I remember just a few years ago wondering why Apple’s new cell phone was taking so long. Now I know… and I’m glad they came out with something revolutionary rather than just another phone.

At least Windows Mobile is still open enough to allow people to get around the follies of the carriers or Microsoft.

Froze AT&T out, eh? Guess that’s why we have real turn by turn directions, because Apple can do whatever they want on the platform and AT&T would never complain about how they’re not getting let into the traditional TeleNav ARPU Loop, and even if they did, it’s not like that would stop Apple from offering it or allowing it in their development kit.

Oh, wait.

Agree that MS needs to step up. Also agreed that Apple is backsliding with the 3G. And yes, I think there’s more than meets there eye here wrt turn by turn.

Guess I’m just saying that when it comes to openness and not-locking-down, Apple Apologists ought not get all huffy when WinMo people point it out. MS may be buckling to ARPU pressure from carriers at the expense of the platform, but I think it’s fair to say that Apple doing it too, eh?

Apple basically froze AT&T out of the iPhone — they didn’t get to see it until almost the last minute. They didn’t get to cripple the WiFi or GPS. They didn’t get to load a ton of carrier crapware, ringtone services, or other nonsense onto the phone. They didn’t even get their branding on the hardware. They also deliver updates outside the snails (or non-existent) pace of other carrier-bound handsets.

With the original iPhone 2G, Apple even handled the activation inside iTunes, completely outside the carrier model.

Perhaps 1.5 years is long enough time to forget, and perhaps Apple is guilty of backsliding with the 3G, but not recognizing how Apple has dictated terms to the carriers that were before all but un-imaginable, is pretty hard to fathom.

And even with the 3G, they’ve frozen the carrier out of music and out of Apps.

If Microsoft, RIM, and Google step up, we can begin the process of making the carriers the ISPs they really are.

Those pathetic WM clowns still insist on going down with their ship.

Another reason they could have made it that way is because of iTunes. (What I meant to type…)