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On the main computer platform, all browsers are available and easy as pie to install -- with the exception of Internet Explorer, which Microsoft stopped developing for the Mac years ago.

On the phone, Apple's Webkit runs on the iPhone, Android, and some other platforms. It's open source, after all. There are already other browsers on the iPhone. Check out the app store. What Opera had done was a weird construction based on Java that they didn't submit to the app store, because it demanded Java, which they know damn well the iPhone doesn't support. Gruber has the story here.

http://daringfireball.net/2008/11/opera_app_store

On the other hand, this PR genius seems to be starting off on the wrong foot. He's basically blackmailing Jobs to prove he's not a bully. That doesn't seem like a negotiation, but like blackmail. But it certainly helps them on Slashdot/Apple, where any wild surmise about the dictatorial Apple is taken as gospel.

That’d be an interesting move, and it would certainly shake things up. But what if the source code to Flash Player is — as many would wager — a huge steaming pile of convoluted C++ horseshit? It’s sort of like what if Microsoft open-sourced the Internet Explorer rendering engine. It’s not like anyone who is now using WebKit or Gecko would switch to that just because it was opened — or that WebKit, Mozilla, and Opera would suddenly be obligated to or even interested in adopting IE-specific web features.

The same is true for iPhone games. Further, the overwhelming majority of Flash games will be unplayable on a multitouch device. They just aren't designed to be played by nothing more than clicking the mouse.

Huh? You obviously haven't been playing much Flash games, have you? Mouse-only Flash games have been around since forever. They constitute quite a significant portion of Flash games and would have no problems running on a stylus/tablet device. Try visiting Ferry Halim's awards-winning Orisinal games. Tapping on touch devices/tablets is no problem too since those are just normal mouse calls on Flash. No problem with em running on multi-touch too since since the upcoming Flash Player 10.1 (coming out on both desktop and mobile devices) has multi-touch support.

Regarding Mac performance, from what I know, there's an certain class & method needed by Adobe engineers to do certain acceleration on OSX, but access isn't being given by Apple's APIs. With Linux acceleration (Flash has now been using the GPU for acceleration for a while), there's quite a number of complications like incompatibility with Compiz Fusion enabled (See this entry by Penguin.swf, one of the lead Flash engineers working on Linux -> http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/2008/05/flash_uses_the_gpu.html.

Check out John Gruber's excellent post at http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash:
I've been hard on Flash Player for Mac OS X, but this performance situation is not entirely in Adobe's hands. On Windows, Flash makes use of hardware decoding for H.264, if available. On Mac OS X, it does not. This is one reason why Flash video playback performs better on Windows than Mac OS X, and also why H.264 playback on Mac OS X is better through QuickTime (which does use hardware decoding).

According to Adobe, though, this is because they can't. Heres an entry from their Flash Player FAQ:

Q. Why is hardware decoding of H.264 only supported on the Windows platform?

A. In Flash Player 10.1, H.264 hardware acceleration is not supported under Linux and Mac OS. Linux currently lacks a developed standard API that supports H.264 hardware video decoding, and Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs. We will continue to evaluate when to support this feature on Mac and Linux platforms in future releases.

Adobe platform evangelist Lee Brimelow posted a weblog entry addressing this:

But let's talk more about the Flash Player on the Mac. If it is not 100% on par with the Windows player people assume that it is all our fault. The facts show that this is simply not the case. Let's take for example the question of hardware acceleration for H.264 video that we released with Flash Player 10.1. Here you can see some published results for how much the situation has improved on Windows. Unfortunately we could not add this acceleration to the Mac player because Apple does not provide a public API to make this happen. You can easily verify that by asking Apple. Im happy to say that we still made some improvements for the Mac player when it comes to video playback, but we simply could not implement the hardware acceleration. This is but one example of stumbling blocks we face when it comes to Apple.

It's an eReader with a bright ass screen that will strain your eyes.

Did you know that some programmers spend at least 8 hours daily reading on a LCD? What strains your eyes is an inadequate contrast between ambient light and your device. LCD is usable, e-ink is better because not having light of its own, it's always adjusted to the environment.

It surfs the internet the way Apple says you should (no flash, IE: no Hulu, etc).

Adobe can shove... well, let's just say that Flash on OS X is slow, insecure, and Adobe won't fix it.

It plays limited games so it's not going to dominate the handheld market.

They want you to buy in the AppStore. So far it's doing great.

I just don't get what niche this thing is supposed to fill. Is it a crippled laptop or a huge iPod?

iPad: Browsing, email, photos, video, music, games, ebooks.
Watch the Keynote.

Here

Because Flash is so widely used and commonly loaded, it crashes more than anything else on the mac, according to Apple's crash-reporting data. It's one of the stated reasons why apple made Safari load plugins seperately from the main application in 10.6 (the other being 64-bit compatability), because they crash so much. And the most used, most-crashy one is Flash.

http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash

I just came across a really good discussion by John Gruber about this: http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_adobe_flash

I think the whole thing has been blown way out of proportion. Of course Apple is going to negotiate with Google and Microsoft. They want to get a better deal, as John Gruber puts it:
http://daringfireball.net/2010/01/apple_google_bing_search

I am high as a kite.

They are competing directly, but Google's friendlier. Google is making an appliance OS, where as SplashTop is designed as a light fast-booting OS.

But almost everyone is using a strawman (as Microsoft is). The point is not to replace Windows, it's an OS for web surfing. It's not for playing World of Warcraft, doing heavy photo editing, video editing, etc. Everyone is writing the "Google vs. Microsoft" article they want to write, instead of the tougher article about how Google is basically working to define a new class of computer (something of a netbook that's not running a general OS).

It's web-TV, but not on TV and not horrible. It's an email appliance OS that lets you read the web pages people link to in their emails.

It's not a direct shot at MS and Apple.

Gruber gets another one right.

Use of Apple trademarked images were always disallowed,

Not true.

If You make reference to any Apple products or technology or use Apple’s trademarks, You agree to comply with the published guidelines at http://www.apple.com/legal/trademark/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html, as modified by Apple from time to time.

This clearly suggests that iPhone apps can make use of Apple trademarks, if they comply with the terms of Apple’s guidelines. I’ve read that document, too, and see no clause therein which would suggest that what Airfoil Speakers Touch was doing was in violation of the guidelines.

... and...

the Airfoil Speakers Touch iPhone app does not contain any of these images. It contains no pictures of Apple computers. It contains no icons of Apple applications. It displays these images after they are sent across the network by Airfoil for Mac. Airfoil for Mac reads these images using public official Mac OS X APIs. I.e. Airfoil Speakers Touch can only show a picture of the Mac it is connected to because the image is sent from the Mac it is connected to.

Nice piece, but he probably got the idea from James Kwak via Gruber.

"Technology firms also face a similar problem. In technology, as in most businesses, the way to make it to the top is through sales, so you end up with a situation where the CEO is a sales guy who has no understanding of technology and, for example, thinks that you can cut the development time of a project in half by adding twice as many people. I have seen this have catastrophic results. Even when you don’t have the generational issue that Trillin talks about, the problem is that the sociology of corporations leads to a certain kind of CEO, and as corporations become increasingly dependent on complex technology or complex business processes (for example, the kind of data-driven marketing that consumer packaged companies do), you end up with CEOs who don’t understand the key aspects of the companies they are managing."

"The flip side is that I've heard that Apple's file systems team is full steam ahead on their own next-generation file system. And, perhaps not coincidentally, they're hiring." from http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/23/zfs

This is pretty shitty because it'll fragment the momentum ZFS had in being the next-gen ubiquitous file system. When it was clear ZFS wasn't coming to Linux, those guys got btrfs going, now Apple is doing their own, while ZFS obviously will stay around too. Microsoft obviously wasnt on board for any of this, and without the momentum behind ZFS it never will. This nonsense isnt helping, and I think the best Oracle could do it release it under all the licenses that'll get it into OSX/Linux and perhaps even Windows. Can Oracle go over Sun's head on this or Sun==Oracle?

(emphasis mine)

Unfortunately, btrfs isn't "going" anywhere. Guess who their development was funded by? That's right, Oracle! Notice that they haven't released anything new since BEFORE Sun's shareholders approved the acquisition? (Latest release on the btrfs wiki is v .19, released in June 2009) It's not exactly improving at a breakneck pace... If btrfs is going to go anywhere, they need some real development money.

Dang Oracle.

"The flip side is that I've heard that Apple's file systems team is full steam ahead on their own next-generation file system. And, perhaps not coincidentally, they're hiring." from http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/23/zfs

This is pretty shitty because it'll fragment the momentum ZFS had in being the next-gen ubiquitous file system. When it was clear ZFS wasn't coming to Linux, those guys got btrfs going, now Apple is doing their own, while ZFS obviously will stay around too. Microsoft obviously wasnt on board for any of this, and without the momentum behind ZFS it never will. This nonsense isnt helping, and I think the best Oracle could do it release it under all the licenses that'll get it into OSX/Linux and perhaps even Windows. Can Oracle go over Sun's head on this or Sun==Oracle?

This is exactly how Apple lost the PC war

Well, they didn't do as well as MS--nobody did--and while they don't have that high of a market share, they're ridiculously profitable. Compared to Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway, and everyone else who was involved in or "won" the race to the bottom, they've done quite well. Not everyone who "loses" is a loser and not everyone who wins is a winner.

I would love to see a comparison between developing the iPhone SDK and Flash.

From Daring FireBall :

From the FAQ:

Can I run content created with Flash in the iPhone simulator on Mac? No. Flash content created for the iPhone will not run within the iPhone simulator on Mac.

Thatâ(TM)s because the Simulator runs x86 binaries, but Adobeâ(TM)s compiler only produces ARM code.

Can I use native iPhone OS Controls in my Flash based iPhone content? No.

Not surprising. Iâ(TM)m guessing this will mostly be used to make games anyway.

No debugging. No native controls.

The iPhone, however is a synch [sic] to open

By sheer coincidence, I just read this article today (via Gruber)

(hint: you mean "cinch")

b

, but that I donâ(TM)t expect it to be successful in the âoeholy shit is this awesome!â sense that the iPhone is. http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/the_android_opportunity

He is absolutely right, Android is much more likely to be successful in the "the overwhelming majority of cell phones use it" sense than in the "holy shit this is awesome" sense. Of course, Google is aiming for the former not the latter.

Daring Fireball had a good piece on this:
Googleâ(TM)s dependence on hardware and carrier partners puts the final product out of their control â" and into the control of companies whose histories have shown them to be incompetent at design and hostile to users.
Iâ(TM)d be happy to be proven wrong, but my hunch is that the only way weâ(TM)ll see an iPhone-caliber Android phone is if Google does what theyâ(TM)ve said theyâ(TM)re not going to do, which is to design and ship their own reference model âoegPhoneâ. That doesnâ(TM)t mean Android wonâ(TM)t still be successful in some sense if it remains on its current course, but that I donâ(TM)t expect it to be successful in the âoeholy shit is this awesome!â sense that the iPhone is.
http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/the_android_opportunity

It will be funny to see all the Apple fanboys who were screaming "It was big bad AT&T and not my PRECIOUS Apple who was the bad guy!!!" and how their fanboy minds deal with this news.

You can find a fanboy response here. Although I guess it isn't sensationalist enough for your tastes. Although I don't remember any screaming beforehand. Is it possible to scream in text? I guess there's caps-lock.

Agreed! Post the link to the guy who actually wrote about this thoughtfully, and who, you know, GOT THE ACTUAL EMAIL from Schiller. His name is John Gruber and he writes Daring Fireball. And maybe mention him in the summary ??~?~!?

Agreed! Post the link to the guy who actually wrote about this thoughtfully, and who, you know, GOT THE ACTUAL EMAIL from Schiller. His name is John Gruber and he writes Daring Fireball. And maybe mention him in the summary ??~?~!?

http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/phil_schiller_app_store

Let me start with the most important points - Apple did not censor the content in this developer's application and Apple did not reject this developer's application for including references to common swear words. You accused Apple of both in your story and the fact is that we did neither.

Ninjawords is an application which uses content from the Wiktionary.org online wiki-based dictionary to provide a nice fast dictionary application on the web and on the iPhone. Contrary to what you reported, the Ninjawords application was not rejected in the App Store review process for including common "swear" words. In fact anyone can easily see that Apple has previously approved other dictionary applications in the App Store that include all of the "swear" words that you gave as examples in your story.

The issue that the App Store reviewers did find with the Ninjawords application is that it provided access to other more vulgar terms than those found in traditional and common dictionaries, words that many reasonable people might find upsetting or objectionable. A quick search on Wiktionary.org easily turns up a number of offensive "urban slang" terms that you won't find in popular dictionaries such as one that you referenced, the New Oxford American Dictionary included in Mac OS X. Apple rejected the initial submission of Ninjawords for this reason, provided the Ninjawords developer with information about some of the vulgar terms, and suggested to the developer that they resubmit the application for approval once parental controls were implemented on the iPhone.

The Ninjawords developer then decided to filter some offensive terms in the Ninjawords application and resubmit it for approval for distribution in the App Store before parental controls were implemented. Apple did not ask the developer to censor any content in Ninjawords, the developer decided to do that themselves in order to get to market faster. Even though the developer chose to censor some terms, there still remained enough vulgar terms that it required a parental control rating of 17+.

You are correct that the Ninjawords application should not have needed to be censored while also receiving a 17+ rating, but that was a result of the developers' actions, not Apple's. I believe that the Apple app review team's original recommendation to the developer to submit the Ninjawords application, without censoring it, to the App Store once parental controls was implemented would have been the best course of action for all; Wiktionary.org is an open, ever-changing resource and filtering the content does not seem reasonable or necessary.

Two links to add infested mass-media blurbs both quoting the same blog entry by John Gruber, but no fucking direct link to that story. Boo to Apple, Hurray to Slashdot for sticking it to Corporate America?

So if AT&T can get an app banned (as Gruber says is the case), what happens later on when the iPhone is not tied to any one phone company in the U.S.? Carrier specific stores?

That's perfectly feasible. In fact, Google currently does that with their Android Market (equivalent of app store). They can and do filter certain apps based on the carrier, country, and phone hardware and software.

TechCrunch is citing AT&T is behind it, yet they have absolutely no evidence to indicate that. It is in both Apples and AT&Ts interest to keep the Google Voice app off the iPhone. TechCrunch is just blaming AT&T so they can keep their Apple fanboyism going.

To be fair, they just posted an update -- Update: John Gruber has confirmed with a trusted source that AT&T is to blame for the Google Voice ban.

They get the credit for the most visible good parts of the iPhone, and they can arrange it so that AT&T gets the blame for the most visible bad parts. Gruber says his sources primarily blame AT&T for this one, and I believe him. It is awfully convenient, though, that this decision is also in Apple's best financial interests (and not their customers').

So if AT&T can get an app banned (as Gruber says is the case), what happens later on when the iPhone is not tied to any one phone company in the U.S.? Carrier specific stores? That smells like the stuff people dislike about Verizon... but Apple can't let multiple companies triangulate on what apps they like.

Also interesting is that AT&T seems to allow some apps on other phones they move to keep off the iPhone, it could be because there are just so many more iPhones on AT&T they are really worried about the data load (which would explain why Slingbox is WiFi only on the iPhone but works over 3G on the blackberry).

According to Jon Gruber, who has reliable sources inside Apple, AT&T pulled their weight to make this happen.

What percent of the 20+ million devices running iPhone OS do you think are jail broken? It's just not a reliable answer for most people.

Some people see things how they are.

• John Gruber's fictional diary of an app store reviewer was both hilarious and on the mark.
• Wil Shipley has a very well thought out piece on the problems with the app store and realistic suggestions of ways you might be able to fix them.
• Craig Hockenberry has also recently analyzed where the app store is today.

You're kidding me. You honestly couldn't manage to go to cinepaint's web page and figure out "click the download button, and double click the file that downloads"?

I did that. And when I launched CinePaint after installation all I got was a CinePaint titlebar, nothing else. I tried to open a photo with it, by ctrl clicking the photo and choosing CinePaint in the Open With dialogue. But it did not open.

Of note btw, while cinepaint is shiny (and easy to install), there's actually better software to do that kind of thing on Macs -- pixelmator for example.

Does pixelmator work with at least 16 bit colour channels, depths? I googled it, and oh surprise a license cost $60. Looking at a comparison between it and Photoshop Elements it looks like PE does more, and I got PE with the scanner I bought. However that comparison doesn't say what it's colour depth is, let's look more. Oh, here we go: "It should be noted that 16 bit raw files when saved out are reduced to 8 bits of color depth so using Pixelmator for JPGs would be fine but if you want to shoot raw I suggest using either the pro-level tools or the software that came with the camera." It only saves 8 bit colour channels? Not that good, at least CinePaint saves at least 16 bit depths. Now let me go over to photo.net and see what people there say about it... Not much, out of thousands of posts it's mentioned only 3 tymes though none of them say how well it works. One does say though that "the screenshots for Pixelmator are apparently created in PhotoShop" and provides a link. CinePaint works well enough to use on a number of movies including "Last Samurai", "Harry Potter", and "Lord of the Rings". And you think pixelmator is better?

Falcon

I may be a blowhard, but I'm not a hypocrite. "Free" will be free. Ebooks free for first week, web book (Google Books) free for first month, abridged audiobook free to all hardcover purchasers and unabridged audiobook (the whole thing) free to everyone forever. All starting on pub date (July 9th).

BTW, I made those audiobooks free by reserving the rights to myself. I paid for the studio time (and recorded it myself), the abridging and the audio editing (more than $25,000, all told), so that the audiobook could be free to all.

The Timing of Steve Jobs's Liver Transplant I'm curious about the reported timing. The Journal story says "about two months ago", but I heard from a bunch of sources last week at WWDC that Jobs had been seen on campus the week before - i.e. about two weeks ago. I mean, he was there walking around, giving people hell like usual. Regarding recuperating time, the Journal story has this sentence:

Recovery from a liver transplant is relatively fast, said William Chapman, a specialist at Washington University who has no direct knowledge of Mr. Jobsâ(TM)s case.

But six weeks doesn't sound "relatively" fast, to me. It sounds crazy fast. I don't know how authoritative it is, but here's what health-cares.net says regarding liver transplant patients:

After discharge from the hospital, patients are seen every week (for approximately three weeks) in the outpatient clinic for an examination and monitoring of blood tests. During this time, medications are adjusted based on the levels found in your blood. After approximately one month, patients are usually seen only two to three times during the first year. Also beginning at one month, blood is checked every other week; eventually, it is checked only once a month. Most patients are encouraged to resume physical activity, including work, after three to six months, depending on their recovery. Patients may resume heavy activity, including workouts, at six months.

So I'm thinking that if Steve Jobs had a liver transplant, it was more than "about two months" ago.

Gruber disagrees about the iPhone having any swap space at all: http://daringfireball.net/2008/03/one_app_at_a_time

But I don't know where either of you got your information.

Reader: Knock, knock
Slashdot: Who's there?
Reader: Unicode.
Slashdot: Fuck off.

Back on topic, John Gruber has covered this pretty well here and here.

"But is it illegal? And would it be illegal for Apple to take countermeasures against it? My guess is "no" to both questions... I don't think WebOS's media sync is a mistake on Palm's part because it is wrong, I think it's a mistake because it is risky and unnecessary."

Reader: Knock, knock
Slashdot: Who's there?
Reader: Unicode.
Slashdot: Fuck off.

Back on topic, John Gruber has covered this pretty well here and here.

"But is it illegal? And would it be illegal for Apple to take countermeasures against it? My guess is "no" to both questions... I don't think WebOS's media sync is a mistake on Palm's part because it is wrong, I think it's a mistake because it is risky and unnecessary."

It's unlikely that this was the work of a 'rogue engineer.' Palm's Pre team is run by a former Apple VP who hired away Apple iPod team employees to join his new Palm Pre team. There's almost no chance that this wasn't intentional and by design, using inside information that the former Apple employees had. Apple, being famously litigious, will almost certainly try to build a case. On what basis is unclear—perhaps non-compete violations, perhaps trade secrets.

Here's John Gruber's take on the Pre's MediaSync.

5) John Gruber supplies #5

I think this is appropriate.

http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/diary_of_an_app_store_reviewer

It would be fairly trivial to get around this restriction. Just sell at $10 version of the Kindle app that gives you $10 store credit towards your first purchase. Of course people might balk at the $10 initial cost, so it may be more effective to sell it for $1, or whatever Apple has set as the minimum cost.

If you're going to be making a considerable amount of micro-transactions, the initial cost is probably worth the added convenience. Of course, Apple could always make exceptions as it may have done in the past.

I continue to be mystified as to why anyone would seriously consider the Pre over the new iPhone. The iPhone 3.0 http://daringfireball.net/2009/05/the_next_iphone will have twice or four times the capacity as the Pre for the same price (depending on how you wish to count Palm's rebate from the $299 upfront price). The iPhone has a thriving developer community that the will only expand when the iTablet finally gets released, and is unlikely to be duplicated by Palm, even if they stay ion business, which is far from a given.

And finally, the iPhone works worldwide, while the CDMA Pre is a US/Canada only device. That in and of itself decides the choice for me.

With so many comments already posted, I doubt this will see the light of day, but in the hopes someone will read it:

I read Daring Fireball pretty regularly and its author has stated he doesn't want comments on his site because he feels it distracts from his own articles.

When I read a newspaper article, I am looking for a reporter's writing. While there is a lot wrong with journalism today, reading the comments on any newspaper website is like mucking through the dregs of human society. The anonymous nature of the Internet allows (and seemingly even encourages) people to post stupid comments. It's not worth reading and on newspaper sites, I don't.

I'm glad and I wish more sites and blogs would forgo comments and concentrate and getting new content out. When I read the BBC news or the New York Times I'm not interested in what Joe Schmo thinks, especially if it's going to be some poorly spelled, angry, outburst.

Slashdot is different in that the moderation system helps filter out the noise and no one in their right mind would come here to read the articles.

The Mac OS has plenty of detailed criticism like this: http://daringfireball.net/2009/03/safari_4_public_beta

People who will argue about/discuss small appearance changes and behaviors unnoticed by casual users.

The company will respond if the criticism is wide-spread; but I think significantly, there is the general impression that the company has already obsessed about these things internally; that they don't make changes lightly, and work towards the best possible user experience, even at the cost of extra features.

I think John Gruber had it right. He pointed out the absurdity of Balmer's argument on his blog on Wednesday.

You know this is because Apple asserted patent rights, ya? It's not like this was a design decision.

"with at least the potential for 8 hours of battery life"

Every laptop I ever owned clamied similar, and usually turned itself off after around the 2 hours 45 minutes mark.

I've only had laptops from 2 companies, Gateway and now Apple. My Gateway's batter lasted 2 maybe 3 hours. However my 17" MacBook Pro's battery last maybe 4 hours. However that's without running the optical, DVD/CD, drive.

But what amazes me, is that the battery is non-removable, so if it shorts or has some other problem, back to the approved iMac store for Joe Fanboi, and another whopping bill for service.

That's something I was disappointed about, however the batteries are supposed to last a few years, longer than most people have their laptop before replacing it. And other companies are stepping in to offer extended power supplies. The iPhone also has a non-removal batteries yet companies are offering battery extenders like Kensington, Mophie, and Richard Solo.

Falcon

Umm, I think you're a bit out of date. Brushed metal is gone from Mac OS X 10.5, replaced with the "Leopard-style" windows with the gray gradient and continuous toolbar.

For your reference:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/userexperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGWindows/chapter_18_section_3.html

And, that very page, back in the day, said when you should use brushed metal vs. aqua windows. Although the page isn't there (and their robots.txt prevents Wayback Machine from archiving it), the text is quoted on the following:

http://daringfireball.net/2004/10/brushedmetal

So, on the contrary, Apple was pretty darn clear about when you should use which type of window.

Brushed metal was supposed to be used for interfaces connected to metal THINGS - then Apple screwed the pooch by adding it to Safari and Finder. Basically, a nightmare/free-for-all after that.

Leopard is supposed to fix it by doing away with it. I run Tiger and Leopard and have been so used to ignoring it (I hate the brushed metal) that I don't think I ever really noticed the improvement - although I think I noticed subconsciously.

For those less familiar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushed_Metal_(interface)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_(user_interface)

The wiki sez that it was QT4 when this travesty occurred - given that the wiki is no better than my memory, I offer that as a "what-if" rather a correction to what you assert.

BTW, I think you were too harsh on the lack of documentation for when to use metal - it used to be here:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/XHIGWindows/chapter_8_section_3.html
That page no longer exists, but the relevant points from it still exist and are copied here:
http://daringfireball.net/2004/10/brushedmetal

The up-to-date version of UI (they call it HI or human interface) guidelines is here:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGIntro/chapter_1_section_1.html

So, while I share some of your brushed metal frustration, I think you went just a bit far.

http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/broken_windows

Their install process on OS X (Google Desktop) has horrified people so much that there is article about it on Daring Fireball, Gruber's blog.

http://daringfireball.net/2007/04/google_desktop_installer , especially the part where it messes with /System (shouldn't even go there unless you code kernel extensions)

Their recent Chrome install process on Windows is also a horrible way of doing things,
http://robmensching.com/blog/archive/2008/09/04/Dissecting-the-Google-Chrome-setup.aspx

If you notice, they are all paranoia triggering, needless amateur things. Of course, they are all easily fixed, tracked since it is a full feature desktop OS you run. The real issue is, every bit of data on users smart phone is highly critical and personal. The companies in mobile business are more paranoid than you can ever want. I can easily tell, such a bug can't exist on a Symbian running Nokia. Of course, bugs exist but not that level.

They can't be like other software companies since other companies have very strict requirements, tests. It is only Apple and Google safe from any criticism thanks to their fans (!).