Opening innovation
I’ve written about the possible dangers of Apple becoming the gatekeeper to entertainment. To me, the rise of the corporate State is a big, hairy and deeply scary shift in global politics. That one company can be the arbiter of morality above and beyond any nationally or internationally agreed laws is increasingly becoming a reality and shifting our sense of what democracy can acheive just at the very time when global democracy is moving within our reach.
This post isn’t, however, about politics. At least, not entirely.
It is about Apple and its attitude towards development and, more specifically about how ideas and innovation is fostered within the new one party State.
A post by the well respected Dan Grigsby of Mobile Orchard got me thinking. At first his claims of operating on the edge chimed with my sense of how creativity should work that great ideas are not born from control and order. but between the cracks; wild and wilful; the result of non-conformity.
That’s what want to believe. I want to believe that the approval system imposed by Apple is the antithesis of creativity and that it will end in a steady stream of stilted, unoriginal products that will ultimately turn people away from iTunes.
Only I don’t.
I don’t believe that at all.
I wish I did of course. I like the idea and I completely respect Mr Grigsby’s decision to quit iPhone development. It’s principled and therefore admirable. I like that a lot.
I just think it isn’t accurate. I think great ideas come from necessity. We all operate under some kind of structure imposed upon us. All of publishing works the same way; films, books, music – if you want to be heard then you generally have to follow the rules, even if breaking those rules is another one of the rules. Getting product in front of consumers takes money, even in these days of the long tail and the people who have the money are, by and large, interested in ROI and minimising risk. To them, innovation is useful only as a means to an ends.
Look at the studio system in Hollywood – great films still come out of that. Books are different but the economic pressures are no less (and increasing all the time). Games certainly operate under very strict control systems which companies such as Apple are merely emulating (ok, and strengthening).
Great things still happen. Great films, books, games – they all come out and on a regular basis. Ideas can’t be controlled no matter what systems gatekeeper companies such as Apple put in place. Ideas flow around such barriers.
Maybe there will be a corral of wild ideas for the iPhone. Maybe Apple will empower greater freedom for developers so they can experiment. I can’t see this happening if it threatens stability and control but maybe it will, in some form, happen.
If that happens it could be because all the real innovators have left to pursue other platforms. Most likely, however, it will be because it seems like a good idea.