iGame Radio

Science Fiction author and futurist Charlie Stross penned an interesting blog post today about just why Steve Jobs hates Flash, and the future of Apple (and PC) computing. The gist of the article was that Jobs, seeing that the PC market would be bottoming out literally within years, was attempting to save his precious Apple and move it into a new computing ecosystem. The remainder of the Silicon Valley world is flailing about, either equally terrified but not certain what to do, or taking less than effective action.

The picture Stross paints is an interesting one, full of wireless access, cloud content management, and any device use. Because the hardware we use is becoming practically irrelevant from the financial perspective, the service will become the important aspect to sell. A walled garden of perfection, with no viruses and malware, anytime access, high speed, and availability from any high-quality device, is what he sees Apple moving towards in the coming five years.

I have my own perspective on that. Certainly the desire to have access to such a service would be overwhelming, but there would be hidden costs. Make no mistake about it, we’ve already seen some of the charges. Remember the Facebook brouhaha about who owns the rights to your content once it’s on their servers? The reality is that once you cede control of your content to someone else, no matter if they tell you that you nominally own the content, ownership rights become a muddy field in the clouds.

And to be specific about games for a moment, consider the inconsistencies that Apple itself has displayed regarding decisions about what does and does not belong in the App Store. These inconsistencies will only become magnified over time if they are not nailed down (Apple’s decision to hire IGN editor Matt Casamassina to become the App Store global editorial games manager shows some desire to solve these problems).

But does one really need to create a walled garden for one’s games, preventing cross-platform play for one’s friends outside the garden? If we are to talk service, part of that service should, and really will, be to provide access to one’s friends for fun. And as much as Apple would like to believe, everyone will not have an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. There will be competitors. How will I as an iPhone gamer be able to play with my Android friends? In the end, if I end up behind a high wall, my choices are to convince them to walk through the gate, help them climb over from time to time, or finally decide to walk through the gate myself.