Yesterday at Macworld two events helped clarify something I’ve been discussing with Dieter for a while now — Apple, the iPhone and iPad, and closed vs. open systems, control vs. chaos. These tow events were a presentation by John Gruber of Daring Fireball concerning the 10 biggest problems faced by Apple, and a brief conversation with Leo Laporte of TWiT about Google Buzz.

As part of his Round Robin BlackBerry review, Dieter departed on a rant about BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) of epic proportions. A closed communications protocol, he argued, was untenable. BlackBerry users create incredible amounts of content in BBM (yes, chat is content) but it’s all completely closed off and owned by RIM. If you leave BlackBerry, you can’t take your BBM content with you. If RIM ever disappears, all your BBM content is lost. Something like Gmail on the other hand, works across platform and if you switch from BlackBerry to iPhone to Android, you enter your Gmail account and everything is there. Since you can access it via standard protocols like POP and IMAP, you can also make local copies and upload them to a different service (i.e. upload your mail to a non-Google IMAP folder).

Laporte made a similar comment about Twitter and Facebook. If either Twitter or Facebook were to fail, all your status updates, all your wall posts, all your friends and those you follow and/or follow you would be gone.

I don’t know if Google Buzz will prove to be an open protocol and system for sharing status, location, and relationships, and certainly it’s implementation shows signs of the typical Google “release now, fix later, polish never” model, but something needs to.

And this brings me rather circuitously back to Apple and the iPhone. As much as a certain segment decries Apple as “closed”, in terms of protocols they’re remarkably open. They use IMAP for mail, and open-sourced CalDAV and CardDAV for calendaring and contacts. They use WebDAV for web directories and WebKit for Safari. iChat supports most IM protocols, including Jabber. They use BSD Linux and the Darwin kernel for the core of Mac and iPhone.

Apple is generally built on top of open technologies, and one of their core strengths is melding that open architecture with tightly controlled (i.e. proprietary) user interface layers (and developer APIs, and App Store review processes).

For some, that last part is an absolute deal breaker. But they have Ubantu and Open Moko. (Yes, even Android is closed — you can’t muck about with Gmail or Google Maps apps). For mainstream users, however, the front end, the user experience, “just works” to the point where it’s become a cliche.

I said it previously in my Round Robin summation, to use Google you must give up privacy, to use Apple you must give up control. (I don’t even want to think about what I’m giving up to use Google on Apple!)

So proprietary interfaces to open technologies — how does that work for us? What happens when we use something not controlled by Apple?

John Gruber suggested AT&T as an example. Indeed, he listed it a one of Apple’s problems. Now, some people get great AT&T service while others have connection problems that have become near-legendary. Either way, it’s hurt media and mainstream perceptions about the iPhone.

Gruber also mentioned Big Media (movie and TV studios, music labels) as a problem. They want to charge more than the market will bear (certainly enough to make free-as-in-torrent an alternative) and make less available via iTunes than via a retro 1980s corner video store.

Is it a coincidence that some of the main aspects of the iPhone and iTunes that Apple has absolutely no control over are some that cause the greatest amount of user frustration?

(The App Store and its review process mostly create developer frustration, and Gruber listed this as a problem as well, though one that’s slightly improving since the holiday shut-down).

So, we come back to and down to Apple liking to control the user-facing aspects of the iPhone (and iPod touch, and soon, iPad) but using and promoting open standards for a lot of the technology underneath. While this approach might clash philosophically with some users (and again, Android, Palm, etc. aren’t open, they’re just more open) and practically for others (power users who want the control themselves), its proved remarkably effective for casual, mainstream users, and for power-users willing to give up some control for a better experience.

Except for that part about AT&T and Hollywood, but then those are controlled with little concern for user experience…

Closed vs. Open, Control vs. Chaos — What’s Best for Apple, the iPhone and iPad? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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The 2010 Winter Olympics officially began yesterday and if you want to keep up with your country to see how well they are performing, the NBC Olympics Mobile app [iTunes Link - Free] for iPhone and iPod touch is a great companion piece that offers a ton of great features.

• News, results and medal counts are all updated live.
• Video on-demand: Those of you in the U.S. can watch NBC Olympics video clips and highlights. Sorry Canada!
• Favorites: Save athletes, sports and nations as favorites
• Push Notifications: Have results for your favorite sports pushed directly to your iPhone.
• TV Coverage Schedule: View NBC’s TV and online coverage schedule and set program reminders.
• Athlete Bios and Sports Information: You can read up on all of the sports rules and get the full details about nations and teams.
• Social networking: Share Olympic Games content with your friends directly on your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts.

Why Canadian users would be omitted from viewing video is beyond us, especially since they are hosting all of the events. Surely some sort of deal could have been made for those of you in Canada? Now if you throw that major fail aside, you have a great app to give you your daily dose of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Screenshots after the break!

Quick App: NBC Olympics Mobile for iPhone and iPod touch is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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PCalc [$9.99 - iTunes link] is a great RPN Calculator for the iPhone but now developer James Thomson is curious as to what users would like to see in an iPad version. How curious? He’s made a cardboard version to play around with (above) and is offering TiPb readers ten (10) free copies of PCalc to tell him what you think!

So, head on over to the TiPb Forums and let him know just exactly which features you’d like to see on that big 9.7″ iPad screen. His favorite ten (10) answers will get a copy of PCalc for iPhone for FREE.

Give-away starts now and ends Monday at 12pm, PT. Promo codes require a US App Store account (Apple’s rule, not ours).

TiPb Give Away — 10 FREE Copies of PCalc RPN Calculator for iPhone is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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If you did not already know, Final Fantasy 1 and 2 coming to an iPhone/iPod touch near you and on Friday, Square Enix decided to tease us all with the first official trailer.

We are sure all of you who are die hard RPG fans are growing impatient by the minute but unfortunately there is still no specific release date or price. The only information the video gives us is that it is “coming soon”. If you’d like to get the latest information be sure to follow Square Enix on Twitter.

Video after the break!

[Via Crunch Gear]

First Official Final Fantasy Trailer Makes its Debut is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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TiPb has survived another fun day at Macworld 2010 and hosted many more interviews and snapped more photos for you to check out. We are sad our time at Macworld is over, but excited to share exciting things with you over the next weeks. Stay tuned!

Check out the photos after the break, including the Kai from Beejive, Ten 1 stylus for iPhone, mophie with Flow TV, Trexta iPhone cases, Brushes app, David from AppCubby, the Navigon crew, Jobby Gorillapod for iPhone, team TUAW streaming live, MusicSkins, Rogue Amoeba, Hypermac iPod and iPhone charger, Leanna and Rene saying goodbye for this year!

TiPb at Macworld 2010 — Day 2 Gallery is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog