Ken Segall

"Of course Apple locks down the app store on their iDevices for profit."

I doubt that Apple is solely concerned with profit and even if they were I guess I don't see that as the end of the world.

If Apple is solely concerned with profiting from apps why do they subsidize free ones and credit card fees? {If dev share is actually calculated post cc fees I'll plead ignorance and move on to the other part of the argument.}

99 cent app less 69 cents to developer less 40-70 cents to credit card company less bandwidth fees = loss.

(I've given a range on cc fees because they are shared if you purchase multiple apps within a few days, that mitigates the loss but ultimately someone motivated only by profit would be taking easily avoided losses all over the place in either scenario.)

Isn't it well known that Apple's direct profit on the App Store is a rounding error compared to their other business?

Isn't it then more likely then that their motivation is not primarily to directly profit from it?

While I do think Apple is interested in profit here, I very deliberately listed it as secondary to simplicity which is really at the heart of everything Apple does well. There's a book coming out soon about just this:

http://kensegall.com/blog/2012/02/and-now-a-different-kind-of-apple-book/

The premise I'm building on is that Apple really profits by making great products that just work and make people happy. Having a super simple way to get apps is part of that.

For 98%+ of users 1…

"Apple set the bar for realistic textured apps. Developers followed."

IMHO, this was to be avoided. I think this move on Apple's part to move towards such literal skeuomorphism was a major step back. After decades of learning that literal analogies on computing devices simply doesn't work all that well, Apple decided to forget about all of that lesson learned stuff and just throw it all away.

Even Gruber can't manage to fake gushing over it

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/10/26/against-skeuomorphism

These themes aren’t lies. They’re not designed to help users understand how these apps work. They’re just decoration. They’re per-app branding. Apple no longer endorses system-wide visual uniformity. Special apps are supposed to look special. Why is Find My Friends wrapped in rich Corinthian leather? Because someone at Apple likes (and, sadly, if my guess is right, better said liked, past tense) how it looks.

I'd say in general the design gods are not happy with this move

http://www.andymangold.com/skeuomorphism-the-opiate-of-the-people/

http://madebymany.com/blog/apples-aesthetic-dichotomy

http://kensegall.com/blog/tag/ical-address-book/

http://cushley.net/2011/07/in-depth-os-x-lion-review-part-3-new-visual-changes/

So in less than half a dozen links this design trend is called cheap "kitsch", "infantile", patronizing lies, "hideous" etc. These are not slight disagreements, these are fighting words.

I agree that Google's Android apps suffer from terrible UI…