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Who is making all these tablets? Here's the rough breakdown of 2013 unit volume from Gartner for worldwide:
* Apple 36%
* Samsung 19%
* ASUS 6%
* Amazon 5%
* Lenovo 3%
* All others 31%

the first notable thing is that Apple sells more than Samsung, Asus, Amazon, and Lenovo combined. The second notable thing, who is the "all others"? All sort of white-label chinese makers? Who is buying these? And can you say that these are truly Android tablets if they have some sort of modified android 2.3?

Here are the categories that I see in this market:

* iOS
* "Premium" Android. The Galaxy Tabs, the Nexus tablets, etc. Sold in US, EU, etc. The ones we are familiar with
* Kindle
* MS Surface
* white label tablets. Presumably built and sold in China, elsewhere.

We need to recognize that premium android might as well be a different OS than white label android. The apps will be different, the languages will be different, the monetization will be different, the fragmentation will be different. For all intensive purposes premium android is as removed from white label android as it is from kindle.

...But...

Regarding the nuclear weapons situation.
According to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
Peak stockpile 1,080 warheads (1992)
Current stockpile 0 total
Maximum missile range NA

So.. no current stockpile. Sounds good to me.

But also according to Wiki. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

Notice third column

"Satellite Orion", "Midrange Orion", "Super Orion"
Ship diameter, 17–20 m, 40 m, 400 m
Ship mass, 300 t, 1000–2000 t, 8,000,000 t
Number of bombs, 540, 1080, 1080
Individual bomb mass, 0.22 t, 0.37–0.75 t, 3000 t

This can't help one speculate, even with all this Megatons to Megawatts program going on.
What happened to those 1080 Ukraniean warheads?

Uhm?
Above numbers are based on available technology and materials from 1958
Both factors have improved somewhat since.
Of cause, as usual all the people that would be capable of pulling of such an accomplishment are either retired or dead.
Including one that have actually piled up enough money to actually do it, with some help of cheap Ukranian Megatons, making SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Armadillo Aroespace look like wooses. http://9to5mac.com/2011/08/16/...
Did he actually do it?

he iphone 3GS was discontinued in september 2012 (as in up until sep 2012 people were still buying them new on 2 year contracts usually "free") and it isn't supported with ios7 released in september 2013 one year later.

True, but Apple does still release security patches for the 3GS......

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT...

http://9to5mac.com/2014/02/21/...

So what's wrong with the sentence? After all, in the third quarter of 2013 Android did have around 80% of worldwide market share. That's correct - here are the ABI research figures.
It's simply wrong, though, to extrapolate from that to think that four in five smartphones in peoples' hands are Android-powered. Here's the reality: at the time this was written, more than 40% of the smartphones in use in the US (a key market for Nike) were iPhones. Only about 51% of the smartphones in peoples' hands in the US are Android phones. The ratios are more in Android's favour elsewhere, but nowhere outside of China (and perhaps India) would you find four in five smartphone owners using an Android phone.

"Hipster" is the modern, politically correct version of xenophobia. One way it's shown is that you spend quite a while attacking people for their appearance, which has nothing to do with whether someone is good or bad or innovative or not. Not to mention that people like Jobs and Woz had a pretty similar style back in the 70s. You're suffering from intellectual laziness that comes from frustration, which is the same place where less acceptable forms of xenophobia come from.

...attempts to mimic apple's walled garden...

I am puzzled by this common complaint, that the Mac is a "walled garden" (not talking about iOS). I can write any program (mostly I write posix code in fact), and download any app I like from the web. I am really not sure why the Mac is any more a "walled garden" than Windows is. Arguably less, since things like mail are kept in flat ascii files rather than some proprietary database as does Outlook. Mail speaks ordinary IMAP and POP (and has an adaptation for Gmail's aberrant implementation). The calendar can subscribe to various sources, and apple's in house service exports its data in a standard format. So where's the walled garden?

All you needed to do was a Google Search, and you'd have found things like this. While not being the "you can buy from any store as long as its ours" as you have with iOS, it is quickly going that way. What they are saying is Apple can remotely control which applications/developers are allowed on your Mac by updating a daily database. What's not clear is exactly how that is implemented, presumably it's a daily download on your part.

There's also this, which outlines the EFF perspective on Apples behavior. They are slowly getting more limiting in what they allow their users to do, all in the name of "Security", at the expense of end user freedom. There's also some arguments about the nature of the application development for Apple platforms, including sandboxing (which developers complain limits capability and forces rearchitecting their code), and the registration as a certified developer, for a fee and Apple gets a 30% cut of your sales. It's an evolution to make Mac like a game console, if the only approved source for PS4 games was the Sony Store, and Sony could decide on a whim, or errant bug in one game, to disable a developer and all their games.

That doesn't seem even close from being true:
http://9to5mac.com/2011/03/17/top-10-mac-countries-by-market-share-united-states-is-3/

Google beat earnings estimates. Google's Android OS drastically beat expectations on how soon it would totally dominate the smartphone market.

What good is "dominance" if you're not making money? Android has been a net loss for Google when you count the acquisition cost of Motorola and the fact they have been losing more money every quarter.

On top of that, Google bought Motorola mostly for their patents which they can't use either as a weapon or a defense since most of them are FRAND and courts worldwide have been coming down on companies that try to use FRAND patents to sue every one.

Google's plan for Android was to make sure they would not get shut out of the smart phone ads business. The plan far exceeded expectations all around.

Yes by paying Apple $1 billion a year for being the default search engine on iPhones....

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/apple-charges-google-1-billion-per-year-for-being-the-default-search-engine-on-its-devices-analyst-330228

Where the majority of their mobile profits are earned....
http://9to5mac.com/2011/09/21/google-23rds-of-our-mobile-search-comes-from-apples-ios/

And sinking billions in Motorola....

Samsung ... the good guys" You must be kidding. They copy and they clone. Apple does gold so Samsung does gold.

Oooh! Oooh! Can I play too? LG makes a completely touchscreen interface phone, so Apple does too. Samsung offers phones with replaceable colored backs, so Apple does too. Android phones tended to have bigger screens than the iPhone, so Apple made the iPhone screen bigger. All the Android tablet makers offered a higher DPI than the original iPad, so Apple did too.

There are revolutionary changes, and there are evolutionary changes. Making evolutionary changes (like a thinner device, or a higher resolution screen, or going from 32-bit to 64-bit) is not copying. I'm not even sure offering different color phones qualifies as either revolutionary or evolutionary, but it's so damn obvious that there's no way it goes into the revolutionary category. If that's what you're relying on to base your accusations of copying, you're grasping at straws.

Apple sells a 64-bit phone with a 64 bit operating system and conversion tools to take advantage of it. Samsung announces that they'll be building 64 bit phones too, one day.

Anyone old enough to have gone through the 32-bit to 64-bit Windows transition should know that except for some specialized applications, 64-bit doesn't really get you much additional performance. Yes it'll dramatically speed up double long int operations (2x), though I think the only place those are used are on infinite precision calculators. And it'll improve hardcore math calculations (finding primes sped up about 35%). But with byte-wise applications like data compression, there's no speedup. The other main advantage of 64-bit - flat memory space - isn't a pressing need for smartphones at present. So the only common smartphone apps I can see benefiting from 64-bit are maybe some games. Smartphones simply aren't the platform of choice for the heavy number-crunching applications where 64-bit processors really help.

The only reason Apple went with 64-bit so early is marketing. They have a history of discontinuing support for technologies while they still have a lot of life in them, in favor of new technologies which haven't yet been established. Sometimes this works (replacing the 5.25" floppy with 3.5" floppies, dropping floppy drives in favor of optical) and they end up leading the industry. Other times it backfires (Firewire, Lightning) and leaves them stuck with a standard different from the rest of the industry (USB). Because they dive into these new technologies head-first, they try to give their users and developers years of advance warning so they can prepare. The introduction of 64-bit processors in smartphones is clearly premature, but they're doing it as a heads up to their users and for the marketing buzz that comes with being first.

Anyway, 64-bit ARM has been available for over a year now. Just that nobody (aside from AMD) went with it prior to Apple because there was no pressing need for it. Samsung saying they'd go to 64-bit as well isn't copying Apple. It's their way of saying it's no big deal and they were scheduled to transition to it too eventually.

. Consumer Reports and other customer satisfaction survey's I've seen don't rate Samsung all that highly. Apple leads the pack in every survey I've seen.

Consumer reports rates the Samsung S4 #1 well above the iPhone. Prior to that, LG was #1. The iPhone hasn't been #1 in their rankings for a couple years now.

Samsung topped Apple in the latest smartphone customer satisfaction survey.

Related "story", popped up in the few days. http://9to5mac.com/2013/09/21/touch-id-on-iphone-5s-can-be-used-with-more-than-just-your-fingers/ Fingers and toes aren't the end of it.

The motherboards to either size are MacBook Pros; here's a picture showing the same board in a MacBook Pro teardown.

http://9to5mac.com/2012/06/13/ifixit-tears-down-the-new-retina-macbook-pro-calls-it-least-repairable-laptop-ever/macbook-pro-teardown/

The U-shaped divot is a cutout for one of the two fan assemblies.

The green board isn't an Apple board. The red one is only an Apple board if someone stole a prototype, which is unlikley.

BTW: The article makes it pretty clear that the tech doing the destruction was a guardian employee, and that the act was done as a symbolic gesture.

With so much in such a small space/size and an unusual factor as well, I have a very bad feeling about your ability to upgrade practically any parts in this thing.

The good news: it's a very modular design, and it looks well-engineered.

The bad news: its parts are totally nonstandard, so you will only get the upgrades that Apple wants you to have, at the prices Apple wants to charge.

Of course, maybe some third party will figure out how to make the parts and sell them to you... If so, Apple will shut them down hard. It has happened before.

I'll give them this: that looks like it will set a new record for crazy powerful computing hardware in a small package, and I'll bet it will actually be quieter than older "wind tunnel" PowerMacs. But if I'm spending my own money, I don't want one.

Microsoft is now leveraging their old secret standard file formats to impose an inferior product on the market.

1) Office for iPpad
2) the "old secret standard file formats" are the only ones LibreOffice knows how to open correctly, the new, open, XML file formats seem to be too confusing for open-source developers
3) WinRT is as capable as an unbroken iPad, and with a better UI than any Android skin yet on the market (I expect it to be copied completely by Jan 15th)
4) Also, Android Office

Is Google's testimony before Congress good enough?

http://9to5mac.com/2012/03/29/apple-generates-four-times-more-revenue-for-google-than-android-devices/

That remains to be seen, Nostradamus. So far they don't seem to be doing a very good job fulfilling your prophecy.

Yes they have. Maps already works fine in my area and they have been fixing errors.

Better than Google which had kept a bad Arbys location for years (and unlike complaining that Apple gets maps wrong in an area you do not actually care about, that error caused a problem for me on a real trip). I would have corrected that for Google but did not see a means to submit a correction.

That's because the Google app is basing it's recommendation from data for the roads, traffic conditions, and travel times.

And that's why it chose a SLOWER route? Apple takes into account all those factors too. There is no difference between the two routes in terms of traffic levels, Google's is just slightly longer. The route I have used for years and the one Apple decide to show me is simply the fastest way. It's slightly more complex in that you have to follow a road around a bend; I honestly think it's a small bug in Google's routing algorithm that it's not considering it.

So it's not showing you the "best" route, it's showing you the route you've already told them you prefer to take.

Again, I take the same route all the time. Google never once showed me the route I actually take. Apple did without even knowing I preferred it.

can you cite a source for this?

Well you could just ask any iOS users or developers since it's the way every app works.

Anecdote != fact. C'mon, man, you know that.

But here is just one of many stories.

Yea, about that... according to your link, it appears the behavior you refer to of asking users for access per-permission is a brand new feature only available in iOS6, which was released in September of this year. So, prior to 2 months ago, iDevices had the same security issues you've implied are exclusive to the Android platform (not to mention, as not every iDevice can be updated to iOS 6, there will be many out there that still contain this flaw).

More than a bit disingenuous, if you ask me.

Okay, just making sure I understand what you're saying - you install an app on iOS, but it's totally dead in the water (i.e., no permissions to actually do anything) until the user actually engages the app for the first time, at which point it goes through the things it wants to do point-by-point, giving the user the option to not allow certain permissions, while allowing others?

You don't really understand it, but you are on the right track.

The application when you start it has no ability to access protected resources (Address Book and location and photos are protected). Network access is not a protected resource, but since it has no ability to see any of your data yet that does not matter.

Now you stated "go through the things it wants to do point by point" on launch. No, that would be stupid. How could the user know yet what made sense to allow? That is BTW the biggest problem I have with Android, it's insane to think a user CAN know up front what permissions make sense for any application, even a flashlight.

So then what happens is that as you use the application, it asks for permission as the need to access a resource comes up. So only within the app do you ask to use your contacts for something, would it bring up an alert asking if it was OK for that application to use your contacts. Only when the app was ready to make use of location would you be asked if the app should be allowed to see your location - and so on.

can you cite a source for this?

Well you could just ask any iOS users or developers since it's the way every app works. But here is just one of many stories.

The iPod Touch starts at $199 and the iPad Mini is expected to start at $329.

Since this website has an excellent track record for nailing Apple's upcoming announcements, their pricing is likely much more accurate.

AC parent is correct.

One of the blogs with an inside source and a proven track record for nailing what is to come in recent Apple announcements, 9 to 5 Mac, has also come out and said the starting price will be $329.

Read for yourself.

Sadly, a $250 price point seems to be wishful thinking. Apple isn't going to pull a Google and sell things anywhere near break even.

NFC technology and PassBooks' technology are orthogonal to each other.

In other words, NFC can work with, or without, Apple's PassBook, and Apple's PassBook can work with, or without, NFC. And no, you don't even need to take my word for it, you can just take Apples' words instead.

Apple has recently won patents for using NFC on an iPhone to control home appliances, using NFC to control iWallet transactions with parental controls, and using NFC for checking-in with an airline (at the time, it called it iTravel, but that same airline ticketing information can be found within PassBook).

Everyone keeps talking about the iPad price as if that's the holiday price. Apple have a special event on the 23rd (i.e. in six days) where they're releasing 24 new variants on the iPad. At *this* point we'll be able to see how the iPad and Surface offerings stack up against each other

Uh... I'm not sure if this was your intent, but your link to a "Microsoft Store" actually is of an Apple store. One giveaway is the Apple Genius logo on the back wall. From searching, it seems the pic is from 9to5mac - here's a similar shot of what appears to be the same store: 9to5mac.

Google has a maps app ready, and it's already submitted to Apple. The only thing holding it back is Apple approving it. So that may be next week, in a year (like they did with Google Voice) or never (under the "duplicates a native service" rule).

Sources:
http://9to5mac.com/2012/09/20/google-has-an-ios-6-maps-app-awaiting-approval-it-is-solely-up-to-apple-to-approve/
http://mashable.com/2012/09/20/google-maps-ios-6-apple-approval-report/

floating this to the top... story already discredited by bruce's wife. move along, nothing to see here.

http://9to5mac.com/2012/09/03/bruce-willis-dietunes-yippikayee-story-refuted-by-wife/

Here's a quote from Walter Issacson:

a really great CEO in this country, Wendell Weeks, who runs Corning Glass. Steve Jobs when he does the iPhone decides he doesn’t want plastic, he wants really tough glass on it, and they don’t make a glass that can be tough like they want. And finally somebody says to him, because they were making all of the glass in China for the fronts of the stores, says, “You ought to check with the people at Corning. They’re kind of smart there.” So, he flies to Corning, New York, sits there in front of the CEO, Wendell Weeks, and says, “This is what I want, a glass that can do this.” So, Wendell Weeks says, “We once created a type of process that created something called Gorilla Glass.” And Steve said, “No, no, no. Here’s how you make really strong glass.” And Wendell says, “Wait a minute, I know how to make glass. Shut up and listen to me.” And Steve, to his credit, shuts up and listens, and Wendell Weeks describes a process that makes Gorilla Glass. And Steve then says, “Fine. In six months I want enough of it to make–whatever it is–a million iPhones.” And Wendell says, “I’m sorry, we’ve actually never made it. We don’t have a factory to make it. This was a process we developed, but we never had a manufacturing plant to do it.” And Steve looks at him and says what he said to Woz, 20, 30 years earlier: “Don’t be afraid, you can do it.” Wendell Weeks tells me Because I flew to Corning, because I just wanted to hear this story. Wendell Weeks tells me, “I just sat there and looked at the guy. He kept saying, ‘Don’t be afraid. You can do this.’”

Wendell Weeks said he called his plant in Kentucky that was making glass for LCD screens, and said, “Start the process now, and make Gorilla Glass.” That’s why every iPhone in your pocket and iPad has Gorilla Glass made by Corning. This is the reality distortion field that is, I submit, part and parcel of a guy who doesn’t believe the rules apply to him, even the rule about never cut in line.

No, they have a patent-agreement.. http://9to5mac.com/2012/08/13/apple-ios-devices-patents-are-licensed-to-microsoft-anti-cloning-agreement-in-place/

Thing is that Samsung did not agree on a licensing cost of $30 per phone and $40 per tablet so they took it to court... But not to forgot... Apple is also infringing on Samsung patents.....

I do think that android is a bigger threat than microsoft and that's why apple is going after that...

Yes, but Apple have those devices with the amazing high resolution screens, those screens made by some company in Korea - name starts with S I think :)

LG Philips starts with an S now

Who cares how well written it is, it is still content free. Nobody has leaked images yet

He said, not reading TFA http://blog.zoogue.com/ipad/exclusive-ipad-nano-images-surface/ http://9to5mac.com/2012/07/30/case-makers-start-teasing-their-smaller-ipad-cases-show-off-ipad-mini-renders/ - at least the back seems to be well covered.

I for one can't wait for Apple to return to their pre-2k status as niche purveyors of overpriced shit that hipster douches and hipster douches alone are willing to pay for.

Hipster douches and, you know, NASA: http://9to5mac.com/2012/08/06/nasa-used-more-than-a-few-macbook-pros-to-get-curiosity-to-mars/

...Google disagrees with you:

Before the legal fiasco began, Google warned Samsung not to copy Apple:
In February 2010, Google told Samsung that Samsung’s “P1” and “P3” tablets (Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Tab 10.1) were “too similar” to the iPad and demanded “distinguishable design vis-à-vis the iPad for the P3.”

http://9to5mac.com/2012/07/25/before-the-legal-fiasco-began-google-warned-samsung-not-to-copy-apple/

Matt Blaze tweeted that Apple doesn't support the full resolution of the Retina display on the MacBook - the most you can set is 1920x1200, and it scales it from there. He also reports that there's a workaround which will let you get the full resolution.

But still, SRSLY? You'd think Apple could get font scaling correct, especially since they've been selling big desktop displays for years.

Samsung's lawyers did have a field day - http://9to5mac.com/2011/08/19/samsung-claims-apple-doctored-galaxy-phone-images-in-netherlands-court/

Also, that's not the first time doctored evidence had been found in court filings - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/apple-accused-of-doctoring-image-to-sink-galaxy-tab-101-in-europe-update/14246

underneath it is pure pc.

Good God, man, so is a Mac. This is a counterfeit Mac, and while the article states they come with (surely pirated) Windows, there's no indication that they're not also sold with OS X.

Right here, if the rumors are true of course. I don't really doubt it, it seems to be in line with Apple's way of thinking these days.
Then again, for now these are indeed all rumors. Here's hoping they do actually include a port.

Steve Jobs probably liked blue jeans and black turtlenecks, and made that choice out of thousands of options. He did not go out to make it the only option for everyone.

Actually, his "personal uniform" grew out of a failed idea to have employees wear uniforms:

http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/11/steve-jobs-book-excerpt-why-he-wore-the-black-mock-turtleneck-uniform/

"I came back with some samples and told everyone it would great if we would all wear these vests. Oh man, did I get booed off the stage. Everybody hated the idea. [..] He also came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style."

So what Google makes on Android is still a whole lot more than what it makes on iPhones.

http://9to5mac.com/2011/09/21/google-23rds-of-our-mobile-search-comes-from-apples-ios/

Its not that he wants more hours, its that he needs more hours if he's to have anything left after being financially raped by his keepers. That's not exactly a powerful argument for humane treatment.

Read the bit in italics again, please

My base pay is 2,350 yuan, and I need to pay 190 yuan for social security tax, 120 yuan for housing fund, 110 yuan for accommodation fee, and some money on having meals.

I don't know what his "some money on having meals" adds up to, but before that, he's keeping over 80% of his wages. I'm assuming that either the housing fund of the accommodation fee covers putting a roof over his head (if anyone knows more, please correct me), but by most western standards, having more than 80% of your income left over after you pay for housing and retirement would be a cause for celebration, not a claim of rape.

A report from China Business News (via MIC Gadget) profiled Foxconn worker and iPad assembler Wang Xiaoqiao (who opted to hide his real name). According to Wang, iPad line workers are beginning to work fewer hours and get more days off as supply meets demand. Wang said iPad production was ramped up in March, bringing assembly time from 10 hours a day down to 8 hours. However, he is not happy about working less. Wang explained:

“The new iPad production started earlier this year, with one class of workers at each assembly line. Nearly 1,000 units will be mass-produced in a standard shift of 8 hours, plus 2 hours of overtime work. 150 – 180 units were produced during a peak iPad production run in February. However, in March, iPad employees worked fewer hours, and sometimes regular weekday shifts could not be archived My base pay is 2,350 yuan, and I need to pay 190 yuan for social security tax, 120 yuan for housing fund, 110 yuan for accommodation fee, and some money on having meals. I’m going through a difficult time for this month,”
While this might sound like a positive thing for a company often accused of making its employees work excessive hours, Wang said he is not happy about making less money and the lack of bonuses for overtime:

Wang is actually upset about it, since working fewer hours means no bonus pay. Last month, Wang worked six days a week, and got a day off. Today, he gets 3 days off, and work for only 4 days in a week. He was planning to buy new furniture by doing overtime work for more pay, but that seems to be impossible now.

http://9to5mac.com/2012/03/28/as-supply-meets-demand-ipad-line-workers-get-more-days-off-but-are-they-happy/

Display, Processor, Chips, Battery, ...But hey, It has an Apple logo!

Actually, Apple has been desperately (and it look like, successfully) trying to become non-dependent upon the technology-thieves at Samsung for a couple of years now. The latest iPad is actually stands as a testament as to the lengths that Apple has gone to cut Samsung completely out of their supply chain.

Display: Designed by Apple. iFixit said it was "probably Samsung". No surprises there. Apple has used Samsung "glass" for years. However, leaked information makes it seem more likely that Apple has turned to Sharp for the iPad 3 Retina display.

SoC (what you quaintly and incorrectly called the "Processor") : Designed by Apple, manufactured in Texas by Apple-owned Fab house, Intrinsity. In fact, Apple's Intrinsity is already the second-largest mobile SoC manufacturer, and ison track to pass Intel as the world's largest mobile chip fab.

Chips: Some are Apple-designed. Most are commodity. I think the iFixit teardown (See steps #15, 17 and 19) identified a number of manufacturers; Apple, TI, Broadcom, Fairchild, Qualcomm, Avago,Toshiba, Triquint, Skyworks... Hmmm. Let's see. What manufacturer's name is MISSING...?

Battery: Apple designed. No one else's battery comes close to size/capacity combination. Manufactured by Simplo Technology, with Dynapak International Technology as Apple's up-and-coming "preferred" source.

But don't let facts disturb your delusions...

9to5mac.com says: "We were able to verify these logins worked on more than one Foxconn server"

So, did they "verify" this by logging in with these stolen accounts? Apparently so. I personally don't care, but I have to think they've opened themselves up to some legal unpleasantness...

If, for example, someone handed me a piece of paper with various logins and passwords to employee accounts at $BIG_COMPANY, I don't think it would be legal to login to those accounts. Just knowing someone's password doesn't mean you are granted legitimate access.

From: http://9to5mac.com/2012/01/19/apples-textbook-announcement-later-today-new-iosmac-software-rumored/

In fact Jobs had his sights set on textbooks as the next business he wanted to transform. He believed it was an $8 billion a year industry ripe for digital destruction. He was also struck by the fact that many schools, for security reasons, don’t have lockers, so kids have to lug a heavy backpack around. “The iPad would solve that,” he said. His idea was to hire great textbook writers to create digital versions, and make them a feature of the iPad. In addition, he held meetings with the major publishers, such as Pearson Education, about partnering with Apple. “The process by which states certify textbooks is corrupt,” he said. “But if we can make the textbooks free, and they come with the iPad, then they don’t have to be certified. The crappy economy at the state level will last for a decade, and we can give them an opportunity to circumvent that whole process and save money.”

The problem at the local school level is the corrupt process for certification. Jobs viewed this as a way around that. Simply give the books away as part of the iPad.

not to mention environmental issues. They are known as the lease green company http://9to5mac.com/2011/11/16/apple-addresses-environmental-concerns-with-audits-of-15-suppliers-could-impact-future-components-and-contracts/

As a platform - the important thing - Apple's star is waning. You can't compete with the rest of the industry just because some fan boys prefer how the screen scrolls when you swipe it, or whatever.

As a platform....

1. iOS still accounts for 2/3rd's of Google's mobile searches

http://9to5mac.com/2011/09/21/google-23rds-of-our-mobile-search-comes-from-apples-ios/

2. The Apple app store generates 4x the revenue of the Android app market....

http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-app-store-2011-12

3. And Apple generates more profit on the iPhone than the rest of the industry combined.....

http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/29/apple-captured-two-thirds-of-available-mobile-phone-profits-in-q2/

2/3 of Google's mobile search comes from iOS devices.

Except for the part where you have to buy a new HP printer with AirPrint.

Or buy a mac and buy Printopia.

Or you struggle with this german piece of scheisse with no logging, errors, or any kind of troubleshooting at all, until you give up.

Again, Apple has never remotely killed an app.

The RD is an amazing thing. Apple has never confirmed remotely killing and app, that is correct. (Apple seldom confirms anything, including admitting to widely reported issues unless really pressured on it for a long period of time). But there have been several reported and documented cases of Apple remotely killing an app - as in not only removing from app store but stopping an already installed app from working. fx1 fx2

2) Apple has yet to remote pull anything.

This is wrong.

Apple first used it in 2009..

here's another from 2010

I aslo dont see why I should pay a ransom to be able to do what I want with my property, that is exactly what Microsoft is asking me to do.

Apple first used it in 2009. for nudity (to us Australians who aren't afraid of the human body, this seem pants on head retarded).

here's another from 2010

So it seems your information is a bit out of date... and completely fabricated.

Really? Where have you been, under a rock? Then there is the weird hatred for Flash which has caused thousands of sites to have to build IOS specific versions, then those of us in the streaming video world also had to build specific streaming solutions just for IOS devices when Android, Windows, and Linux devices can all use the same streams.

Trying to say developers make more money in one walled garden versus another doesn't really counter the argument presented that walled-gardens are bad ideas anyway. Then there is the reality that only a few developers make a lot of money from the app store and that's provided they don't violate secret app approval rules that have shown to be rather arbitrary.

I'll also note that both I and the GP I was referring to were talking about the market as a whole and not Apple or the developers that actually make money selling their apps.

Additionally, Google's App market only pulls apps which either violate copyright or are malicious, you will be hard pressed to use that as an argument that Google is equally as anticompetitive as Apple as it's simply not true. The only thing that has protected Apple so far is that there is plenty of healthy competition otherwise they would have been found guilty of abusing their monopoly in all of the same ways as Microsoft of the 90's.

Lastly, you'll please note that no one said Apple's approach was bad for everybody, if it was it wouldn't make any money.

Um, Apple's screen provider IS Samsung.

You're sure about that?

This whole mess (this Apple vs. Samsung than Samsung vs. Apple case as the latest example) makes kindergardens look like very mature business. Kill those patent systems already, ffs!