Stephen Fry

The more I read Stephen Fry's blog, the more I realise what a scarily clever bloke he is. Not just in the ways usually associated with him---literature, the arts, etc.---but also in the realm of technology; his recent article about smartphones, for example, is rather better than I've come to expect from most technology magazines (and technology magazines rarely start articles with Shakespeare quotes).

He also makes a few interesting points (well, more than a few, but a few that I want to comment on...). For example:

Even I, mad for all things Apple as I am, want an iPhone killer. I want smart digital devices to be as good as mankind's ingenuity can make them. I want us eternally to strive to improve and surprise. Bring on the iPhone killers. Bring them on.

This is exactly what any industry needs---competition. The reason Vista sucks is that it doesn't need to be any good, because people will get it anyway. If Apple don't deal with the various issues with the iPhone, then someone will produce a smartphone that does allow you to do whatever it is that they want to do (personally, I have fairly low standards for phones, but I understand some people want to be able to do everything with their phone that they'd otherwise have a laptop, a camera, an MP3 player, a microwave oven, and a double-barreled shotgun to do).

Actually, on the topic of competition, there was an interesting post on one of the OpenBSD mailing lists a few days ago about the economics of software development.

It doesn't matter how many letters you write, it doesn't matter how loud you yell and complain. If you buy the product, you said, "I like this, it suits my purpose, the manufacturer did their job".