In my opinion, the popularity of all Apple devices is due to a philosophical decision the company made a long time ago – and has stuck to. Apple, from Day 1, has built its products with the intent of offering a “full package” to users – hardware, operating system, and content. Of course, Apple ultimately decides what content you get – but losing that “freedom to compute” doesn’t seem to bother anyone. Just the opposite, in fact.

I’ve been with the “Apple family” since its now numerous progeny were in diapers. I started out with the infant Mac XL (if anyone remembers those) way back in the 80s, moved on to the teenager-ish Mac SE, Mac CX, and early iMacs, and eventually on to the current configuration of the family. In fact, I’m transgenerational in my Apple affiliation: I have a “big guy” (an iMac), a couple of “young bucks” (Mac Minis and Macbooks), “junior” (the iPad), and, of course, “baby” (the iPhone). So I guess that makes me as familiar as anyone with how the family is run.

It’s a well-run and tightly organized family – to the extent that some would call it dysfunctional, in some respects. One thing about iPhones and iPads that irks many people is the closed universe that Apple has built to manage the devices. The only place you can get official applications for iPads and iPhones is from the Apple App store; all applications used on these devices must be approved by Apple, the better to ensure the proper “customer experience,” says the company.

And that, it seems, is what distinguishes the Apple line from its competition. For in truth, Apple has been zealous to guard its “user experience” from the time it came out with its first Macs. The “closed environment,” which protects users from the “outside world” and is managed by the policymakers at Apple, was already greatly in evidence in the earliest versions of the Macintosh operating system. The Mac OS was (and is) even more closed than Windows, making it harder for programmers to “hook” into the operating system. Compare that system to Windows, with its wide-open Registry, where programmers were able to routinely integrate their applications – whether well-written or not – into the OS.

As a result of those differences – that philosophy – Windows and Mac users had significantly different user experiences over the years. One of the biggest complaints Mac users had back in the 80s and 90s, for example, was the lack of freeware and shareware for their computers, compared to the reams of freebies available to Windows users. As a dedicated Mac user back then, I remember combing the depths of download sites looking for free applications that did – whatever! It didn’t matter what they did, as long as they were free. And those finds were few and far between. It was like you were keeping “kosher” – you couldn’t load up the cheap stuff on your computer, and the applications that had “supervision” (ie, that were able to integrate into the Mac OS) cost more.

Even with the programs you had to pay for, the Mac versions were usually released much later, and were far more expensive. Note, however, that there was another side of the equation; by making it harder to break through the gates, Apple ensured that Macs were relatively free of bad programs – like viruses – as well.

How far we have traveled, in terms of content. There are well over 200,000 apps in the iPhone/iPad app store, many of them free. The “freemium” model – where users get a free limited version of an application, and pay to unlock more functions and features – seems to be the one most writers of cellphone applications have adopted. And most of the applications that do cost money, are quite cheap – most averaging just a couple of dollars in price.

So it would seem that Apple’s long-term philosophical bet – that keeping a tight lid on development, in order to ensure a superior user experience – has paid off. Ever since the iPhone first came out, developers have been falling over themselves to come up with apps for the device – while consumers have been falling over themselves to buy them. The same holds true for the iPad; after selling about 3 million of the things in barely three months, Apple expects some 30 million people around the world to have them by the end of next year. And while many of these untold millions may not be fully aware of the “Apple Way,” they are surely aware that their consumption of nearly all content – apps, music, videos, movies -will be tightly controlled by Apple. These people are entering into the deal voluntarily – they have no problem with Apple controlling what they can and can’t do with their devices.

And while it may be tempting to advocate for “freedom of choice,” you have to admit that Apple has a point; the reason iPhones and iPads are in such demand is because they just work. The UI is simple and elegant, the apps are available and work as promised, and the danger of getting hit with a virus is extremely low. In that sense, Apple users have traded in freedom for security, an apt comparison for our terrorized age.

As I mentioned, I, too, am “guilty” of allowing my “freedom to compute” to be compromised. I haven’t jailbroken any of my devices (ie reprogrammed them in order to install applications not carried in the App Store), meaning that I am relatively satisfied with the package I am getting with the Apple family – functionality, reliability, and safety. And that’s what the teeming millions are looking for, as well; despite all the talk about competing devices, whether phones or e-book readers, Apple has nothing to worry about. History has proven than when it comes to computers and devices, people don’t want freedom – they want to be led by a “benevolent despot,” a role Apple is more than willing to fulfill.

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That’s why I could never understand people who willingly gave up control of their circumstances to alcohol or drugs. In the movies (the more modern ones, at least), it looks like everyone taking “recreational drugs” is having a great time – at least until the morality aspect of the tale enters, and the happy substance abusers either get killed or carted off to jail.

What does all this have to do with computers? Well, it seems that someone has come up with a way to simulate the effects of mind-bending drugs – using a century and a half old technology that uses sound waves to mess with your brain! According to many of its users, binaural beats, as the sound waves are known, are very effective – and they can be used to wake you up, put you to sleep, unleash your creativity, or even send you on the equivalent of a drug-induced mental trip!

Basically, binuaral beats consist of pulses of two different frequencies being played in each ear at the same time. The pulses, in the 1,000 to 1,500 hertz range, have slight differences between them – less than 30 hertz. Depending on the differences in the pulses, the brain can be “entrained” (i.e. manipulated) to generate specific moods. The technology has been around since the 1830s, but has really come into its own in the past decade, as CD quality recordings and noise-canceling headphones allow users around the world to check out what some say could be an alternative to drugs – giving you the same effects (or close to it) with none of the dependence and legal problems “real” drug use entails.

One site, called i-Doser, has really capitalized on the potential association between binaural beats and mood drugs. For about $5, you can buy a “fix” of binaural cocaine, marijuana, crack, heroin, ecstasy, and all sorts of other chemicals “real” drug users take to get themselves in a mood. For example, check out the i-Doser description of its “Alchohol” dose: “Our alcohol dose is like shot gunning five glasses of gin, in force. The effects come on strong, but mellow fast, and ease into a condition of relaxation flightiness and overexcitement. Some have even experienced pure drunkenness from a single dose. Best of all, no hangover.”

The first question that comes to mind is, “can this be legal?” At least, that’s the first question that came to my uptight, in-control mind, and after an exhaustive internet search, I couldn’t find any law enforcement issues with i-Doser. So, it appears to be on safe legal ground.

The second question is, of course, “does this work?” It’s one thing to use binaural beats in a university lab for research, administered by people who know what they are doing, and another altogether to slap together an “aural drug” for use by thrill-seekers! And since most of the i-Doser doses cost real money, I wasn’t about to plunk down cash to find out. Opinions in the blogosphere appear to be mixed, with some praising i-Doser for changing their lives, and others calling it an outright “fraud and rip-off.”

But for the curious (don’t forget what killed the cat, though!) there are a couple of free alternatives to i-Doser. The closed-source commercial i-Doser program (required to play the tracks you download from the site) is actually based on an open-source program, available for Windows, OS X (PPC), and Linux, called SbaGen (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sbagen). SbaGen comes with several presets (as the binaural beat tracks are called), and there are many free sites where you can download more free tracks. In fact, there are tracks that are apparently very similar – and have similar names – to the ones offered by i-Doser. I don’t know if these are a ripoff of the i-Doser files, but the i-Doser FAQ says that “I-Doser uses a linked DLL based on SBaGen as its binaural beat engine,” and that “until June 2007, I-Doser was distributed in violation of SBaGen’s license,” when an agreement was worked out with the owner of the open-source code. So, maybe those files’ release are part of the settlement with SbaGen.

There is also an on-line site (run by an Israeli fellow) called i-Dose – no relation to i-Doser – that has tracks more in-line with the therapeutic credo of most binaural beat researchers (the SbaGen site says that despite the author’s settlement with i-Doser, this does not mean that he “approves of I-Doser’s use of high amplitude binaural beats to attempt to emulate the effects of recreational drugs — not in any way. There are very many positive benefits that can be gained through subtle use of binaural beats.”) The i-Doser site has on-line tracks with names like Relaxation, Super-Brain, Focus, Mirage (“Helps with art & creative activities”), Coffee Break, and others.

But does it work? Well, of course I tried a few of them. First, some guidelines: You need a good pair of stereo headphones to get any effect at all; the venue should be calm, and you should be ‘open’ to the experience (although I tried a couple of tracks while working); and you need a block of time, like a half hour for the average track, to get the full effect (although a mood shift is possible much sooner). Wanting to maintain control as I do, I decided that the safest tracks to try were the ones relating to extra energy. So, I tried the streaming Coffee Break track on the i-Dose site, and a file in SbaGen equivalent to one on i-Doser called “5HTP,” which “is an amino acid that is used in the brain to make the hormone Serotonin, which is your HAPPY Hormone.”

And – much to my shock – they worked! Yesterday I felt more energetic after a 15 minute Coffee Break, and today, I’m still “happy”- in the sense that I’m feeling “balanced” – an hour after listening to 5HTP. Now, of course, that could just mean I’m really a sucker, ready to feel what any old web site says I should feel after taking the high-tech equivalent of snake oil. Only one way to find out – I guess I’m going to have to so some “experimenting” (is this the first step on what they call the “slippery slope?”).