Apple as the new Microsoft?

Oh, that title will piss off a lot of Mac fan-boys but even they have to agree that Apple's recent moves with its iPhone App Store are reminiscent of past Microsoft policies regarding Windows: the company knows best what is good for the consumer.  The sub-text is: will Google become the next Apple?

For many years, Microsoft published the API's of its flagship products to encourage developers to build applications for them.  Combined with an open hardware architecture, this meant orders of magnitude more products were written for Windows than for competing operating systems. 

So what?  Apple has published its iPhone API?

The trick to selling a product is getting it into a store.  In Microsoft's case, this meant installing it on pre-built systems or giving the user an icon on the desktop.  For years, Microsoft was very protective of what installers were allowed to put on the desktop but they eventually relaxed those restrictions.  Plus you could always walk into any big-box store and buy software off the shelf.

For the iPhone, Apple's App Store is the only store in town and Apple is being very protective, perhaps paranoid, of what appears on their shelves.  JoyOfTech.com made fun of Apple's accept/reject policy recently.  Basically, if it in any way competes with something that Apple already builds, it gets rejected.  Much has been made of Podcaster creator Alex Sokirynsky's fiasco with Apple's App Store.  His app was rejected because it duplicated iTunes functionality.

Um...  iTunes doesn't run on the iPhone.  It's a desktop app!  Guess Apple doesn't care about the Calculator since there are dozens of iPhone Apps that help you do the basic math of figuring out the tip on your lunch bill.

Enter Google's Android.  Sure Android doesn't have all the hip-coolness that the iPhone has -- there's no two-finger shrink/expand action -- but it's about as open as it can be.  In fact, you can unlock an Android phone after 90 days and move to the carrier of your choice.  And the app store is equally open.  In fact, Sokirynsky has said he's dropped the iPhone and developing only for Android.

It will be interesting where we are in a year.  Will Apple open it eyes (and its App Store) or will Android phone makers get hip?  We shall see.