Open potential

There is a lot of debate going on about the closed vs open nature of the iPhone and Android platforms for the phone.  Those debates tend to be limited to mobile devices.  If you plan on only using iOS on your mobile device, there are a lot of advantages to the closed platform.  What happens when you want to use iOS on something else?  How about a TV?  You can answer with "Apple TV", but that is more of an example of why closed platforms are bad.  They limit the potential of the platform.

In a closed platform, you have to wait for the vendor to move the platform to a different device.  You can't try to install it yourself.  The vendor has complete control.  For iOS, Apple released Apple TV, but it didn't go over very well.  Although Apple TV uses iOS, it doesn't have the look and feel of the mobile version.  The mobile market isn't available on Apple TV.  Since iOS is a closed platform, you can't try to install iOS onto a mini-pc that hooks up to the TV.  You are limited to what the vendor says you are allowed to do.

For open platforms, you don't have to wait for the vendor.  There are mini pc's available that come preloaded with Android.  There are also mini pc's that you can install Android onto.  These devices have the full market on them.  If a new competitor to Hulu or Netflix comes out, and they release an Android app, then you already have support for it on your mini-pc.  You don't have to wait for an OS update.  None of this work was done by Google, however.  Since Android is an open platform, hackers have been able to modify the source code to run on the mini-pc's.  Android TV's have a long road ahead before they become really useful to the non-techie, but they are getting there.

Its this open nature that promotes the platform as a whole.  You don't have to wait for Google to make decisions.  You don't have to ask for Google's permission.  You don't have to put in a support ticket to figure out how a piece of the operating system works.  You can just try it and see what works.  From here, the vendor can learn from the hackers (and maybe even hire them).  When they try to make the official version, they can do it faster and avoid many mistakes the community made.  This is what a real community looks like.

Writing a closed platform like Blackberry takes a short term thinker.  You get a functional phone but that is about it.  Writing a closed platform like iOS takes a medium term thinker.  You get a great platform that makes for one of the best for phones available.  That platform even extends to tablets, which are essentially large phones.  Writing an open platform like Android requires a true long term thinker, however.  You see the mobile space that iOS is trying to capture but you also look a the potential for other devices that are not similar to mobile devices.  You look beyond the phone, into the unknown.  A true long term thinker wonders how something can be used for a completely different purpose.  Hackers are already building Android TV computers.  People already install Android onto laptops.  Imagine having Android installed onto a HUD in your car.  Imagine Android on your house thermostat.