Apple v. Sprint’s HTC Evo 4G: Innovation smackdown

Steve Jobs can’t innovate everything. Okay, maybe he can, but that would make him a deity. Only Oprah has that kind of power.

There’s something great about the Sprint HTC Evo 4G developer pages. First, they are full of stuff to help you develop apps. Second, you can get to the stuff you need pretty easily. Thirdly, no one is telling you what you should do, or how you should do it. Not to mention the fact that the HTC Evo 4G is about as hot a product as you can find in the phone space these days.

It has a freakin’ 1 GHz processor. Remember when the thought of a Giga-anythng was like a shot of adrenalin to the system of every geek. Now, we get the numbers on a phone. No, I have no idea of what it means or the relevance, but yes, it does sound cool.

It’s a striking difference to Apple’s developer pages. You have to pay to see anything there. That’s the cover charge. Then, there’s a two drink minimum,and every lap dance is a C-note. And, it’s highly unlikely that you will get satisfaction without forking out even more dough, whether it be in time, money, or favors.

Surely, logic dictates that by limiting the scope and breadth of its mobile development base, Apple risks missing out on the next great breakthrough dev star.

On the plus side, YouTube is a good model to contemplate here. YouTube let’s anyone in, and it has yet to produce anyone of the magnitude of even a minor cable star, an Olivia Munn, if you will. We go, Olivia Munn, there she is, not wearing much, again, and then we go…… nothing. There’s nothing from YouTube. Looks like nothing is dating that guy from the cool, new Star Trek.

Doesn’t work.

Maybe Apple’s way is a better way. History tells us that Apple is revisiting its own near demise at the hands of the less cool Microsoft. This time, it can pick from a number of competing vendors, including Google, Microsoft, and practically every major carrier not called AT&T. On the other hand, we have the YouTube analogy: more isn’t necessarily better. YouTube isn’t going to bring down any prime time shows any time soon. or, give us an alternative to Olivia Munn. Oh, well, it could be worse.