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Tim Cook Just Made A Case To Make iPhones And iPads More Open

Tim CookIn his letter apologizing for the poor experience with Apple Maps, Tim Cook suggested a handful of alternative apps that you can use instead.

That's great! Except Apple famously locks down its mobile operating system, iOS, from letting users set alternative apps as defaults for tasks like Web browsing, email, and mapping. That means if someone emails you directions and you tap the link, you'll still be forced to use Apple Maps unless you copy the directions and paste them in one of the apps Cook suggests you use instead.

With the Maps debacle, and Cook's own admission that Apple's native app falls short of expectations, he just made a case for his company to finally allow users to choose what apps they want to use by default.

It doesn't stop with Maps. There are several great alternative browsers to Safari like Dolphin, Chrome, and Opera. For email, you have Gmail and Sparrow. For Notes you have Evernote.

And so on. 

Hopefully this debacle wakes Apple up and it decides to finally let users choose what apps they want to use for each task.

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