For the vast majority of people who will buy Android phones, "open" is an illusion because now that Google has abandoned their direct sales model, Android firmly puts the final decision making power for the overall experience of the phone back into the hands of the traditional carrier/vendor relationship that ruled the space before the iPhone came out. Apple, unlike other phone vendors, is capable of going toe-to-toe with the carriers and is willing to do so to fight for a better user experience. That's why we don't have AT&T branding all over our iPhones. That's why we don't have the mandatory 15-second spiel before voicemail that Verizon users have to suffer through. Apple is at least an equal partner with the carriers who sell it. Most of the other phone vendors, to put it bluntly, are the carriers' bitches.

Read Illusion of Open by Jeff Lamarche.

Bug or feature?

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Introducing Open Country Codes: easy to use ISO 3166 country codes for your apps.

Why are some things just much harder than they need to be? Finding a current, easy-to-use data source for populating a country selection box, for example.

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The SWF format is now totally open. Rejoice!

This is big: Adobe is removing restrictions on the use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications as part of their new Open Screen Project 2008.

When Mark Doherty emailed me to tell me about his post on Adobe's Open Screen Project 2008, I wasn't expecting such an important announcement.

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