iPhone and Vendor Lock-In

Posted on July 2, 2007 by Guy Snir
Filed Under Open Source, Apple |

Having OPEN as a strong force in driving many current ventures, products, services, companies and more, I could not help but notice the many aspects of vendor lock-in that accompany the iPhone (some might say, duh!, at this point).

Looking for the wikipedia definition of vendor lock-in, I realized that “Tying” is actually more appropriate in this case, but I keep using Vendor Lock-In for the sake of it being more common and perhaps better understood.

I have listed the Vendor Lock-In aspects that I noticed, but there surely must be more. Feel free to add any other aspects that I missed in the comments.

The first and most obvious is having AT&T as the exclusive carrier
No third party apps on the iPhone (for now)
Tivoization and the iPhone
No J2ME on the iPhone
Activation of the iPhone from within iTunes
Required iTunes store account
iPhone does not work with most 3rd party headphones
Physical lock-in in a store elevator!

As long as it is legal, every company has a right to do whatever it wants, but I think that in this day and age a more OPEN approach could and should be expected.

Guy