Technology Consumers Got More Choice in '07

Windows Vista also lost all hope of being the year's biggest product debut when Apple introduced the iPhone. Its touch-sensitive screen, which lets you zoom into Web pages by spreading two fingers across the screen, brings the same frictionless simplicity to the mobile Web that the Nintendo Wii brought to video games.

The iPhone also showed what could happen if wireless carriers left phone design to people who were actually good at it. What if, say, the Web's premier source of information could make a phone?

It just so happened that in November, Google announced its Android project and a lineup of phone manufacturers and wireless carriers that will work on it. When it ships the second half of next year (if all goes well), Android will let any user customize it at will.

Not long after that, one of the most controlling carriers ever, Verizon Wireless, announced that it would open its network to any compatible device -- not just those customized to its specifications -- in 2008.

Other carriers have joined in selling freedom as a feature. For example, AT&T now brags that customers can use any compatible phone on its network.

At about the same time that the wireless-phone industry was toppling its equivalent of the Berlin Wall, a similar barrier was tumbling in digital music.

That barrier -- the digital rights management (DRM) software that controls what you can do with a song download -- was once an unquestioned part of the music business. But in February, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs picked up on many listeners' complaints and posted an open letter urging the end of that regime. Then one of the major labels, EMI, began selling music without copy controls on Apple's iTunes and other stores.

Wal-Mart and then Amazon.com opened MP3-download stores, featuring more unrestricted downloads than iTunes. Apple responded by cutting prices and expanding the selection of its DRM-free offerings; Microsoft, in turn, added a million MP3s to its Zune store.

Some major record labels have resisted this change, but the market will not grant them much choice -- their competitors sell a better product.

How long will it be before movie studios reach the same realization?

Each of these three trends, seen in isolation, might not seem like much. The new popularity of one flavor of computer doesn't change the fact that most people still use PCs. IPhone idolatry and Android anticipation don't help users chained to cellphone contracts. And for all the songs sold without usage restrictions, most downloads wear the same old DRM shackles.

But these things combined suggest that parts of the tech industry are grasping the value of choice -- a feature that might be more attractive to buyers than the usual faster-better-cheaper sales pitch.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro atrobp@washpost.com. Read more athttp://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/