Oxford University Professor Jonathan Zittrain claims that the iPhone could be responsible for breaking the Internet.

In his book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, he said that the iPhone and gadgets like it actually hamper innovation, because they are locked down. Since they cannot be tinkered with by users they are the sort of technology which prohibits the sort of change that made the Interweb the fun place to be.

If such gear becomes too popular, the IT world will move from one of generative PCs attached to a generative network to being a set of appliances tethered to a network of control.