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"Jobs failed to spend any of the money on building Apple a competitor to "

"Amazon (retail sales); "

http://www.apple.com/retail/

"Google (Search); "

With decreasing ad revenue per click....

"Microsoft (License its OS); "

MS makes 5 to 10x *less* profit for each Windoows license than Apple makes per Mac sold. MS makes $15 on each Windows Phone license compared to $200 - $300 for each iPhone sold.

"Facebook (Social Network)..."

You consider Facebook to be financially successful?

You got a bit carried away with your carriage returns. Look Apple [brick and mortar] stores are not a replacement for what Amazon do....An expansion of its On-line itunes store is.

Google is decreasing Revenue per click...but is getting more clicks :) while protecting that revenue stream, and are expansing into social (Amazon); electronics(Apple); office+OS(Microsoft).

Microsoft simply raised the price of its OS product to make to a drop in PC licenses it currently expansing into Hardware(Apple) and search(Google) its failing, but its trying.

Amazon is getting into Electronics(Apple) and is currently has 40% of where shoppers go first.

Your right Facebook is just potential, but then they are immature compared to the the other companies. Although rumours of it producing hardware(Apple), and replacing Goole as search are well known.

Apple has amassed an incredible amount of cash, but apparently is a one trick pony....and well it looks to be following RIMM out the door, perhaps if they has a visionary running their company.

"Jobs failed to spend any of the money on building Apple a competitor to "

"Amazon (retail sales); "

http://www.apple.com/retail/

"Google (Search); "

With decreasing ad revenue per click....

"Microsoft (License its OS); "

MS makes 5 to 10x *less* profit for each Windoows license than Apple makes per Mac sold. MS makes $15 on each Windows Phone license compared to $200 - $300 for each iPhone sold.

"Facebook (Social Network)..."

You consider Facebook to be financially successful?

Now Its PC [I should say Mac] sales are down, Its iPod sales are gone [last quarter], Its Smartphones and tablets are suffering [its hurting them in their profit margins] from losing market share, as he market matures they have all the earlier adopter money. Now tablets have another problem...and its not that the iPad mini is selling badly, its *replacing* sales of iPad 4, which is going to hurt its profit margin yet again.

Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.

Truth here:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/10/25Apple-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-Results.html

I've run the gamut of various linux distros and am currently transitioning off an OS X server for home. I've come to realize that just because I CAN do something doesn't mean that's the best solution. I've hooked up external drives to a Mac Mini (win7 / Media Browser) that drives our main TV. Shared my media folders to the network and mapped those to libraries on Windows, shares in the dock on the Mac. Why windows for a file server?
1) I own the TV machine already. Broken down by cost, it takes a LOT of electricity to equal the cost of a NAS+drives.
2) it never turns off and
3) windows clients get all bitchy when they can't find the windows indexing service on the share and you try to mount to a library.
Setup is as easy as right click on the folder and choose "share with...specific people...". Backups done via SyncToy to an external disk give you fair redundancy (backup) and let you take your entire movie/music/picture store with you off the network. I don't have an android but for IOS I'd strongly recommend filebrowser to stream movies and music over your local network.

Those numbers aren't that hard to get, and they are pretty good estimates, not "guesses".

But you don't even need to know the manufacture price or markup to know Apple is making a fucking blizzard of cash on these devices.

Here are the first two paragraphs from Apple's own press release regarding their most recent quarterly results. Pretty much speaks for itself:

CUPERTINO, California—October 25, 2012—Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2012 fourth quarter ended September 29, 2012. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $36.0 billion and quarterly net profit of $8.2 billion, or $8.67 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $28.3 billion and net profit of $6.6 billion, or $7.05 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.0 percent compared to 40.3 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 60 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

The Company sold 26.9 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 58 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 14.0 million iPads during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 4.9 million Macs during the quarter, a 1 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 5.3 million iPods, a 19 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

Agreed.
Now that the major carriers have all agreed to kill phones that are reported stolen (like most European carriers) , the in-country black market value should drop to zero.
There is still the export option for stolen phones.

But to a certain extent the price of the phone sets the black market value as well. And that price is just too high.

And further, I have my doubts about the claim at the bottom of the summary:
  The U.S. phone subsidy model reportedly adds $400+ to the price of an iPhone.

According to Apple's own web page the cost of an unlocked an contract free iphone5 (cheapest model) is $649. ($849 for the one with the big GBs).

So how does the subsidy enter into that equation?

It shouldn't unless Apple is propping up the price to support Carrier subsidy plans.

But why would Apple do that? The carriers make every cent of that subsidy back and never reduce the price of your monthly bill. Apple could sell at 100% markup and still beat carrier pricing. Instead Apple sells at well over 200% markup even when you buy direct with cash up front. No other manufacturer rakes in that much cash.

T-Mobile is ending subsidization of phones. (You can still buy it on time, but its a separate contract that has an end date).

I'm mac, and I use this: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB441Z/A/apple-magsafe-airline-adapter

Perhaps you should see what you need for your laptop. I've not had a power issues in a couple of years thanks to having the right adapter.

Expecting to plug in to AC is rather retarded on an aircraft as it would require large inverters to power a full aircraft, and then all the inverters are going to do is power your converter thats going to bounce it back down to essentially the same voltage as it started out as.

AC power is only good for long range transmission and large motors, beyond that, DC is what you want and you don't want to go bouncing around between the two any more than you have to.

For those posting that this won't happen in Apple or in a walled garden, check out this apparently fraudulent Minecraft app in the iTunes store:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/minecraft-mobile-a/id559649056?mt=8

Despite the name and the logo, it appears to have no endorsement from the official creators. Reviews say the screenshots and description are misleading, and it looks like there's quite a few sockpuppet positive reviews.

Have you looked at the AppleTV?

Apple TV has existed for quite some time now. Despite this, it has yet to become much of a success. Apple probably makes some money on it, but it's just not getting all that much reach. Its integration with an ipad is pretty slick. There's also Google TV which is embedded into other players.

So far, the winner for the alternative TV seems to be gaming devices, like Xbox or PS3.

Find me a windows system where every driver works without a single forum hunt...

You'll think I'm being sarcastic... but I'm really not:

http://www.apple.com/imac

I haven't yet seen Windows driver issues with Win7 + bootcamp on a 27" Core i7 imac. Apple goes to great pains to make sure the drivers are in good working order for windows 7 and bootcamp. Haven't had to do a single forum hunt, and the drivers work great under Bootcamp, and under VMWare.

Absolutely nothing at all.

This is what the OP was discussing, and it's not included (best check you're right before calling others morans on the internet):

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MD820/lightning-to-micro-usb-adapter

The power adapter is a power adapter with a USB socket (which fits one end of the USB cable supplied), but that doesn't help you if you are someplace else without your special iphone charging cable and wish to plug in your iphone to charge, because the iphone itself will not accept a USB connection without an adapter (which is NOT included in the original package).

There's no technical reason they had to use a 'lightning' socket, it's simply a play to grab more cash from users upgrading peripherals, and from peripheral manufacturing license agreements. They could easily have used micro usb instead, or even better gone for wireless charging too. So they have ignored the spirit of EU agreement and pissed off a lot of their users by creating yet another locked down adapter. The sort of thing they could get off with when there were no competing devices, but now that Android is pretty much caught up, this sort of thing undermines confidence in Apple.

Then you're an idiot.

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone5

What’s in the box
        iPhone 5 with iOS 6
        Apple EarPods with Remote and Mic
        Lightning to USB Cable
        USB Power Adapter

Guess what that last thing is?

Their shipments are down on the year

Apparently math isn't your strong suit.

http://images.apple.com/pr/pdf/q4fy12datasum.pdf

Apple doesn't let you run your own OS on their hardware. They make it as hard as possible to run Windows on a Mac, they've been caught trying to prevent Linux from overtaking the boot loader.

That is a complete lie. Why are you spreading FUD?

Running Windows on a Macbook is extremely easy, and actually fully supported by Apple. Yes, they *SUPPORT* this - providing the best hardware driver install and update infrastructure I have ever seen in windows. Seriously - I only own high end laptops whether they are Apple or "PC", and running Windows on a Macbook is more pleasant than any Lenovo, HP, etc I've owned.

See: Bootcamp: http://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/

Regarding Linux - You do need to be aware that Macbooks use EFI, but installing Linux on a Macbook is trivial. I only ever run linux in VM's these days. Why bother running Linux when I have a fully POSIX compliant operating system already running natively? ( FWIW I am no stranger to linux. In a past life I was an *NIX server admin, with many years experience.)

I've been running both Windows and Linux on Macbooks for over 5 years, and they both work just fine. So now, will you explain your lies?

Recent MacOS blocks DMA from Firewire when the user is not logged in:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5002 (search CVE-2011-3215)

No. You danced around the actual issue while missing it completely, and ended up blaming the wrong party as a result.

First off, Aspyr has no one by the balls. If anything, they're the one getting squeezed. None of these companies port to Mac through Aspyr. Rather, Aspyr (as well as Feral Interactive et al.) is licensing the rights for Mac versions of games from the original publisher. Historically, this was a gamble for the Mac publishers like Aspyr, since the Mac market was a lot smaller, purchasing those rights cost a lot of money, and even with porting AAA best-selling titles on Windows it wasn't a sure thing. Nowadays, however, the risk has decreased to the point that EA, Ubisoft, Blizzard-Activision, and the other big publishers are increasingly choosing to capitalize on the Mac market directly by offering their own ports, rather than only profiting indirectly via licensing fees. I'd say that only a fraction of Mac ports are actually done by third-party licensees these days, though admittedly they tend to be big-name AAA titles that attract a lot of attention.

But to get to the heart of things, the real reason a lot of Mac versions of games are missing from Steam is because all Steamplay (a.k.a. cross-platform) titles are packaged together as a single sale. That's not a problem when both versions have the same publisher (e.g. an in-house port), but it is a complete deal-breaker when the Mac version is created by a third-party Mac publisher, since only the original publisher gets paid. Without setting up a revenue sharing contract with the original publisher (which would be incredibly messy for reasons I'd be happy to elaborate if you can't think of them on your own), or else selling the rights to the Mac version back, they'd have no way to earn money from purchases on Steam. Thus, your grousing is entirely misplaced, since this is a problem with the way Steam is structured.

That's also why Aspyr, contrary to what you suggested, has no problems selling their games on other stores. For instance, Borderlands 2 was just ported to Mac by Aspyr about a month ago, and it's on the Mac App Store and GameFly (née Direct2Drive) in addition to their own store. All of those allow Aspyr to be paid specifically for the Mac version of the game, which is something that's not possible with Steam.

Now, none of this is to say that Steam should change in some way. Despite the fact that I think the blame for this issue lies with Steam's store model, I actually think it's better that all Steamplay titles are package deals, rather than allowing for stand-alone Mac purchases, that way you don't end up with a lot of Windows gamers accidentally purchasing Mac versions or other confusion of that sort. Just because I think they made the right decision does not mean they are blameless, however.

In my own coding, I tend to *gasp* make mistakes. Sometimes, really, really dumb ones.

One of the biggest problems with my coding, is that I am often the only real coder looking at it. Even my FOSS work seldom gets reviewed by coders.

I can't say enough about peer review. I wish I had more. It can really suck, as one thing that geeks LOVE to do, is cut down other geeks. However, they are sometimes right, and should be heard.

Negative feedback makes the product better. Positive feedback makes the producer feel better.

I prefer a better product, but that's just me.

I had an interesting bug just the other day in my FOSS project. It's an iOS (iPhone/iPad) app that uses the MapKit Framework API.

The bug was on this line.

The original code is here.

So that folks don't have to look at a whole bunch of source, here's the problematic two lines:

[mapSearchView addAnnotation:myMarker]; [mapSearchView setDelegate:self];

When iOS 6 came out (with Apple's...wonderful...new maps), the black marker suddenly started showing as the default marker (this only works on iPads, so no one seemed to see it).

I went nuts trying to figure it out (actually, I've been nuts for a long time, but now I have something to blame it on).

I traced into the callbacks, and saw that they were being called with an empty annotation. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Then, just for s's and g's, tried this:

[mapSearchView setDelegate:self]; [mapSearchView addAnnotation:myMarker];

Damn if that didn't fix it.

It was a case of an ambiguous API contract. The Apple maps call the annotation setup as soon as the annotation is set, and the old Google API waited until a few things were set up, so the delegate call set after the annotation worked.

I could rail against the framework, but it was really my own fault, and I am just glad I figgered it out.

Or this? (scroll down to "Fusion Drive")

This is the dumbest argument I've seen on slashdot. Congratulations!

And where, exactly, do you get paid money to buy a Chromebook?

MacBook Air starts at $999 for the 11" version, so in order to save 1200 bucks, you'd have to be given $201 when getting the Chromebook.

Sounds like a really bad deal for the manufacturer to be honest.

Hi there, you must be very pedantic and love to point out how utterly moronic everybody else is compared to you.

Welcome to Slashdot!
You will fit in quite nicely here.

And where, exactly, do you get paid money to buy a Chromebook?

MacBook Air starts at $999 for the 11" version, so in order to save 1200 bucks, you'd have to be given $201 when getting the Chromebook.

Sounds like a really bad deal for the manufacturer to be honest.

Why don't you just read: http://www.apple.com/business/accelerator/deploy/ as a simple entry or http://www.foraker.com/ios-app-distribution-options/ or http://mobiledan.net/2012/03/02/5-options-for-distributing-ios-apps-to-a-limited-audience-legally/
or google around?

*sigh* You made me look it up. For the last time. *YOU DO NOT FUCKING NEED TO DISTRIBUTE APPS TO IOS DEVICES USING APPLE'S APPSTORE. You *DO* need a valid Dunn Street # and $299 for the enterprise cert.*[1] Why are you insisting on this phrase?
I never claimed that you *only* can distribute via the Appstore. However you claim you can simply distribute via the web, which is incorrect and not simple. You need a enterprise license to do that and a deployment process fitting that.

Why don't you simply read Apples website ... you don't need a developer account anymore to read that stuff. Or make an account and try it yourself?

*TESTING FOR DEVELOPMENT*.
You are mixing up test deployment with "in house" App deployment.

Without a certificate and the correct UID you can not deploy anything on non jailbroken device. Well, strictly speaking you can do something that looks similar: Having a HTML+JavaScript Application, which you visit in your browser first and then click the "install on homescreen" button.

I don't get why you are so excited about this topic anyway as you are certainly no iOS developer or you would not claim all this pseudo half knowledge.

Hmm. I don't remember giving them my UID. But I could have, it's been a while.

But, seriously, why do you keep insisting on the UID stuff? That 100 UID is for registering for *TESTING FOR DEVELOPMENT*.

*sigh* You made me look it up. For the last time. *YOU DO NOT FUCKING NEED TO DISTRIBUTE APPS TO IOS DEVICES USING APPLE'S APPSTORE. You *DO* need a valid Dunn Street # and $299 for the enterprise cert.*[1]

http://help.apple.com/iosdeployment-apps/mac/1.1/#app43ad871e

[1] And for those who do not understand how these things work - that cert is only used to sign your app once. IF you never update your app, you don't have to renew that cert next year.

Gee, except for, ACCORDING TO THE RUMORS, not allowing turn by turn directions on iOS.

From itunes:

Navigate your world with Google Maps, now available for iPhone. Get comprehensive, accurate and easy-to-use maps with built-in Google local search, voice guided turn-by-turn navigation, public transit directions, Street View and more.

Latitude is a service that tracks your location and stores it on Google servers (so that you can share it with your friends), but it's an opt-in service - it does not track you and send data anywhere unless you explicitly enable it. If Apple privacy policy restricts that kind of thing, then I have to say that it is a very strange policy, indeed (and one wonders how the various apps that record your hiking tracks and publish them online are then consistent with it).

It doesn't. Apple has a competing iOS-only version, so they won't allow Google to compete with them on their own device. Despite the fact that Apple's app is entirely useless for anyone who has friends that haven't drunken the Apple-flavored kool-aid.

An iOS, and Android app for tablets and phones, Simple Physics works very well to educate kids on forces, leverage, relative strength, etc. Build a bridge and drop rocks on it to see how many it can hold. Build a dam to withstand a flooding river. Build a shelter to withstand a bomb blast, all from the same simple "wooden" materials. My kids play this for hours when I let them.

There's also an excellent Wind Tunnel app for iOS that acts as a simple 2-D wind tunnel, with particle streams, smoke, pressure differentiation, etc.

Fun toys, and the kids learn while they play 'em.

While not entirely germaine to this discussion of quantity limits, exporting iPhones, presumed innocence, and iElectricity I hadn't seen this part mentioned yet.

There is only one reason to skip most of the apple stores near or around Newton, MA. It's to avoid the Massachusetts sales tax, as New Hampshire has no sales tax. She was reportedly carrying $16k in cash so without paying sales tax, she would be able to purchases potentially 2-4 additional iPhones.

I think she knows a bit more English and "how things work" than her story would otherwise have us believe.

Also, not in the top ten in the US App Store

http://www.apple.com/itunes/charts/free-apps/

until this is the most-downloaded app in the store? One day? A few hours?

Try "the moment it showed up." It hasn't even been available for 8 hours yet and it already has tens of thousands of downloads. People haven't even gotten out of bed yet, and it's the most downloaded app of the day.

Sure they promise to host it for you: https://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/ . Look at point three.

I'm going to ignore the fact that you made an idiot of yourself. Let's have a serious discussion eh?

Really? They "banned" Sony Reader?

THIS Sony Reader?

The one that was updated 6 days ago on the Apple Store, and is Free to download?

What a curious definition of "banned" you must have.

Apple rejected an UPDATE to Sony's Reader program about a year and a half ago because Sony wanted to enable in-app purchases without also supporting Apple's in-app purchasing system. Apple rejected it, until Sony corrected the violation. Apple then happily posted the Sony app in their store.

Why can't you just check apples web site for your self? Moron?
http://www.opensource.apple.com/release/mac-os-x-1082/

You mean a link like this one: http://www.opensource.apple.com/release/mac-os-x-1082/

A few years ago I regularly built Qt-based binaries on my Linux machine, targeting PPC OS X (10.3). It was pretty slick. I tried to set up a cross-compiling environment later under 10.4 fat binary days, but that proved too difficult, sadly. As it stands now, if I could run apple's native compiler and tools under linux, outputting nice OS X app bundles for Qt apps, that would be pretty slick.

Start here.

I already have that.. it's called VMWare Fusion on a Macbook Pro. =^)

That's a little different, but if somebody were to make a package to let you run Linux binaries on OS X (including hacking the execsw[] table in xnu/bsd/kern/kern_exec.c to have an image activator for ELF binaries) and combine it with Wine for OS X, that's another alternative along the lines of Wine+Darling-on-Linux. (Extra credit for hacking execsw[] to handle PE binaries as well. :-))

I don't know how much Windows NT source would be needed to complete the circle and add the ability to run OS X and Linux binaries on Windows.

Better tell Apple that, then.

Seriously... I don't own a single Apple device. I don't consider myself to be in their target market, and I object to paying the prices they're asking for their stuff when I can get gear that's just as good for less. But would it kill you to actually check their fucking website to see if they're still selling it, before you spout off that it's a dead line?

The link you posted shows exactly 2 video cards available for the Mac Pro, ATI Radeon HD 5770 and ATI Radeon HD 5870. These are not 1 but 2 generations behind. ATI Radeon don't even exist anymore the ATI brand was discontinued back in 2010. Then Apple has the audacity to charge over 200 dollars for this outdated card (210 for the upgrade to a 5870 from a 5770 on the quad core system 270 for a 2nd 5770 (which makes no sense at all if 1 5770 is included why is a 2nd of a cheaper card more expensive than a 5870, are they charging for the damn crossfire connector?). If this is all Apple offers for their high end PCs, I am not impressed.

Better tell Apple that, then.

Seriously... I don't own a single Apple device. I don't consider myself to be in their target market, and I object to paying the prices they're asking for their stuff when I can get gear that's just as good for less. But would it kill you to actually check their fucking website to see if they're still selling it, before you spout off that it's a dead line?

The times when Apple would reject any other browser are over. There's Chrome avaible here: https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/chrome/id535886823?mt=8 I even managed to get my own browser on the app store https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/resworb/id520270702?mt=8. I'm still waiting to win a most-useless-app-award with that one though.

The times when Apple would reject any other browser are over. There's Chrome avaible here: https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/chrome/id535886823?mt=8 I even managed to get my own browser on the app store https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/resworb/id520270702?mt=8. I'm still waiting to win a most-useless-app-award with that one though.

Hard to use...not really. Hard to configure when you need to do something non-standard...hell yeah! I've been able to configure the APN settings on every phone I've owned since ~2000. for iOS you can't do it even if you wanted to. You have to download the iPhone Configuration Utility for Mac or Windows (Don't use those...tough) Then figure out how to use said utility to create a profile for the configuration you want and then sync the profile to your device. If your not near your PC and need to make a change...tough.

Hard to use...not really. Hard to configure when you need to do something non-standard...hell yeah! I've been able to configure the APN settings on every phone I've owned since ~2000. for iOS you can't do it even if you wanted to. You have to download the iPhone Configuration Utility for Mac or Windows (Don't use those...tough) Then figure out how to use said utility to create a profile for the configuration you want and then sync the profile to your device. If your not near your PC and need to make a change...tough.

then what do you call this that I use to browse the web?
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/atomic-web-browser-full-screen/id347929410?mt=8

As far as verifying the claims goes, try Glassdoor. Of course, it's still a matter of trust, but it'd have to be a pretty huge conspiracy to skew the results there. In practice, comparing what I've seen there to anecdotal evidence from coworkers and friends in several big companies, it seems to be pretty accurate.

It's hard to say what the best venue is for someone fresh out of college, but beyond that it's mostly networking. I found that LinkedIn helps a lot, too. And, of course, the good old fashioned writing letters to any prospective employers and asking if they have open positions. For big guys (which is where you usually want to be if you want a stable 6-figure salary), they generally have their own public listings online, where you can find something of interest and apply right away:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/jobs
http://www.apple.com/jobs/us/index.html
http://www.google.com/about/jobs/
https://careers.microsoft.com/search.aspx ...

Cost of living in Puget Sound is relatively high, though probably not as high as SF, from what I've heard. I'm paying $1300 in rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in Redmond, but it's literally 10 minutes walking distance from my office, so they charge some premium for that. Also don't forget that there's no state income tax in WA, which comes up to a hefty difference at the end of the year.

(By the way, Google also has an office in Kirkland, WA these days, and they seem to be growing it rapidly and are constantly seeking to hire more people.)

Don't always confuse the data consumed by the iPhone as any real indication of "doing more".

There are serious bugs in the IOS system, some of them long standing ones that cause huge cellular data usage that users can't explain and can't control. There are numerous HUGE threads on Apple support forums about high unexplained data useage. And SIRI is not the only data hog.

Also, none of these web data usage studies takes into account the number of old iphones used only on wifi as the users have moved on to to newer phones. I have two of these sitting around my house. They run news update apps 24/7. The kids use them for web surfing occasionally. But because they are behind a router, web sites can't tell if its one, two, or seven. So in that case, what the web site can gather from it's logs speaks more to the installed base and durability of ancient IOS devices than the amount of actual use.

From the tone of your post I see you think this is some sort of contest. I have no dog in this fight, I'm just talking about what I've heard.

The "high data use bugs" are a red herring - the browser use stats come from webserver logs and the supposed bugs can't account for the level of traffic seen (also, are the bugs browsing specific web pages with the browsing patterns of a person?!). The proportion of http requests from the bugs vs the actual web use of people actively using the device is going to be extremely small. If that's your argument about... what exactly? To make yourself feel better than Android has a lower percentage of web browser traffic? I'm not sure what you're trying to say here? Like I said, it's not a contest, it's stats.

AMD Radeon HD5870 - No longer available, but faster cards are available for less than $100.

Oh you poor saps, Apple will still sell me an AMD Radeon HD 5870 for my Mac Pro for $449.00.

Feel free to cry for me.

Don't always confuse the data consumed by the iPhone as any real indication of "doing more".

There are serious bugs in the IOS system, some of them long standing ones that cause huge cellular data usage that users can't explain and can't control. There are numerous HUGE threads on Apple support forums about high unexplained data useage. And SIRI is not the only data hog.

Also, none of these web data usage studies takes into account the number of old iphones used only on wifi as the users have moved on to to newer phones. I have two of these sitting around my house. They run news update apps 24/7. The kids use them for web surfing occasionally. But because they are behind a router, web sites can't tell if its one, two, or seven. So in that case, what the web site can gather from it's logs speaks more to the installed base and durability of ancient IOS devices than the amount of actual use.

So while you are right that a standard Bluetooth profile (e.g. headset) doesn't require MFi licensing, which of these standard Bluetooth profiles would you use for your Hello World example?

What you're describing would be a better fit for Bluetooth LE and the Core Bluetooth Framework.

My employer recently submitted a grant proposal about a device that could potentially connect to an iPod over Bluetooth, and one of the grant reviewers nailed us over MFi licensing. But even aside from that...

From Roving Networks' website:

"All products designed to connect to iPhone's, iPod's and iPad's including those that incorporate the Roving Bluetooth APL module must be registered and approved with Apple's Made for iPod (MFi) program."

From Apples' website:

"Developers who wish to develop electronic accessories for iPhone, iPad or iPod using licensed components and/or software should join the MFi Program. Companies, organizations, government entities and educational institutions are eligible to apply. Case developers, app developers and developers of accessories that only use standard technology (e.g., Bluetooth Low Energy or standard Bluetooth profiles supported by iOS) do not need to join the MFi Program."

So while you are right that a standard Bluetooth profile (e.g. headset) doesn't require MFi licensing, which of these standard Bluetooth profiles would you use for your Hello World example?

And just keep in mind that Android support requires NONE of this MFi shit. No special iAP authentication chip. No need to shoehorn yourself into a standard profile to avoid having Apple run a credit check on you. No onerous restrictions on hobbyists or small businesses which have no mass manufacturing capability.