Slashdot Mirror

'Cept Amazon has a business presence in California (and a number of other states). They also collect sales taxes for a number of other non-Washington states.

Ok, let's look at this:

March 8, 2011; Bloomberg reports Sprint is talking with DT about buying TMO.

March 20, 2011; AT&T announced merger with TMO.

Sounds like Sprint is out of the running.

Now, if DT will take maybe $25B from Sprint, then there may be a buyer. Will Sprint offer that much?

More to the point, and please turn up your hearing aid, Sprint has NOT made a counter-offer.

There was talk in 2010, but it never came to fruition. Even that was supposition.

BTW, these rumors go back to 2009. TMO and Sprint have been the subject of M&A rumors for so long I think these started when Sprint bought Nextel.

Unless Sprint starts talking like that again, we can, I believe safely say they are not making an effort to buy TMO. Unless their suit and other filings are intended to nix the AT&T deal and leave them in position to pick up TMO for substantially less than the original $25B alleged to be offered.

And note no one went on the record that this was a even an actual negotiation. In fact, before this all started, it was rumored that DT wanted to buy Sprint and gain enough market share to challenge the other tweo major players. Now, no one is going to admit that Sprint made an offer, since that;s the nature of these things. So in the absence of actual fact, shall I take your regurgitation of a rumor in Bloomberg as true, or more as an interesting possibility at the time, now off the table?

Really. Gimme some facts. You're confusing Bloomie's rumor mill with actuality.

I'm not going to try too hard to counter the fanboyism. I hope I am not feeding the trolls.

Apple were far from the first to invent the tablet, but what they did do was turn a niche market into a mass consumer product through a combination of producing up to date hardware running an OS and application suite that was widely accepted and popular. I could denigrate it to say it was simply an iPod/iPhone maxi, but the new form did allow it to be so much more.

Here's a couple of examples of tablets, I didn't look too hard, these are just from casual memory.
Fujitsu had a sequence of Stylistic tablets, for example one came out in 2004, here's a review http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/fujitsu-stylistic-st5022d-tablet/1707-3121_7-31252752.html

Sony had a couple too, the U50 and U71 http://www.vaio.sony.co.jp/Products/VGN-U50/

It is still available for download at CNet. http://download.cnet.com/Tricorder-for-Android/3000-20432_4-75025147.html

Thanks. Just downloaded and installed from that link.

OK, that is version 5.11 and at least on my phone, it has a fairly nasty force close bug.

The latest version is 5.12 and it is available here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?nex1dcidhb8t886

The original filename appears to be Tricorder_5.12.apk, so searching on that or similar brings up some more potential download locations.

It is still available for download at CNet. http://download.cnet.com/Tricorder-for-Android/3000-20432_4-75025147.html

Thanks. Just downloaded and installed from that link.

It is still available for download at CNet. http://download.cnet.com/Tricorder-for-Android/3000-20432_4-75025147.html

Oops, wrong article. Here's one that mentions reports of dual-mode screens.

You'd have a point if the game industry WASN'T built on the boxed product model where you actually own the game, now they industry is trying to reneg on the deal. In other words we're watching a steady slide towards dictatorship. When games have their functionality removed/enclosed/reduced in value that is clearly not an "amoral" thing to be doing to your customers in which there is a history of boxed fully functioning games that aren't butchered. The game industries bitching and whining over used game sales is bad enough.

See below:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20022957-17.html

http://download.cnet.com/Tricorder-for-Android/3000-20432_4-75025147.html still available here. i'm sure that will not be true for long. Just installed it and it is a fun little app that looks great on my tablet. I'll be sure to spread the app itself around for as long as I can remember.

I had a Toshiba Portege in 2006 -- it was awesome for the time. With the screen turned around, its form factor was little different from a modern tablet (scroll down for the pic). All Apple did was remove the keyboard, strip away the ports and other useful stuff, and add a touchscreen.

btw - HP also made similar devices that were even more iPad-like in 2002. This page has pics.

Not to mention that if it was a Microsoft server compromised, everyone here would be screaming bloody hell here LOL M$

Also, whatever happened to the canard that Linux is more secure than Windows Server with the right admins? Do admins get more hardcore than that administer key servers like Kernel.org's, RedHat's, Debian's ?

Ubuntu servers hacked.
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/15/1341224

Fedora/Redhat servers hacked.

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/08/08/22/1341247/Red-Hat-Fedora-Servers-Compromised

Debian servers hacked.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/87516/Debian_Project_servers_hacked

Gentoo

http://news.cnet.com/Hacked-Gentoo-Linux-server-taken-offline/2100-7349_3-5113227.html

Not to mention the whole Debian SSL fiasco that left people's SSL communications compromisable because a downstream distro package builder messed with upstream code.

Remember that prototype MacBook with what appeared to be a SIM card clot and antenna popping up on e-bay?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20092180-248/3g-equipped-macbook-prototype-pops-up-on-ebay/
( I'd link to a Slashdot article but Google's failing to find it. Or maybe /. never covered it. )

Welp, they want it back. Rather suddenly, coinciding with cnet's requests for comments from Apple.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20099494-248/apple-wants-its-3g-macbook-prototype-back/

I had actually been talking to Cnet all week, since the writer found the full backstory (especially the small claims part) interesting. He asked me if he could publish it, and I asked him to wait until I had heard something from Apple. Despite all my attempts I never did, so I finally said sure go ahead.

Then did Apple contact me . . . . directly, by phone. Quite possibly because Cnet contacted Apple PR to ask for comment before publishing. Their representative was very pleasant and polite actually, and we chatted for a while. He promised to call me back an hour later with a resolution. When he did they wanted to send an agent from Charlotte directly to me to recover the laptop immediately, tonight, and I didn't feel comfortable with that. Not based only on a phone call, with nothing at all in writing, and in the middle of the night (by the time they would reach Raleigh).

I said I needed to consult my lawyer, since I had promised I would do so before taking any action regarding the machine, and that we will take the matter back up first thing in the morning. I'll let him handle the matter from here rather than dealing with Apple directly, and hopefully everyone will be happy with the outcome. I actually rather like Apple and their products, so try not to bash too much guys! They haven't really done anything wrong at this point.

source: http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=13272429&postcount=38

Remember that prototype MacBook with what appeared to be a SIM card clot and antenna popping up on e-bay?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20092180-248/3g-equipped-macbook-prototype-pops-up-on-ebay/
( I'd link to a Slashdot article but Google's failing to find it. Or maybe /. never covered it. )

Welp, they want it back. Rather suddenly, coinciding with cnet's requests for comments from Apple.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20099494-248/apple-wants-its-3g-macbook-prototype-back/

I had actually been talking to Cnet all week, since the writer found the full backstory (especially the small claims part) interesting. He asked me if he could publish it, and I asked him to wait until I had heard something from Apple. Despite all my attempts I never did, so I finally said sure go ahead.

Then did Apple contact me . . . . directly, by phone. Quite possibly because Cnet contacted Apple PR to ask for comment before publishing. Their representative was very pleasant and polite actually, and we chatted for a while. He promised to call me back an hour later with a resolution. When he did they wanted to send an agent from Charlotte directly to me to recover the laptop immediately, tonight, and I didn't feel comfortable with that. Not based only on a phone call, with nothing at all in writing, and in the middle of the night (by the time they would reach Raleigh).

I said I needed to consult my lawyer, since I had promised I would do so before taking any action regarding the machine, and that we will take the matter back up first thing in the morning. I'll let him handle the matter from here rather than dealing with Apple directly, and hopefully everyone will be happy with the outcome. I actually rather like Apple and their products, so try not to bash too much guys! They haven't really done anything wrong at this point.

source: http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=13272429&postcount=38

Ah, fine. I'll look it up and reply to myself. See here:

So while App Store sales are through the roof, Apple's certainly not making a killing from them. But that's never been the point, anyway. Like iTunes itself, the App Store's purpose is to drive hardware sales. It's a secondary business.

You might be interested in "God Mode" On Windows 7.

http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-10423985-285/understanding-windows-7s-godmode/

And there is a search add-on that Microsoft made, as well as a nifty silverlight app that lets you choose things in an Office 2003 interface and it shows you how to get to it in 2007/10

If they are hard handed about it, the more the alternatives become attractive. A good example of this is the Ernie Ball BSA reaction. This publicity has had a ripple effect. It is the biggest reason I have gone open source at home.
http://news.cnet.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

http://cnettv.cnet.com/i-have-dream/9742-1_53-50028854.html

Because blimps are slow (bye bye speed advantage), helium is bloody expensive (and rightly so), and people are scared of hydrogen-filled bags.

No, blimps can be very fast, try 55km/h (34mph) for this RC blimp. Reason blimps can be as fast as copters is they use all of their thrust to move forward like an airplane, not wasting it to provide lift. Besides they're claiming the quadcopter only has a 10km range. At 55km/h that's barely 6 minutes, that's "quick" when you don't have access to roads. While they have not released the speed of their quadcopter I found this forum post that says a MikroKopter (MK) Quadcopter does 36mph which is equivalent to the blimp.

Helium is not that expensive, not when you're comparing it to a quadcopter with multiple charging stations and is more likely to crash.

As for being afraid have you not seen a quadcopter? It's four propellers moving very fast and sounding like 1,000 angry bees. A quadcopter is probably one of the scariest sounds in the world.

Quadcopters have their place, they're small, stealthy and fun, but I don't think they make a good daily delivery system.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9803689-56.html

Not sure if I'm misunderstanding your statement but getting an ownership stake in facebook seems like a pretty big peep.

Mr. Schmidt gets to explain that to the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 21st. That's on top of Google's other legal problems.

Google has to be very careful for the next two years, because of the terms of their non-prosecution deal with the Justice Department over the drug ads issue. This is the one where Google management had to admit criminal guilt and pay $500 million dollars. For the next two years, if Google does anything out of line in the drug-ad area, DOJ can, at their sole discretion, bring felony criminal charges for Google's past actions. Read that agreement between Google and DOJ. Nobody signs something like that unless going to trial would be much worse.

Peter Neronha, the U. S. attorney who headed the prosecution, issued a statement yesterday. He says that "Larry Page knew what was going on. We know it from the investigation. We simply know it from the documents we reviewed, witnesses that we interviewed, that Larry Page knew what was going on". He went on to say that "this is not two or three rogue employees at the customer service level doing this on their own. This was a corporate decision to engage in this conduct.", and called Google's attempts to control the problem "window dressing".

Google now has to clean up their act. It's not voluntary any more.

2011 iPad shipment forecasts see more iPads shipped and sold in 2011 than originally expected, so I don't see where it's cooling down.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20096903-64/apples-ipad-will-only-get-more-popular-analyst-says/

In its most recent quarter, Acer lost $234 million. Acer has no competitive tablet offering among the dozens of competing Android tablets. And of course the iPad is selling like mad with an expectation of 22 million units sold during the upcoming holiday quarter.

The Acer CEO is a dimwit who's talking smack because there's nothing else he can do to stem the tide of abject failure coming out of his factories. He is basically berating the customers for buying "hot" tablets, particularly the iPad, instead of buying the tried-and-true plastic Wintel units that Acer vomits up. His company bet big on low-margin netbooks and lost, and now he's betting on Intel "ultrabooks".

HP just bailed out of the entire PC business (echoing IBM's decision in 2004), and among the reasons was that the tablet effect is real.

The Acer CEO's effort is better focused on coming up with better products, not whining.

"but I'm really nervous about the time investment with all the uncertainty around java."

It's very unlikely for Google to abandon Dalvik.
Microsoft paid for the same patents (to use it in .Net), and I expect Google to do so as well:

"Under the 10-year pact with Microsoft, the software company will pay Sun $700 million to resolve antitrust issues and $900 million to resolve patent issues, the companies said. The companies will pay royalties to use each other's technology; Microsoft is paying $350 million now, with Sun to make payments when it incorporates technology later"

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1014_3-5183848.html#ixzz1W4P96FFM

But the worst case is, that you learn some Java, and OpenJDK isn't going anywhere.

Now that Apple is moving away from Java and we dont have Java SE 7 downloads from Apple I do not see Java SE 7 downloads on Oracle's page as well. Is building OpenJDK on mac the only option left?

Before netbooks came along a couple of years ago I noticed that laptops never got cheaper. The manufacturers constantly upped the specs and kept the price point the same, which just seemed daft to me, which is why when netbooks did start to emerge I thought "it's about bloody time", it just seemed a really obvious thing to do to me

And now everyone that did is going out of business.

"Boy, was that company suckered."

That's John Dvorak in his last column for Infoworld 1985 when Steve Jobs was ousted from Apple.
http://books.google.com/books?id=jC8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=%2Bdvorak+steve+jobs+leaving+apple+1985+infoworld+suckered&source=bl&ots=pJ8NZY9Wgv&sig=2YM64qODziCzfzYWR3lYJ6Zhu2U&hl=en&ei=t_xVTr6iDsb54QS3l52jDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA

In 1997 Michael Dell added "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders".
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-203937.html

How could they be so wrong? They weren't. Steve Jobs just had luck, plenty of it.

The majority of consumers want to use a clean, simple product

A clean, simple product that they can use how they want to use,

Apple sells many of these.

without having to pay for every packet they send over the Internet or every CPU minute they consume,

If you're billed per packet sent, that's between you and your ISP. Apple has nothing to do with it. As for CPU time, that's the second time in this discussion I've seen you bring that up. WTF?! How does that make any kind of sense? Apple sells you computing devices which you then own. You are not billed for use of their CPUs. Selling (not renting!) CPUs is the core of their business. (If you look at their financial reports, profits on hardware sales dwarf everything else.)

I'll go further than bonch -- you're not merely talking nonsense, you have crossed over into "not even wrong" territory.

and they want to be able to connect hardware that might not be "approved"

At last, one accusation which is actually partially true! But only partially, because you can connect anything you like to a Mac, so long as you can get a driver for it. iDevices may reject some accessories without an ID chip which HW makers can only get with Apple's approval.

and view websites without censorship.

Right back to "not even wrong". Apple doesn't censor the web. Even if they wanted to, they can't.

You really think people do not care about freedom? See what happens when all the freedoms people have enjoyed because of the PC revolution are taken away from them.

People would care about censorship of the web and things like that, but that's not what is happening, now is it?

Some of your accusations don't even make sense. Attacks on reporters?

Yes, attacks on reporters:

http://www.eff.org/cases/apple-v-does

Good lord you're a tool. That's Apple attacking unknown leakers (as in, their own employees, most likely), not reporters. The reporters didn't get sued, they got subpoenaed to give evidence (IDs of the John Does who supplied them leaks).

http://news.cnet.com/Apple-suit-foreshadows-coming-products/2100-1047_3-5513582.html

This is much closer to the mark. They sued some rumors websites on the basis of misappropriation of trade secrets.

Unfortunately, one or two hits out of a giant mountain of wild anti-Apple babble still adds up to an incoherent raging nerd who's hurt that FSF-style openness isn't as popular or beneficial to the general public as he imagines it to be.

The majority of consumers want to use a clean, simple product

A clean, simple product that they can use how they want to use, without having to pay for every packet they send over the Internet or every CPU minute they consume, and they want to be able to connect hardware that might not be "approved" and view websites without censorship. You really think people do not care about freedom? See what happens when all the freedoms people have enjoyed because of the PC revolution are taken away from them.

Some of your accusations don't even make sense. Attacks on reporters?

Yes, attacks on reporters:

http://www.eff.org/cases/apple-v-does
http://news.cnet.com/Apple-suit-foreshadows-coming-products/2100-1047_3-5513582.html

Earlier today I made a reference to "cookie camouflage", and got a very apt response about a program which runs in background as a browser. In this case, the solution would also be software - not software that blocks, but GPS etc. software which submits camouflage (false) data. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2393464&cid=37178870 The thread identifies a legitimate attempt at camouflage strategy http://news.cnet.com/8301-13880_3-9950126-68.html

The point is that people's tolerance level to COMPLAIN about something is much lower than their tolerance level to DO SOMETHING.

Damn, do share whatever you are smoking.

Wait, I prefer the paycheck you get for posting this.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31322_3-20094766-256/windows-phone-7-challenge-week-2-the-verdict/

Supposedly nineteen percent of people have dropped their phone into a toilet. I'm still trying to figure out how, exactly, since it would seem you'd be holding the phone somewhat in front of the bowl - but I'm not sure I really want to know.

Also, anecdotally speaking, in my experience it's not uncommon to hear people talking on the phone from bathroom stalls. BTW if that's you... yeah, I'm the guy who walks around flushing all the toilets during your phone call. I feel it's important the person at the other end of the call know where you are.

Going back further... my dad used to take a newspaper in with him occasionally. He always liked to refer to those visits as "trips to the library".

something like this?

if major browsers were forced to add this feature, the tiny background randomizing auto browser baking cookies at incomprehensible rates... I wonder what the demographics would be understood as by trendspotters... would anyone notice?

Sweet you can download that here: http://download.cnet.com/Sandboxie/3000-2144_4-10371434.html

and apart from iOS the only system with strong design behind it is WP7.

I see you are impressed by cheap ui parlor tricks. Fortunately, some people aren't.

2) With Google buying a hardware company, Microsoft is well positioned to say "WP7 is the only OS you can use where the OS designer is not competing with you".

And the OEMs will see through the smokescreen. The MicroNokia partnership does not a fair windows phone playing field make.

3) Nokia WP7 phones starting to come online soon.

I have yet to hear one single person in real life say they give a shit about Nokia windows phones. This fiction that Nokia is going to save windows phone is pure fanboy talking point. If people were that wedded to Nokia, their market share wouldn't be in the gutter now.

There's a very real possibility WP7 could start cutting in to Android marketshare before too long...

based on what? This nonsense you've posted? Ha!

Android has never been in a better position than it is in right now. The OEMs know google is serious with 25,000 patents, 600,000 activations daily, steadily climbing market share. You need to wake up, man.

click direct link... no registration, no login required

Bullshit. Here's what things look like to non-registered users:

http://download.cnet.com/Notepad/3000-2352_4-10327521.html?tag=pop

What a shameless load of BS.

1) "Innovative iPhone"
Nokia Maemo, 2007:
http://www.engadget.com/photos/nokia-n810-hands-on/#443985

2) "Innovative iPad" (yep, rounded corners, rectangular shape, large screen, it's such a hard concept...)
StarTrek, ages ago:
http://www.inventinginteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Sarah_Sisko_reconstruction.jpg
IBM, 1990
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10453664-64.html

3) "(when the sizes of the devices are given accurately elsewhere..."
Nope. They are shown at different angles. And there, where it really matters, it is blatantly photoshoped.
And it seems this is a standard practice at Apple, they aren't afraid of blatantly lying in ads as well:
http://i.imgur.com/huWri.jpg

4) "...anybody who describes merely re-sizing an image as "Photoshopping"..."
is easily understood.

Not yet, but soon. ChromeOS has it's own set of problems:
http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-20087850-12/when-hacking-chrome-its-all-about-your-data/

He's just echoing the common sense that Bill Gates has said over the years.

Gates shed some light on his own hard-nosed business philosophy. "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-212942.html

"It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not." - Bill Gates

The Economist. Piracy: Look for the Silver Lining (July 19th-25th, 2008 ed.). pp. 23

If you write software, you're better off tolerating the thieves in order to get market share.

--
BMO

A company spin off is a very, very different thing from simply closing down the PC factories and shredding the plans.

But both of them result in Hewlett-Packard no longer manufacturing personal computers, so I, at least, think of both of them as "HP exiting the PC business". Perhaps you don't, and perhaps some others don't, but perhaps some others do, e.g. Larry Dignan or IBM's CTO or the authors of this piece.

apple makes most of the money in the PC market. HP and dell mostly sell the cheap no profit machines.

Which would you rather have? $100 each from one thousand people, or $1 each from one million people?

In that scenario, or is it better to look at ACTUAL market share? 10.6% is pretty respectable. HP had 24.35% of the market, or say about two and a half times the sales in a quarter. Since Apple's margin is WAY higher (near 50%) and their average selling price is WAY higher, I would imagine the correct question is would you rather have $500 each from 2 million people or $25 each from 5 million people.

This move by HP reminds me exactly of IBM's move to sell of their consumer computing line to Lenovo back in 2005. At the time the CEO made the prescient observation that the consumer hardware business is a low-margin, low-profit business, and indeed for IBM, they've made much more money operating as a software and services outfit (aside from their mainframe line and supercomputing hardware).

So this leaves Apple and Dell as the only large computer-hardware companies in the USA.

Yes, it is invite-only. But, it still has 25 million users, which sounds like a lot of people. I guess they must all be pushers instead of users.

XML/XHTML was written for the parsers. HTML5 was written for web developers.

I'm a web developer who was also a member of the W3C's HTML Working Group (the group where the HTML5 spec was hammered out) during the development of HTML5, and I can tell you that if you believe that HTML5 was written for web developers, you are wrong. HTML5 was written by and for browser vendors -- Google, Apple, Mozilla, Opera, and (somewhat) Microsoft. The opinions of other Web stakeholders were of minimal concern. Concerns about the spec raised in the WG by anyone who wasn't a browser implementer were routinely shouted down with threats to withdraw from the W3C process completely by those who were. Some who advanced concerns, like accessibility professionals, were actually derided in quite personal terms by representatives of the browser vendors, both in official WG communications and in their own private back channels (like IRC), which invariably leaked. (Here's a good writeup of some of the friction that existed in the WG between browser vendors and everybody else.)

There are a lot of things in HTML5 that I'm looking forward to being able to use, but if you're a web developer you shouldn't kid yourself into thinking that HTML5 was written for you. It wasn't. Almost every decision made in the development of HTML5 was made to make Google's life easier, not yours.

Do you really think that the multi billion dollar likes of Samsung, Motorola, HTC, etc didn't bother having a copyright lawyer look over the situation to make sure things are kosher?

They might, but mistakes seem to happen anyway.

They also made the surround on the Tab darker to make it look more like the iPad. Submitting photoshoped images to the court should cost them their case.

Not to mention that the "evidence" shows the Galaxy Tab in a vertical position when the default/intended usage is in a horizontal position.

Exhibit A: Samsungs Galaxy Tab 1.0 microsite: http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxytab/10.1/index.html

Exhibit B: Endgadget Galaxy Tab 1.0 review : http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/08/samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-review/

Exhibit C: CNet's review : http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/samsung-galaxy-tab-10/4505-3126_7-34505347.html

... and so on and so on. In fact, IIRC, its predecessors have always been marketed in a default horizontal position, and that's how I've always seen it display at Costco and at tmobile (my cell phone provider).

Call me conspiracy theorist, but this cannot be by accident. Morphed dimensions by itself an accident? Maybe (and that's pushing it). Shown in a vertical position as opposed to the horizontal position it is shown everywhere else as an accident? Maybe. But both, as legal evidence? Got to have been done on purpose.

In no way does Apple fit into any of these categories

You have a very short memory. iPod had greater than 80% marketshare years ago before iPhones came along and canabalized them. Most of us would agree >80% == Monopoly, so stick your head in the sand if you'd like...

With that monopoly, Apple introduced a music store online with DRM'ed music files. RIAA required DRM to do business online, so Apple created Fairplay. Apple refused to license Fairplay to other stores and device makers so only iTMS files could play on the iPods that everyone had and only iPods could play the files sold at iTMS. Apple then rolled out more content... books, movies, and tv shows. Also encrypted with FairPlay

After a short period of time, the iTMS became the largest music store in the world. iTMS beat out traditional brick and mortar retailers like Wal-Mart. Next Apple rolled out iOS. Again, only iOS devices (iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch) could play these encrypted files. Although iOS is starting to face competition from Android in the phone market, it gave Apple another monopoly in tablets.

And iOS is where this anti-competitive behavior has really become blatant. Now, you cannot even write an app for these devices without getting Apple's permission. It's like Fairplay all over again, except it is for apps. If you compete with Apple, they shut you out entirely. Your app will never see the light of day. They have created a system that offers them complete control over the market for apps. And once again, they've creating a monopoly.

But you go ahead... stick your fingers in your ears and shout "I can't hear you!"

I for one wonder how AAPL has avoided anti-trust litigation

That is explicitly because Microsoft has been waving the antitrust flag at Google for about 2 years now. In Europe and the US Microsoft gathered a group of their partners together and filed antitrust complaints against Google In Europe and USA.

With the recent spurt in the stock price, Microsoft's market capitalization has reached nearly $600 billion, putting it back in first place ahead of General Electric's $475 billion market cap.

Tech stocks are a bit more volatile than that of oil companies. Back then, Microsoft looked even better than Apple does today, virtually unstoppable.

Might as well be a new meme for the crazies such as yourself who just toss the name around and don't even know what you're whining about.

Yeah, I know. Crazies like me never know what they're talking about.

There are ruggedized phones. Apple just doesn't make one.

For what they charge, the screen should be sapphire, not glass. Sapphire sheet is neither rare nor expensive. Supermarket checkout scanners (and, especially, Home Depot) usually use sapphire windows. You can drag metal cans and tools across those for years without scratching them.

Then there's the whole silliness of needing a case to protect an iPhone. If the thing was designed right, you wouldn't need a case to protect it. There are phones that work fine after being run over by a car. There are rugged smartphones.

But none of them are made by Hon Hai, a/k/a Foxconn, a/k/a Apple.