If you choose your abstraction carefully, you can hide expensive details from user space.

In the short term it may not gain you anything.

But if the abstraction lives and thrives, then much can go on behind the scenes to improve the situation.

Java is another example of this: they carefully designed the language so that it would be possible to make vast simplifiying assumptions and implement optimizations that really improve performance without impacting the "other side" of the wall. Originally java was slow, but hard work behind the scenes means that your java programs run much faster now, without any extra effort on the part of the application developer.

X Windows is a great example of this. Originally we had dumb frame buffers with no acceleration at all. And yet X provides an abstraction that allows lots and lots of hardware optimizations to take place.

The Windows and OSX abstractions for the display don't provide an API that allows these sorts of optimizations to be done behind the scenes. We have incredible display hardware with awesome features that go unused in these environments because the display abstractions do not allow for them.

We didn't save it, but we haven't stopped trying. Environmentalists fret over the fate of the Amazon for good reason: It contains more than half of the planet's remaining tropical rainforest, one-fifth of our global freshwater, and as much as one-third of the world's biodiversity. Saving all this was once a rallying cry for green activists, and a few early triumphs made that goal seem likely. But attention soon shifted away from the rainforest to issues like climate change and organic agriculture, and now the Amazon is disappearing at about the same rate it was in the 1980s.

AT&T is throwing iPhone users a bone by offering MMS as of September 25, but is that enough to quiet a growing chorus of angry customers upset by what they see as shoddy service? Even though many people are pouring on the hate for AT&T, the still love the iPhone, according to reports. So if the cellular network is the problem, here’s a suggestion for Apple that’s guaranteed to keep at least some U.S. customers happy: Cancel iPhone exclusivity with AT&T.

This suggestion is nothing new, but the need for multiple iPhone carriers in the U.S. is taking on greater urgency as frustration with AT&T grows. The same day that AT&T announced MMS availability, a story appeared in The New York Times , which was basically one big complaint-fest from AT&T iPhone customers. Dropped calls, spotty service, and slow data connections made up the majority of the complaints in the Times story, and comments from iPhone customers on blogs and other sites around the Web echoed the Times report. Discussing the iPhone situation with the Times, AT&T’s chief technology officer, John Donovan said, “It’s been a challenging year for us.” Challenging? More like a “P.R. nightmare” as one analyst told the Times.

With a second -- or even third -- carrier, iPhone customers would be able to choose their own network, and the current load on AT&T’s infrastructure would be reduced. This could improve service for iPhone customers who stick with AT&T, as well as those who migrate to other networks. Multiple carriers would not be an ideal situation for AT&T, of course, since the company could lose a big chunk of revenue if there was a mass exodus of iPhone customers to other carriers. But with a reportedly questionable service record and a little over two years of iPhone exclusivity, perhaps AT&T has had long enough to prove its worthiness as the only iPhone carrier in the U.S?

The problems with AT&T and the iPhone were apparent earlier this year during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. There were howls of derision coming from the WWDC audience when it was revealed that many international carriers would support two new features in iPhone OS 3.0 -- MMS and tethering -- when the new operating system launched, but AT&T would not.

MMS will finally make an appearance later this month on AT&T, but the carrier is reportedly delaying support for the iPhone’s tethering feature even though other AT&T handsets have this capability already.

An Open Marriage Would Be Profitable…for Apple

Besides customer choice and potential service improvements, another incentive for Apple to go with multiple U.S. networks can be found in a recent research note from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, according to a Barron’s report. Munster says the iPhone enjoys a much higher market share in countries where the iPhone is available on multiple cellular networks. In other words, more carriers equal more iPhone owners. Since Apple knows exactly how many iPhones the company has sold throughout the world, Munster’s conclusion likely doesn’t come as a shock to Cupertino. But if that’s the case, my only question is, “What’s the holdup, Apple?”

AT&T has spent years raking in huge customer fees from the iPhone, and according to a wide variety of reports, U.S. iPhone owners aren’t happy with the service they get in return. Apple needs to open the field up for the iPhone before angry customers march on -- or send MMSes to -- Washington asking for a government-style intervention to bring about iPhone carrier plurality for all.