This is indeed a dark day. Today is the day that I hang up my Apple Fanboydom forever.

Don't misunderstand, I still plan on using Apple, Inc's products. They are still the best products in the business, and I am far too heavily invested in the platform to simply jump ship at this time.

No, this is about the death of idealism and the overwhelming love and devotion for what once was a vanguard company, and now seems to be nothing more than a ship of fools.

There is no excuse for the iPhone 1.1.1 update and there is no defense for the iPhone 1.1.1 update.

The Last Straw

Now I am sure you are all thinking that I am insane for even believing that a company the size of Apple would be anything other than evil. Fine by me, I'm insane.

I'm insane for expecting a company that survived the 90's and early 00's on the loyalty and good graces of its consumer base and independent developers, to repay them when times are better.

I am insane for decrying the slap-in-the-face that was given to 3rd party developers that decided to make the iPhone a viable platform with no help at all from Apple.

And yes I am insane for thinking that for once a large corporation would see what was staring it in the face: People love your product so much, that they reverse engineered a way to add value to it.

The majority of the applications that were created for the iPhone were stupid, fun little nothings. But here and there were found indispensable applications that made the iPhone not only more fun to use, but more useful. The eBook reader Books, Apollo the IM client, the IRC client Colloquy and VoiceNotes the voice recorder just to name a few that I, and many others, came to depend on every day.

Success: The Killer of Dreams

It is apparent now that Apple has bought into the NIH syndrome that plagues many large companies. With one fell swoop Apple has destroyed the major selling point of the iPhone for thousands, if not millions of users.

I have gone from using my iPhone many hours a day, to only using it when I need to receive and make calls; possibly when I need to check email or a website quickly. The usefulness of the product has been diminished to almost the point of uselessness in the name of what, "security"... "interface guidelines"?

The position of the company is idiotic and untenable. Had they released the 1.1.1 update, and immediately released an official SDK for native applications, then at least they wouldn't have defecated on all the developers and users who had made the iPhone palatable to a larger audience.

But no, the update deliberately broke compatability with the dozens of applications we all came to depend on, while offering nothing back, but what... vide out? Please.

I just feel sick

Sure the hackers will be able to get around the technology Apple put in place to make it harder to install the apps, but eventually the effort required will be so great that users and developers just won't see the value in it anymore.

The entire sordid affair just makes me ill. This is not good economics and it isn't good marketing. It is the ravings of a brilliant, talented and apparently completely delusional man. He tried this with the mac, and thankfully failed. Unfortunately there was no one there to tell him how short sighted he was being this time.

And because of that fact, we are all going to suffer. Way to go Apple, way to go.