Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> Of course Android has that same problem - Apple tightly controls their 
> platforms.  That can increase the quality of the products offered, but at 
> the same time, their dev agreement allegedly is one of the more draconian 
> agreements out there.

  There are, roughly speaking, two possible at making hardware that can run
software: Either make it completely open for anybody to use in any way they
want, or keep it under tight control.

  The former method is more liked by developers and many users, but it
inevitably causes efficiency and compatibility problems when random Chinese
companies start spewing their cheap low-quality clones and flooding the
market with them, not to talk about the low quality of the software, with
little to no quality control, and which may or may not work properly with
your particular brand of the hardware. While Android devices work acceptably
well for the most part, they often suffer from this problem.

  The second method, used not only by Apple but also by most game console
manufacturers (especially the big ones, ie. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony)
ensures that the device *will* be "plug-and-play" (or, in this case,
"install-program-and-play"). There will be no cheap low-quality clones,
there will be no software with little or no quality control. If you buy
the program, you will be able to run the program. No messing around, no
tuning parameters, drivers and whatnot, just install-and-play, and it will
just work. Most users appreciate this, even those who don't realize it
themselves.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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