- A fight over freedom at Apple’s core

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/fcabc720-10fb-11df-9a9e-00144feab49a.html?nclick_check=1

A fight over freedom at Apple’s core
By Jonathan Zittrain
Published: February 3 2010 20:40 | Last updated: February 3 2010 20:40
In 1977, a 21-year-old Steve Jobs unveiled something the world had never seen before: a ready-to-program personal 
computer. After powering the machine up, proud Apple II owners were confronted with a cryptic blinking cursor, awaiting 
instructions.

The Apple II was a clean slate, a device built – boldly – with no specific tasks in mind. Yet, despite the cursor, you 
did not have to know how to write programs. Instead, with a few keystrokes you could run software acquired from anyone, 
anywhere. The Apple II was generative. After the launch, Apple had no clue what would happen next, which meant that 
what happened was not limited by Mr Jobs’ hunches. Within two years, Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston had released 
VisiCalc, the first digital spreadsheet, which ran on the Apple II. Suddenly businesses around the world craved 
machines previously marketed only to hobbyists. Apple IIs flew off the shelves. The company had to conduct research to 
figure out why.

Thirty years later Apple gave us the iPhone. It was easy to use, elegant and cool – and had lots of applications right 
out of the box. But the company quietly dropped a fundamental feature, one signalled by the dropping of “Computer” from 
Apple Computer’s name: the iPhone could not be programmed by outsiders. “We define everything that is on the phone,” 
said Mr Jobs. “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your 
phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work any more.”

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