apple succeeds, right?

I maybe an Apple fanboy, but I’m a geek at heart. I love to tinker with my machine from time to time. If the Mac platform turns into a close iPhone like platform then I would surely be among the first to JailBreak my Mac.

So, yes. Jason’s second email, ‘Apple’s Master Plan (and why even fanboys should be scared)’ did scared me a little.

Finally, you’ve reached the end of this post. I know this is a long one, thanks for reading it through. I would love to hear your feedback on this.

Thanks,
J Shamsul @jibone.