Is the Apple Model the Future of Internet Safety?

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The recent death of Steve Jobs caused many to reflect on the impact that the company he created and led has had on the world in recent years. Apple is something of a renegade and whilst it was on the brink of financial ruin in the mid-1990s, it has managed to pull itself out of the mire to become one of the world's most valuable firms.

Aside from the aesthetic beauty, user-friendly design and premium price point of most Apple products, the cult of Jobs has made one other crucial contribution to the world of technology, which comes in the form of the so called 'walled garden' approach to services and security. Ever since the launch of its iPod media player and later iTunes, Apple has been looking to take total control over the information about its customers and activities that they carry out.

By locking iPod users into downloading music from iTunes and organizing it within this rigid software package, Apple was able to effectively lock out third parties from having any kind of access without its express permission. This technique has been replicated by many other companies, most notably Facebook, which clings onto the data relating to its users in order to make money from advertising. In the world of the modern web, information is the currency of choice.

This approach is seen as being at odds with the fundamentally open, unrestricted nature of the internet as it was originally conceived. However, it works in both ways, because media outlets such as magazines and newspapers are starting to restrict access to the articles that they publish online, insisting that users pay a subscription fee rather than letting the whole world browse free of charge.

There are obvious security benefits to sticking to a closed-down system rather than an open access approach to web-based services. People who want protection for balance transfer credit cards and other online payment functionality will like the idea that their transactions are carried out within a walled off area which is distinct from the rest of the internet.

Many people turned to Apple devices because they were uncertain about the level of security they would receive on a machine running Microsoft Windows. It is easy to check up on balance transfer credit cards and other online money services from a Microsoft machine, but questions about the safety of doing so has caused many to migrate to Apple.

Because Apple has to approve each and every piece of software that is made available for the iPod, iPhone, iPad and Mac (Microsoft does not do the same for Windows programs), the hackers and scammers picked the soft target.

Of course, the price of choosing the Apple approach to operation and security is that you lose much of the freedom and openness from both the web and from software. From a commercial point of view this is great for the content providers because it means piracy can be eradicated and digital downloads are monetized efficiently.

Experts predict that the growth of the Apple approach to security might result in a divided web, where tablet and smartphone users are restricted to a user-friendly but very restricted experience and those who want the more open end of the market will have to be particularly tech savvy because there will be an exclusory level of complexity to the tools required to access this area of the internet.