IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-00690228.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Enabling and controlling third-party developers: a study of Apple's iPhone app design environment

Author

Listed:
  • Ingi Brown

    (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Pascal Le Masson

    (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Benoit Weil

    (CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

In this paper we present our research that focuses on transferring design activities to third-party actors through the introduction of a design platform. While this situation is quite common and has been undertaken many times - in particular in the software industry - we study an unusual case of an innovative and successful third-party design platform: Apple's iPhone App design platform. We build upon two main streams of the recent literature on innovation: lead user innovation and toolkits for user innovation. From these main streams we deduct a model that seems to emerge from research on design and innovation that advocates for maximizing innovation openness, further supported by the more recent open innovation paradigm. We then confront our case study (Apple's iPhone App development toolkit) to the literature in order to better understand the specificity of this unusual platform. We finally propose a model based on the expertise of each actor: the firm and the third-party that is being transferred by a toolkit or a methodology. This new model enables us to better understand the differences between the two literatures and our case study, and details the concept of openness in the lead-user and the toolkits for user innovation literature. Finally we detail how Apple's toolkit transfers design capabilities and present a new model for toolkits that we call "structured empowerment".

Suggested Citation

  • Ingi Brown & Pascal Le Masson & Benoit Weil, 2011. "Enabling and controlling third-party developers: a study of Apple's iPhone app design environment," Post-Print hal-00690228, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00690228
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00690228. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.