Recently I was reading an article that was quoting Steve Jobs about how the Android phones from different manufacturers were all slightly different. He was pointing out that HTC and Motorola were putting on slightly different human interfaces and that this was crazy compared to his iPhone where all the phones were exactly the same.

I started wondering what world Mr. Jobs lives in. Is it a world where every car is the same? Every house is the same? Do people shop around for different makes and models of things out of some type of twisted self-hate, or is it that people like to have choice in the way things look and work?

As a software developer, I can appreciate the fact that interfaces remain constant across different manufacturers, just like I appreciate that there are standards for electricity and plumbing. It just seems that not everyone likes to hold their phone the same way that Mr. Jobs holds his phone, and people like the ability to have different interfaces and different features.

Recently Mark Shuttleworth announced that Ubuntu would be moving away from the Gnome desktop as a default and using Unity. However Gnome will still be available on Ubuntu, and customers can chose which one they want. Perhaps people will chose the Gnome desktop because they would like their different distributions to all have the same look and feel. Perhaps other Linux distributions will embrace Unity. Perhaps, despite all the good work and good intentions of the Ubuntu developers, the users will reject Unity. At least those people will have been able to exercise choice, which is something that Mr. Jobs does not favor offering his customers.

Carpe Diem!