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No, their iOS devices were sold without any app store or means to get an app on the device. The app store was introduced as-is with the restrictions in place. With a Mac, they have millions of these on the market, and consumers are completely free to install whatever software they like. There is absolutely no way Apple could come in after the fact and force such a change to require everyone to use an app store only. Such suggestions that this would somehow happen are ridiculous on their face.

As has already been published, it will be an optional place to get software. This is NOT the same App Store Only model used on iOS devices.

I DO see this as a huge benefit to the Mac community, as I often look for software to do various things, and if it's not on the sites I frequent like Sourceforge.net, Version Tracker (before downloads.com ruined it), OpenSourceMac.Org, etc), then I'm leery of installing it. The official Apple App store looks to plan to use the same hygenics used in the App Store for iOS, for which I'm grateful.

They've already published the Guidelines for developers and it looks like the same setup (no porn, malware, unpublished API's, etc).

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/10/20/apple_issues_review_guidelines_for_mac_app_store.html

VERY good news for those who want a relatively trustworthy software source.

How long until the only way to get software on your Mac desktop is via Apple's store

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/10/20/apples_new_mac_app_store_coming_to_snow_leopard_within_90_days.html

If that is to be believed, then Mac OS X users are safe...for now.

Apple showed the list of protocols in FaceTime during the keynote.

• H.264 and AAC, its ISO/MPEG video and audio codecs (just like iChat).
• SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), the open IETF signaling protocol for VoIP used by iChat AV.
• STUN (Session Traversal Utilities for NAT), an IETF standard for dealing with lots of different kinds of NAT.
• TURN (Traversal Using Relay NAT), an IETF standard for allowing a client behind NAT to receive incoming requests like a server.
• ICE (Interactive Connectivity Establishment) an IETF standard which helps set up connections through NAT firewalls.
• RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol), an iETF standard for delivering media streams in VoIP.
• SRTP (Secure RTP) an IETF standard designed to provide encryption, message authentication and integrity for the data streams.

They said they want it to be an open standard. It's not an encrypted protocol.

RIM is doing just fine in the corporate and governmental world.

Neither are exactly growth markets. Those groups already have Blackberries and they're not going to do anything but go down. RIM has gone from 36% of the smartphone market at the beginning of the year to 21% in August, all that was loss to the Android who went from 8% to 19%. iPhone usage was pretty stable.

So you are taking your own decisions and applying them to the millions of people that are part of the smartphone market?

Since I was one of the people that would have bought an iPhone if it were available on Verizon and instead bought a Droid? Yeah. And the millions of people who have also bought Droid devices in the past year seem to agree with me.

Could Apple have gotten the phone to market the way they wanted without going exclusive?

Who knows? Maybe the iPhone was the straw that broke Verizon's back on allowing open handsets.

200K units per year is low, 40M laptops is huge, yet the iPad is truly baffling, since "Apple already revealed in July that it sold 3.27 million iPads in its first three months of availability":

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/10/05/apples_ipad_proclaimed_to_have_fastest_adoption_rate_ever.html

While it will be interesting to see if the same momentum lasts through to the end of the year, it should be mentioned those are the sales of just one company. RIM gets it (they announced the PlayBook), as does Google (with Android [GingerBread] 3.0 apparently supporting tablets) and as do a number of other hardware manufacturers. Microsoft's attempt seems to be in the same ball park as what was wrong with Windows CE or Windows Mobile (whatever name it goes by). I must admit I am curious whether HP will actually make a WebOS based tablet.

I always enjoy these off the cuff statemetns about how poorly Apple Developers are treated

The developers are treated a lot better than the customers.

I don't know about a *lot* better, but you're right that Apple does treat developers pretty well. It's hard to compete with this though.

Crippled ability to print anything -- you can buy the $30 Apple Camera Adapter to get some USB support, and/or simply email whatever you need to print to a computer, but what a pain.

You're not even trying... iOS 4.2 will introduce printing support. Also this app works wonders for me right now: PrintBureau.

Look, the iPad isn't perfect, and it is not a replacement for a netbook/laptop in a lot of cases (but does work better in some use cases). There are legitimate issues, so why do you pollute your argument with stuff that is no longer an issue?

Because, believe it or not, Google and Apple are "close" to one another. As close as two companies can be while still sorta competing. The two companies share alot of the same board members to my understanding. And Brin, Page, and Jobs are not enemies.

Have you lived in a cave for the past year?

There were two shared directors as of May 2009 when the DOJ mentioned they would investigate. Then Eric Schmidt quit Apple's board and Arthur Levinson quit Google's board...

Then Jobs proclaimed that Google was trying to kill the iPhone... sure, this could all be fluff, and the two companies are really being controlled by "them" or Dr. Evil, but if so, they have quite a few people fooled... especially since Apple is now increasing the fronts on which they compete with Google, and vice versa.

Clearly, this is all orchestrated.

Way to be timely Slashdot - AppleInsider has already reported that the story is bunk. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/14/steve_jobs_prevented_from_bringing_throwing_stars_on_private_jet_report.html

TFA seems to have the date wrong, at least: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/25/apple_sends_out_invitations_for_sept_1_special_event.html

iOS is on their every other line of devices and the walled garden apps economy is a significant money maker for Apple.

Stop lying. App Store makes very little money for Apple. sopssa, I don't recall how many times you have to be reminded that Apple expects App Store to barely be even, profit wise. That's not where they make their money. But I guess getting first post and trolling is more important that checking facts.

Keep on trolling boyo!

Captcha: Inform.
Ahhh ... the irony!

The often-reliable Chinese language newspaper -- which correctly predicted the first coming of the iPad when everyone else on the planet was carping on about a sub-$500 netbook from the Cupertino company

Oh please. This is the same "often-reliable" newspaper that predicted that Apple was going to release an iPhone nano earlier this year.

Also, the idea that anybody expected Apple to release a "sub-$500 netboook" is sheer lunacy. Nobody seriously expected that-- the iPad was widely anticipated by just about everyone for months before it was released.

My understanding, though I've not read about the case in depth, is that he was accused, he admitted to it, and the accuser had already worked out a resolution, then the crap hit the fan, so to speak.

huh... I heard the accusations were baseless... but that a PR fuck thought that a scandal (aka, an investigation) would hurt the company image

"In losing Mark Hurd, the HP board failed to act in the best interest of HP's employees, shareholders, customers and partners," Ellison wrote to the Times. "The HP board admits that it fully investigated the sexual harassment claims against Mark and found them to be utterly false."AppleInsider

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/07/16/apples_updated_mac_pro_imac_rumored_to_have_usb_3_0_faster_firewire.html
Some of the older ideas on light for Macs.
Might be a while as new Mac Pros are out soon and nothing really new on the usb3 side at Apple.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4131

Comex basically just diff'd what was fixed in the latest OSX patches against what was in the last iOS patch. Then read up on this patch that hasn't made it to iOS yet. FYI, this won't work if you have 4.1 beta or higher installed supposedly (cuz Apple already had the patch bundled up ready to go when they release the next build)...

The real credit goes to Charlie Miller who found this problem in the first place.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/03/browser_based_ios_jailbreak_utilizes_scary_pdf_security_hole.html

The funny thing I found was that Charlie Miller was given credit by Apple in the patch note.. "Credit to Charlie Miller working with TippingPoint's Zero Day Initiative for reporting this issue." but then Charlie tweets about p[articular exploit.. "Very beautiful work,"... "Scary how it totally defeats Apple's security architecture."

The "masses of people who held off and are going to buy an iPhone in Q3" theory is a popular one amongst fans of the platform.
However, market analysts disagree:

From http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/07/20/strong_quarter_expected_but_apples_antennagate_could_hurt_iphone_sales.html

"Analyst Yair Reiner has reduced his projected iPhone sales for the next quarter to 8.5 million, down from 11 million, citing well publicized signal drops that can be replicated with the iPhone 4 in weak signal areas. He expects others on Wall Street, which average predictions between 11 million and 11.5 million, will also reduce their estimates."

From http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/07/06/apple_struggles_to_meet_iphone_4_demand_as_ipad_availability_improves.html

"But in the September quarter, Wu has slightly increased his forecast of iPhone sales to 10.5 million, up from 10.4 million. He said checks with overseas suppliers have indicated that availability will improve in the August timeframe, offset by about a million of remaining channel inventory that is expected to be drawn down. Wu still expects Apple to ship 40 million iPhones in calendar 2010."

If Apple sells 10.5 million units in Q3, they'll be a little past where Android was in Q2 (roughly 500k units, but it's difficult to get very precise). If they sell only 8.5, as Reiner predicts, they will be simply maintaining the pre iPhone 4 rate of sales. Even the most favorable estimates do not put iPhone sales on pace with Android in Q3 or for the year.

In a market that is rapidly expanding, maintaining your units shipped per quarter is actually losing ground, as easily seen in the graph from the Nielson report: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/mobile-OS-share-recent-2010.png

Notice that Apple declined from 34% of all sales in 2009 Q4 to only 23% in 2010 Q2, despite having sales of approximately the same volume in both Q1 and Q2 of this year.

Or, to make a long story short: No, iPhone sales are not going to catch up with Android sales, regardless of any "lurking hordes" who were waiting for the iPhone 4.

The "masses of people who held off and are going to buy an iPhone in Q3" theory is a popular one amongst fans of the platform.
However, market analysts disagree:

From http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/07/20/strong_quarter_expected_but_apples_antennagate_could_hurt_iphone_sales.html

"Analyst Yair Reiner has reduced his projected iPhone sales for the next quarter to 8.5 million, down from 11 million, citing well publicized signal drops that can be replicated with the iPhone 4 in weak signal areas. He expects others on Wall Street, which average predictions between 11 million and 11.5 million, will also reduce their estimates."

From http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/07/06/apple_struggles_to_meet_iphone_4_demand_as_ipad_availability_improves.html

"But in the September quarter, Wu has slightly increased his forecast of iPhone sales to 10.5 million, up from 10.4 million. He said checks with overseas suppliers have indicated that availability will improve in the August timeframe, offset by about a million of remaining channel inventory that is expected to be drawn down. Wu still expects Apple to ship 40 million iPhones in calendar 2010."

If Apple sells 10.5 million units in Q3, they'll be a little past where Android was in Q2 (roughly 500k units, but it's difficult to get very precise). If they sell only 8.5, as Reiner predicts, they will be simply maintaining the pre iPhone 4 rate of sales. Even the most favorable estimates do not put iPhone sales on pace with Android in Q3 or for the year.

In a market that is rapidly expanding, maintaining your units shipped per quarter is actually losing ground, as easily seen in the graph from the Nielson report: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/mobile-OS-share-recent-2010.png

Notice that Apple declined from 34% of all sales in 2009 Q4 to only 23% in 2010 Q2, despite having sales of approximately the same volume in both Q1 and Q2 of this year.

Or, to make a long story short: No, iPhone sales are not going to catch up with Android sales, regardless of any "lurking hordes" who were waiting for the iPhone 4.

Now, just need a fix for iOS4 being slow and shit on the iPhone 3G....

It seems like Apple is already looking at the problem.

I don't care if you think it's a strange comment. Tablets are an appliance device, streamlined for simple computing.

If you're a business user, you may be interested to know that 50% of Fortune 100 companies are already using the iPad. So really, nobody knows what it is you're complaining about except that you want a stylus, which is an obsolete input device that nobody wants.

Yes, you think Steve Jobs can hear you. Apple-haters like you obsessively reference him by name as if it strengthens your point.

Next.

their server ranges don't do terribly well, the Apple TV was rather a flop and the MacBook Air didn't do particularly well for example, although you might be right in that they still turn a profit at least which means I suppose even there they can be called a success however small, but certainly not something that really generates worthwhile revenue.

I agree that none of these are defining their relative market,s but none of them appear to be losing money. Also, none of these have been major focuses of Apple's attention. Not necessarily saying that they'd do better if Apple (Jobs) loved them more, but that what they do focus their attention and profits on all have turned into big profit centers. Microsoft OTOH has spend a lot of their time, attention and money on the entertainment division and for what?

– A game station that is respectable, but barely above break even after all these years (I own an original Xbox).
– A music player that is still best compared to the iPod of 2 to 3 years ago (only ever seen one of them in person).
– A tween targeted phone that was on the market for a total of a couple of months before they pulled it.

the iPod isn't selling amazingly well anymore

According to Apples Q3 2010 conference call iPod touch sales are up 48% from the same quarter last year, and the iPod still has over 70% market share. If the iPod market isn't growing faster, its probably due to market saturation or a shrinking market, which will affect everyone in that space, including Microsoft.

There's also some pretty solid signs that they're facing increased competition from Android and Nokia and Windows 7 phones aren't out the game yet- they could still come back and re-take a decent share of the smartphone market and the danger here for Apple is that with the new breed of phones any loss in phone sales wont see an increase again in iPods because people's new phones even if not Apple phones will do the trick more so than they used to.

You can make an argument for Android, it'd be hard to defend that argument for Nokia, and until it's actually released Windows 7 is vaporware. All the reviews I've read of the pre-release windows 7 phone (including one by a reviewer that original raved about its potential) is that it is comparable to iOS 1.0 at best and sucks donkey balls at worst. Now, maybe Microsoft will polish that turd enough to make it a big hit. Stranger things have happened. However, as I pointed out before Microsoft has a horrible track record with this kind of maneuver (It could be freudian that I original misspelled maneuver as manure) in the consumer electronics market. Also, as I pointed out above, the iPod is still doing very well despite your impressions.

Further, Apple is somewhat restricted demographically too, it's largely limited to the West, the iPhone has effectively flopped in India, China and Africa, because Apple only has individual model of the iPhones and it's simply too expensive for these markets- this leaves Apple with a dilemma, does it just ignore those markets and hope to continue to simply out-compete the competition in existing markets, or does it consider changing it's business model and introduce a budget iPhone much like with the iPod Nano and Shuffle to compete in these markets?

News that Apple has flopped in India is exactly that, News to me. Do you have a citation? Not being snarky, just looking to see what I may have missed. According to the same Q3 conference call I referenced earlier Apple is seeing strong growth in Asia, Europe, and Japan and Asia generally includes both India and China. With regards to China specifically, the reasons I've s

their server ranges don't do terribly well, the Apple TV was rather a flop and the MacBook Air didn't do particularly well for example, although you might be right in that they still turn a profit at least which means I suppose even there they can be called a success however small, but certainly not something that really generates worthwhile revenue.

I agree that none of these are defining their relative market,s but none of them appear to be losing money. Also, none of these have been major focuses of Apple's attention. Not necessarily saying that they'd do better if Apple (Jobs) loved them more, but that what they do focus their attention and profits on all have turned into big profit centers. Microsoft OTOH has spend a lot of their time, attention and money on the entertainment division and for what?

– A game station that is respectable, but barely above break even after all these years (I own an original Xbox).
– A music player that is still best compared to the iPod of 2 to 3 years ago (only ever seen one of them in person).
– A tween targeted phone that was on the market for a total of a couple of months before they pulled it.

the iPod isn't selling amazingly well anymore

According to Apples Q3 2010 conference call iPod touch sales are up 48% from the same quarter last year, and the iPod still has over 70% market share. If the iPod market isn't growing faster, its probably due to market saturation or a shrinking market, which will affect everyone in that space, including Microsoft.

There's also some pretty solid signs that they're facing increased competition from Android and Nokia and Windows 7 phones aren't out the game yet- they could still come back and re-take a decent share of the smartphone market and the danger here for Apple is that with the new breed of phones any loss in phone sales wont see an increase again in iPods because people's new phones even if not Apple phones will do the trick more so than they used to.

You can make an argument for Android, it'd be hard to defend that argument for Nokia, and until it's actually released Windows 7 is vaporware. All the reviews I've read of the pre-release windows 7 phone (including one by a reviewer that original raved about its potential) is that it is comparable to iOS 1.0 at best and sucks donkey balls at worst. Now, maybe Microsoft will polish that turd enough to make it a big hit. Stranger things have happened. However, as I pointed out before Microsoft has a horrible track record with this kind of maneuver (It could be freudian that I original misspelled maneuver as manure) in the consumer electronics market. Also, as I pointed out above, the iPod is still doing very well despite your impressions.

Further, Apple is somewhat restricted demographically too, it's largely limited to the West, the iPhone has effectively flopped in India, China and Africa, because Apple only has individual model of the iPhones and it's simply too expensive for these markets- this leaves Apple with a dilemma, does it just ignore those markets and hope to continue to simply out-compete the competition in existing markets, or does it consider changing it's business model and introduce a budget iPhone much like with the iPod Nano and Shuffle to compete in these markets?

News that Apple has flopped in India is exactly that, News to me. Do you have a citation? Not being snarky, just looking to see what I may have missed. According to the same Q3 conference call I referenced earlier Apple is seeing strong growth in Asia, Europe, and Japan and Asia generally includes both India and China. With regards to China specifically, the reasons I've s

He should have shut the company down and given the money back to the shareholders.

I don't think the parents post is a Troll. It is a valid point. He owns his car, and can control what is 'posted' on it. Granted there is more public interest in the Apple issue, but the basics are the same. They own the site, and moderate the content. In the above example, no one would ever claim someone was censoring for removing an expletive from the side of their car. It's not like someone can't Google "iPhone 4 Antenna" and get thousands of differing opinions that match what they are looking for.

Apple is big, but not that big. They don't control every blog on the internet. They are refusing to leave such posts on their own forums, which is perfectly within their right. If I was a stockholder in that company, I would expect such action to be taken.

Personally, I find the whole antenna debacle a bit silly. Everyone I know buys cases for these things. They did it for the first gen, and have done so for every phone that's out. it's more rare to see one in it's bare form. I liken this to Windows and Virus Scanners. Although you could buy it and run it without it (and it's certainly not included in the OS), no one does. It's just not that big of a deal. Without the cover, I still can't get mine to drop more than two bars, and hasn't dropped a single call (I've had it since the 16th of last month, so almost a full calendar month).

Hell, even consumer reports, although they said they couldn't recommend it unless Apple provided a free workaround for the antenna issue, still rated it as the highest ranked and best smart phone available. The hysteria around this has gotten ridiculous.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/07/13/consumer_reports_ranks_apples_iphone_4_best_smartphone_available.html

I don't think the parents post is a Troll. It is a valid point. He owns his car, and can control what is 'posted' on it. Granted there is more public interest in the Apple issue, but the basics are the same. They own the site, and moderate the content. In the above example, no one would ever claim someone was censoring for removing an expletive from the side of their car. It's not like someone can't Google "iPhone 4 Antenna" and get thousands of differing opinions that match what they are looking for.

Apple is big, but not that big. They don't control every blog on the internet. They are refusing to leave such posts on their own forums, which is perfectly within their right. If I was a stockholder in that company, I would expect such action to be taken.

Personally, I find the whole antenna debacle a bit silly. Everyone I know buys cases for these things. They did it for the first gen, and have done so for every phone that's out. it's more rare to see one in it's bare form. I liken this to Windows and Virus Scanners. Although you could buy it and run it without it (and it's certainly not included in the OS), no one does. It's just not that big of a deal. Without the cover, I still can't get mine to drop more than two bars, and hasn't dropped a single call (I've had it since the 16th of last month, so almost a full calendar month).

Hell, even consumer reports, although they said they couldn't recommend it unless Apple provided a free workaround for the antenna issue, still rated it as the highest ranked and best smart phone available. The hysteria around this has gotten ridiculous.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/07/13/consumer_reports_ranks_apples_iphone_4_best_smartphone_available.html

You link would be more useful if it was for a smartphone market. No one I know browses on a standard phone and the app market for standard phones is pretty much limited to really bad Tetris, or bejeweled clones. It's just too painful.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/11/12/apples_iphone_captures_17_of_worldwide_smartphone_market.html

The top 5 in the Smartphone Market are Nokia, RIM, Apple, HTC, Samsung rounding out the top 5.

Last month, a user posted a forum comment stating, "I am going to tell you the truth about what has been going on with your account." The anonymous user then explained, "let’s say you are a Chinese guy or girl with an iPhone or iPad and you want to get some music, movie or app. How you do you do it? You go to http://www.taobao.com/ The (by far) largest online market in the world and type iTunes in the search bar. Immediately you will be presented with a list of more than 7,000 items.

"You want to save money, so you filter the list to show only items under RMB25.00- (US $3.60) and still you have more than 3,600 offers. So you pick some one at random like, as an example, this one: http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=5516054242. You open the online chat and you transfer him RMB22.00 (US $3.20). He ask you in the online chat to provide a new iTunes account name and password, and you comply: User: qiuwge3foe3333@yahoo.com Password: qwer34567

"He asks you to wait 10 minutes online. He has already a number of user accounts under surveillance, so he enters in the iTunes account of his victim, change his/her username and password to the one you provided, and come back to ask you try it and approve the transaction so Taobao.com releases his money. Even if you cant read Chinese you can see very clearly in his item description that this account will not last more than 24 hours (the time for his victim to see the charges mounting and then cancel the credit card).

"He claims that he selects 'his' accounts so you can drain at least US $250.00 from them before they get cancelled. He urges you to be fast and buy and download as fast as you can. Start immediately! Keep the download going on for the full 24 hours! There is no warranties on how long it will last! Because he already changed the username and password, the victim can’t stop you.

More details here though so far there's no explanation of how the accounts are getting hacked.

Your highly selective reading and responding to my posts matches up quite nicely with your highly selective picking of sales numbers.

Okay, Dells numbers should be falling greatly, noticeable AND those numbers are going to Apple. Let's look at overall sales numbers?

Yes let's! I'll respond to this paragraph again at the bottom.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/19/technology/19compute.html

Apple also picked up market share in the United States, growing to 5 percent, from 4 percent, as its shipments increased 30 percent, according to Gartner. Apple grew faster than any other PC maker in the United States, Gartner said.

http://www.maclife.com/article/news/apples_market_share_pc_world_continues_surge

or http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/14/apple_sells_estimated_1_4m_macs_in_us_to_capture_8_market_share.html

Research firm Gartner said that Apple was the fifth-largest PC seller in the U.S. for the three-month quarter to start 2010. An estimated 1.398 million Macs were shipped in the States, and Apple only lagged behind HP, Dell, Acer and Toshiba.

Looking back 6 years...

http://www.macworld.com/article/43741/2005/03/marketshare.html

Apple's desktop market share in the United States for the fourth quarter of 2004 was 2.88 percent (and 2.06% q4 2003)

So in those 7 years Apple managed to almost quadruple their marketshare (2.06 to 8.0, 6% or 3.8x). Dell lost 9%. HP gained 3%. etc.

http://www.channelinsider.com/c/a/Dell/10-Things-Dell-Must-Do-to-Catch-Up-to-HP-221568/

Obviously primarily an opinion piece with many facts, but does this sound like anything I've been saying about Dell / Apple?

1. Keep It Simple
Dell tries to do too much. The company has spent the last few years attempting to be the company that satisfies any potential buyer. That's a mistake. HP has shown that simplicity will reign supreme in the computing market. That company has gone out of its way to provide customers with several options that will satisfy them in one way or another. Dell should follow suit. Its buying process is a mess that's overrun with customization options. Even its product offerings are all over the place. Enough is enough. Keep it simple, Dell. That's what customers want.

Okay, Dells numbers should be falling greatly, noticeable AND those numbers are going to Apple. Let's look at overall sales numbers?

Dell loses ~8%, Apple gains about 6%. Those are the numbers. You don't think that's significant? Really?

Dell has closed or is closing almost all of their facilities in the US, including a factory building ~5 years ago near where I live. Should this tell you anything?

given the success of the Apple store
Success, measured in what why? Compared to what?

Success meaning that they are profitable! Success meaning that they have helped quadruple Apple marketshare in the last 6-7 years. Success meaning that while others like Gateway tried--and failed--to open branded computer stores, Apple is opening more every month. Is this really that difficult to see?

Apple has been so popular over the past decade

Popular means going from 2% of the computer market to 8% in 6-7 years. It means everybody in the WORLD knowing what an iPod, and a lot of them having one! It means 1.7 million iphones sold in 3 days at prices higher than most Android phones (and none of the 2 for 1 deals). It means virtually every

There is a reference to it here:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/28/nokia_pokes_at_iphone_4_death_grip_gets_called_on_it.html

Virtually all phone have this issue. When you introduce an object that can affect radio transmission, it can alter and degrade reception. A human hand can affect radio transmission. This affects all iPhones, Android phones, and probably every cell phone on the market. It affects the iPhone 4 _more_ than a lot of other phones, but other phones _are_ affected similarly.

Just to bring this back to reality a bit. Suppose you were accused of filling just one of those hard drives up with illegally obtained MP3s. You would have spent $80 for a 1.5TB hard drive which could store about 375,000 MP3s. This would (at $80,000 per infringement) result in a fine of $30 billion. For perspective, the worldwide sales of music in 2009 was just $17 billion. So for under a hundred dollars you too could face a fine almost double what the music industry brings in in an entire year!

2b) But Apple holds it wrong too ;)

http://forums.appleinsider.com/showpost.php?p=1661105&postcount=24

How can anyone post this when we have the exclusive deal confirmed? http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/10/confirmed-apple-and-atandt-signed-five-year-iphone-exclusivity-de/

Show me the signatures on that contract and the date it was signed. Their "confirmation" is a referral to general knowledge of an exclusivity deal because USA Today published wording to that effect. Basically they're using weasel wording so they don't have to disclose the actual contract--which suggests the whole truth is missing. Further, who's to say the 5 year exclusivity deal started the day the iPhone went on sale, and not 18 months earlier when Apple was looking to lock a network? You think they designed, built, and shipped a phone with a contract that didn't start until they reached customer's hands?

And the other is that the last time I checked, Verizon doesn't have GSM. Why would Apple manufacture two different devices, and one that can't be used in all the other world markets? I'm not trying to start a GSM/CDMA holy war, just acknowledging that Apple is doing just fine with AT&T and GSM. Why would they go through all that trouble just to get Verizon customers?

Especially since Verizon seems to insist on branding all phones they offer--I don't see how Steve would accept that either.

Verizon has nearly 93 million subscribers, a large percentage of which have expressed interest in an iPhone. Apple is expected to sell 16 million iPhones this year to AT&T's 83 million subscribers, which is nearly half of their total sales. Why wouldn't Apple jump at the earliest opportunity to further increase sales by another 50%? It's not a big technical feat for them to design a CDMA iPhone, other manufacturers with much less money at stake than Apple produce multiple models on CDMA, GSM, euro-specific frequencies, AT&T frequencies, and T-Mobile frequencies. After Apple's done with VZW, there's also China and Canada, along with Sprint, Cricket, and MetroPCS in the US all with decent numbers of CDMA subscribers. In all, world CDMA subscribers are something like 462 million, even if that's only 14% of the mobile market.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/01/06/piper_15_8m_us_iphone_sales_in_2010_even_without_verizon.html
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20070215/127796/

Apple currently has a 28% market share of the smartphone market, even with its phone being exclusive to ATT. Opening it to the Verizon network will surely cause its market share to climb sharply.

Right now, Apple is in a three-way tie for the market. It will start to dominate the market if/when it goes onto the Verizon network.

Isn't that the EXACT same thing Apple is doing with their App Store?

Last time I checked, Apple's desktop market share was low, somewhere less than 5%. The iPhone is highly visible, but still not anywhere near a monopoly. In fact, they are only just over a quarter of the smartphone marketshare as of this month.

Some notes: Android gained more share in the first 3 months this year than iPhone made in a year. Blackberry is still the undisputed champion, and even the sucktastic Windows Mobile is still a pretty considerable player. (I have a WinMo phone, and it's fairly capable, but I can't wait to ditch it for Android in September when my contract's up on the phone!)

Even in their strongest market, Apple is nowhere near a monopoly. That said, Apple's recent shenanigans regarding Flash and programming languages have caused my support for them to cool sharply. I'm feeling pretty frosty towards Apple. After resolving last winter to buy a Mac for my next laptop, I just bought a Dell Precision laptop, on which I'm intending to run Fedora Core Linux.

Frequency calibration apparently http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/25/death_grip_hysteria_may_end_monday_with_ios_4_01.html

• Some folk can reproduce this problem, basically at will (one of the magazine review sites).
• Other folk are unable to reproduce this problem, at all (another reviewer at the NYT).
• At least some folk who can reproduce this issue are doing so in areas where reception was previously known to be marginal (including one of my developers at his house).
• The problem may have been harder to diagnose during Apple's testing, due to pre-release testing taking place inside insulated cases, thus the problem would be triggered less often, and not in associate with anything special that the user would notice (holding the phone in a certain way). The frequency of dropped calls might have been within the "normal" range for the AT&T network, given the small sample size of a few hundred test users. (Apple's off site testing includes hundreds of people, but that's actually a pretty small sample size, compared to the 600,000 people using the phone today.)

It will be interesting to see if a software patch emerges within a few days or even weeks, and cures this issue. If it does, I'll think back to several cell phones I had previously, which had problems that I could and did reproduce, and reported clearly to the vendors (both network and cell maker) and for which no patches were forthcoming, ever, during the life of the phone. Regular software updates for iPhone are a damn sight better than the old way, where the answer to any problem was "buy the new version of the phone you just bought a month ago".

This sort of thing is being worked on already, at least by Apple, and I have no doubt many more companies.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/24/apple_investigating_multi_haptic_feedback_for_multi_touch_devices.html

"You also claim' thousands of sex themed apps'. Can you cite a source for that or are you just grandstanding?"

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/02/22/apples_overtly_sexual_iphone_crackdown_purges_5000_apps.html

Or is AppleInsider now considered to be a rabidly anti-Apple website? Perhaps removing 5000 apps does not count as "rejecting thousands?"

"To my knowledge, there have been 2 such apps that have been rejected."

http://www.cloudfour.com/apples-policy-on-satire-16-rejected-apps/

At least 17 political cartoon apps were rejected, and most of them remain rejected, just for being political cartoons. Of the ones that were ultimately accepted, only 2 were accepted without modification, and unsurprisingly those 2 were the subject of mass media attention.

"It is irrational to develop an app that is clearly in violation of an agreement you had to 'sign'"

In the USA, political cartoons are not considered "defamatory" or "objectionable" by the majority of people, and cartoons represent an important form of protected political dissent. Why would a cartoonist have any reason to believe that his cartoon is in violation of the agreement he makes with Apple?

"Who is in need of a little more objectivity here?"

The person who cannot be bothered to use a search engine to see how many apps Apple has actually rejected for being politically or sexually themed? Really, the numbers are there. The reports are there. The statements from Apple on the matter are there, but there are not many to go around, and they all amount to apologies for specific instances.

Steve Jobs hates it? Wow, I didn't see that. Can you send me a link to where he said he hated it?

Apparently the only freedom being lost is the freedom to tell the truth rather than misrepresenting everything when you discuss Apple? It's not smugness of Apple fanboys you should be worried about, it's the blind hatred and dishonesty of Apple haters such as yourself. Apple fans only come out in force when they see dishonest stupidity like you just wrote. They have to constantly correct the lies and disinformation of those like yourself who can't seem to grasp that everyone doesn't have to conform to your vision of the world. That (gasp!) people don't want to ADMINISTER their computers or devices at all, they just want them to work so they can move on with their day.

When you can get past your own ignorance and smugness then maybe you'll be able to see clearly to comment on others.

Err, see http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/05/20/steve_jobs_says_no_to_googles_vp8_webm_codec.html

Anyone writing an app that takes more than 1 person two weeks to create ... aren't going to waste their time with a company as inconsistent as Apple when they have other platforms to develop for.

Ok, seriously, how do people even remotely believe this? Go have a look at the app store and browse through the thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of apps that are available. Take a moment to pay attention to the development studios involved in many of those apps. Take a moment to contemplate the development time involved with many of those apps. Now, take a look back at your quote and see just how utterly fallacious it is. There are apparently plenty of developers "wasting" their time developing for the iPhone/iPad.

Especially when there's reason to believe that Android is beginning to exceed the iPhone.

As to your claim that Android is exceeding the iPhone, you are utterly wrong. The iPhone OS outstrips Android by a wide margin. A very, very wide margin. Three times larger, in fact.

You might want to read up on the subject a bit more because you are entirely wrong, in every way possible.

Yeah, and it will probably only let you talk to other iPhone users. But, hey, that way you can maintain your illusion that this is something new or unique to Apple. Wouldn't want to have your preconceptions challenged, would you now.

Except that it will be released as an open standard. But, hey, that way you can keep thinking anything Apple does is evil. Wouldn't want to have your preconceptions challenged, would you now ?

Simon

Apple intends to release FaceTime as an open standard.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/07/apple_announces_open_standard_facetime_video_chat_for_iphone_4.html

Should make Video Chats via gadget that much closer to reality.

I think you must be confused. That would be pretty hard to do, since Objective C is a superset of C! In any case, you're explicitly wrong:

The clause, section 3.3.3, now reads:

"Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited)."

(http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/08/apples_iphone_4_sdk_license_bans_flash_java_mono_apps.html)

Not on the iPhone (and I assume neither for any of Apple's current non-laptop devices). But for the laptop, yeah, there are plenty of languages.

Where are you getting this information? I think you might be confused because OSX is not a "laptop" operating system, it covers Mac mini, laptops, and desktops (Mac Pro, imac, etc).

The clause, section 3.3.3, now reads:

"Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited)."

(http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/04/08/apples_iphone_4_sdk_license_bans_flash_java_mono_apps.html)

Yes, because of course web/IM/email are the *ONLY THREE THINGS* done on any PC in an average home...

You win the unintentionally hilarious award for the day. The iPad actually supports or will support every single thing you mentioned!

1. Printing support may come as a part of the iPhone OS 4.0 SDK. If not, Google's Cloud Print Service could fill the gap.
2. The iPad is such a good 3D game platform that Nintendo declared Apple the enemy of the future.
3. The iPad itself is a solid media player, but you can also hook it up to your TV with Component or VGA cables.
4. Apple sells a Camera Connector Kit for the iPad. You can upload photos from an SD stick, and edit them in an App on your iPad.
5. iPhone OS 4.0 supports background tasks and multi-tasking, to the extent that you would even want to do that on a 10" screen.

The only thing you can't do on an iPad is rip movies and music, but that's kinda what the iTunes store is for. I'm not saying that the way you do it on the iPad is for everyone, and you specifically are certainly better off with a PC. My mom, on the other hand, finds the iPad a much eaiser way to achieve every item you mentioned.

Getting similar multitasking on iPhoneOS is only possible through jailbreaking, which is a concern for a LOT of people, considering they either aren't technical enough to do it (yes, I know it's super easy) or are afraid of potentially long-term consequences associated with it.

I never said it WASN'T capable of multi-tasking; I said that in order for iPhone users to enjoy similar multi-tasking privileges Android users currently have, they need to jailbreak their phone and install Backgrounder. Want proof? Get an iPhone and try listening to Pandora while browsing email in its stock form. HINT: it's not possible.

Additionally, the next version of iPhoneOS will allow more FLEXIBLE multi-tasking in that it will allow certain types of apps to run in the background (link). However, it's still not TRUE multitasking; by that, I mean that ANY app can run in the background when needed.

Again, that's fine for a mobile phone, but not fine for a more powerful tablet device. Considering that it was one of the more vocal complaints iPhone users had, I'd say that it's more than a minority issue at this point...

For a large majority of people, that device is the iPhone.

A 3% global market share is your idea of a "large majority"?

Try a 25%+ US market share of smartphones. Pedantically speaking this is a large minority, not a majority, but either way it's a lot of phones.

For a large majority of people, that device is the iPhone.

A 3% global market share is your idea of a "large majority"?

Whatever you're smoking, it sounds like some powerful shit.

Break out the tin foil hats, RightSaidFred99 has broken Apple's code! Ohz Noez.

They implemented the cash-only policy once their fake scarcity ploy wore out.

Or, this was a new device that they really didn't know how many were going to sell and they limited the production. A lot of companies do this. Im sure they did some market research and came across all your post and thought to themselves, "Gee, maybe we shouldn't produce 10 million of these things, because RightSaidFred99 says he's not going to by one."

First they pretended they couldn't make enough to meet the monster demand.

I don't think they're pretending. But maybe you know more than me... Apple's iPad believed to be outselling Macs in the US: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/05/20/apples_ipad_believed_to_be_outselling_macs_in_the_us.html, Huge Wave of Apple iPad Demand: http://www.changewave.com/freecontent/viewalliance.html?source=/freecontent/2010/03/huge-wave-of-apple-ipad-demnd-03-05-10.html

Then they resorted to "our gadget is so cool we won't take cash!".

Based on some of the stats, it looks like a bunch of people think it's cool... except RightSaidFree99.

Artificial scarcity is a pretty boring ploy these days - does anyone actually believe that nonsense?

Gee, I don't know. I kind of believe the reports I've been reading, but apparently you're some kind of genius on the matter. Please show me some stats on where you're getting your information from? I would love to see it. My guess, and this is just a guess, you're a windoze/flashboy/anti-apple zealot with some serious jealousy issues, a marketing shill or just oblivious to what's happening that you've decided to encase yourself in your own personal reality distortion field. Very sad.

Not quite... but an immersive technology can trick your mind into an experience that is, from the users' perspectives, sensually impossible to differentiate from the real thing. We call it virtual reality now, but that term will eventually only be used to describe the attempts near the turn of the millennium to create an immersive visual/audio experience. It's missing a subtle but essential quality that is apparent because VR users never lose themselves in the experience the way, say, a subject looses themselves in a sensory deprivation chamber. The closest thing I can compare it to is a STNG -style holodeck... except that it's the size of a funky pair of glasses. There will be many Matricies... but no Zion.