There are lots of tangible benefits of openness, problem is most concrete examples do not resonate with most people, because people in general have different needs, even though those same people will run into the same problems at some point, so it's inevitable that discussions end up filled with anecdotes and philosophy, not to mention that coming up with comprehensive case-studies from our history is time consuming and soul sucking, so people that understand the issue just go on with their lives.

But here, I'll give you an example - 1 and a half year ago I was literally stocked by 2 people that thought I owed them money. And so I was receiving lots of SMS messages and phone calls with threats, because that's all they could do - but it was annoying to me to have my phone ring several times per day. Then my phone number ended up on some kind of marketing list and I started receiving daily messages with special offers.

So I had a problem and an iPhone 3GS (received as a gift) and being a smartphone I expected from it to solve it, because otherwise my phone number was becoming unusable and I didn't want to change it (hey, I've got a nice, memorable number). I wanted to completely block SMS messages and phone calls for certain numbers. And I'm not referring just to make my phone silent when receiving stuff from certain phone numbers - but also a cleanup of the logs. And after all, my smartphone is primarily a phone, where a phone is a device used for communications - I don't care how smart it is, if it's not smart about the most basic functionality it should provide.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that Apple was actively blocking such apps from its App Store. So I jail-broke it and installed something from the Cydia store, which was a painful process. Then Apple released a major update to iOS that I wanted, so I updated the device, but my previous method for jail-breaking it wasn't working anymore.

THE ONLY REASON people put up with this is because they don't know a smartphone could solve this for them, otherwise spamming through phone calls and SMS messages is a really common problem.

Out of frustration I went out of my way and got a Galaxy S device. There were several apps on Android Marketplace (now Google Play) that dealt with blocking SMS and phone calls. Several were not working on my device, because the APIs for doing that are not public and so dealing with it is hard. But I found one that worked extremely well. Even in the case of Android's Marketplace also blocking such apps, it's extremely easy on Android to install apps from third-party sources, not mentioning the ease with which you can develop for it, without setup fees or bogus certificates.

And I've been blocking unwanted SMS messages and phone calls ever since.

Now, some day Apple will finally wake up and provide this functionality. I'm sure that it will be polished and better than all the alternatives. However, it will be several years too late for me. And if a smartphone can't provide such basic functionality that should be a no-brainer in this age of spam, then for me it's just a shiny and expensive piece of crap. And remember when they blocked Google Voice from their store because "it duplicated existing functionality?".

I also own an iPad. It was a gift (for some reason people like giving me Apple products, thinking that I love them). I also have a 3G plan for it, that I got separately, so this device is not subsidized or bought from my mobile carrier. Imagine my surprise when I found out that I couldn't do tethering with my otherwise expensive 3G plan and expensive device, yet my 1 year and a half Android could - and an iPad could do better tethering because of its bigger battery. And get this ... the functionality is available, but it depends on the settings the mobile carrier are wiring to your device. So they are basically controlling your device, deciding for you what you can and cannot do.

So now I'm dreaming of a Nexus tablet as my next device, because while the iPad is useful for browsing and stuff, I don't really "own" it and there's so much more it could do.

And I have no doubt about it, the sky is going to fall, because the writing is on the wall. Considering our increased dependency on smart technology, if you don't "own" your devices (or your data, or the software you depend on), the service providers are owning you.

You may not notice it right now, but remember that old anecdote about how you should boil a frog alive - slowly, otherwise it jumps out.

And the blame will fall partly on us, the developers that supported these closed platforms. Because we helped them grow.

People also like to point out how Android is more popular because it gets promoted more by carriers - isn't it funny how openness is good for everybody, including carriers and phone makers?