Digiday's conference organizer said they'll have the video of his keynote presentation up tonight
In a nutshell, if you don't want to have to plow through all the below: He says Steve Jobs wants to control the network, devices and the desktop, that he is working against the four decades of work spent to build the open Web, and that application developers should say "stop, enough" stop building apps for iPhones that Apple can reject without reason or explanation. Stop them and demand openness. You should, he says, be able to get any app or platform you want on your iPhone, a device you paid for and for which you pay handsomely for andata access. (Some pointed out the inherent contradition in how Calacanis prefaced his remarks by talking first about how Mahalo, his current company, is developing an iPhone app, and recommended about 10 other such apps, from geo-location to find the nearest Starbucks without a line, to getting fake calls from celebrities to impress your friends.)
Now, his words, in rough notes typing as he talked:
Apple folks are "dictators, taste makers and control what we do ... We shouldn’t allow that... if the poeple in this room, and others, say ‘enough, the platform shoudl be open. lf people want to load an application, they shoudl be able to go to starbucks.com, they should be able to go to the website and load it'... but because steve jobs builds beautful, oh, devices, they get away with it .... i’m a capitalist ... people in china are geting paid nothing to make those phones, and all the profits are here. ... however it’s now getting to the point where it’s anti-competitive, and it's going to hurt the industry. AT&T is screwing you by not letting you do what you want with your data mix. However, we’re all schmucks becuase ... if i told you when you bought your car you could only drive it a certain way at certain times on certain roads... you have google voice but you were not allowed to use, cannot attach to phone to laptop ... on computer can put any browser you want. but on iPhone can’t.... iphone is “the greatest device ever made”... (kisses his iphone) ... i love it, but just cuz i love it doesn’t mean that i am going to extend the evil empire from here onto my tablet (which apple is building -- makes case software on tablet will be iphone, not open comptuer OS). and he’s only going to stop when he gets to your desktop. .....steve jobs is jesus, mohamed in our industry. however, we’re letting him get away frith murder. take all the progress in tech industry over 4 decades and reverse it. o’wise, ev’y time.. if you can order your lunch thru any web page, then why can’t you order throuh the browser on here (holds up iphone -- because, he says, they have a patent on an ordering technology)? apple, steve jobs in collusion to shut down all 3 layers at 1ce. network shoudl be open and free, appl’n, device. ... they're slowing down the industry (by kicking people out of apps store)... "
Answers to questions:
"Microsoft has gotten their ass kicked by the internet, so they've taken some steps to be more open. does that mean x-box? no. but otherwise more open source becuase they have to ... google uses all open source tech'y ... allow exporting of ev'g they do ... they scary from standoint of how good they are ... Google has no lockin (you can use Bing or Yahoo) with exception of privacy. hold our data for 18 months. we should have the right to remove it. apple and google behave better in Europe... in australia pick iphone, pick provider. ... it's heartbreaking to watch all the work and sweat of makign the internet open taken away by steve jobs) ... closed is never as good as open. .. facebook, which is partly closed, and apple, will make us realize that.
