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The question is: Can you trust the source?

Are you referring to anything specific?

I do not use facebook much, but I tend to notice things when I do. For example, the chat feature had been enabled on my behalf. I do not want people to see that I am "currently online" and by now I have disabled that feature more than once, since it somehow magically gets reset to "enabled"

Then there is this tendency to allow indirect access. See here. Basically, applications may access your information by your friend's permission instead of yours.

Finally, see a quote from this article. It is from 2009, but I think it is very representative of Facebook attitude. Most of the time you _can_ keep your setting private, but _only_ if you are actively tracking how facebook re-enabled access by default and proactively re-disabling that in settings.

Facebook announced this morning that its 350 million users will be prompted to make their status messages and shared content publicly visible to the world at large and search engines. It's a move we expected but the language used in the announcement is near Orwellian. The company says the move is all about helping users protect their privacy and connect with other people, but the new default option is to change from "old settings" to becoming visible to "everyone."

"So, how does this work? Project FaceWeb is an extension of this progressive enhancement idea. So, instead of the phone saying I am rendering for a WebKit browser, we send an agent that says you are going to be rendering for a WebKit UI WebKit view inside the iPhone app. So, what you have to do is detect that, style a Web code to make that work, build a bridge between the things that you want to write to interact natively with the Objective-C, say in Javascript, then build HTML pages for Facebook in the iPhone. So, you build much smaller native goop instead of having to build over and over again. ... HTML5 is probably the way that we should have done it."

If you think that's an HTML5 approach, I have some lean agile behavior-driven coaching hours for which I'd like to bill you.

Since you can compile on an iOS device, you can write fully featured apps for it.

Editing? You could always grab one of the iPad code editors, use the FTP support to read and write local files on your device, and switch to a terminal to compile.

It's all a bit primitive now if you were insistent on doing the whole thing on an iPad, but it can be done.

Bearing in mind the sites that use Ruby I don't think so.

Since Twitter is the Ruby poster-child, how about Once Again, Twitter Drops Ruby for Java:

"Twitter has now moved its entire search stack from Ruby-on-Rails to Java.

That's a big shift. Twitter moved its back end message queue from Ruby to Scala, a Java platform in the 2008-2009 time frame. The move was attributed to issues with reliability on the back-end.

This latest move makes the shift pretty much complete. At Twitter, Ruby is out of the picture."

Hey if they can make the world's largest social network out of PHP, spit and bailing wire, I don't think technology matters as much as we wish it did. A frighteningly large percentage of business logic still runs on Visual BASIC and Cobol.

I think it is more the lack of skills and that you will probably need some time with your nose in a manual to set up the rails environment to run a node.

Ah yes, just throw more nodes at your unreliable and resource-hungry server code.

Careful, I think there are several patents on that.

Bearing in mind the sites that use Ruby I don't think so.

Since Twitter is the Ruby poster-child, how about Once Again, Twitter Drops Ruby for Java:

"Twitter has now moved its entire search stack from Ruby-on-Rails to Java.

That's a big shift. Twitter moved its back end message queue from Ruby to Scala, a Java platform in the 2008-2009 time frame. The move was attributed to issues with reliability on the back-end.

This latest move makes the shift pretty much complete. At Twitter, Ruby is out of the picture."

I think it is more the lack of skills and that you will probably need some time with your nose in a manual to set up the rails environment to run a node.

Ah yes, just throw more nodes at your unreliable and resource-hungry server code.

> Every Android device is constantly tracked by
> Google. You can see this on Google Maps...check
> out the accuracy and detail of the traffic overlay.

Wow. I always thought they got that info from the DOT or something, who gets it from toll transponders. Then I did a search, and what do you know? You're right. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/bright-side-of-sitting-in-traffic.html

Fun fact: "Some phones, such as the T-Mobile myTouch 3G and the Palm Pre, come with Google Maps and traffic crowdsourcing pre-installed (the iPhone Maps application, however, does not support traffic crowdsourcing)."

See also their statement here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_maps_gets_smarter_crowdsources_traffic_data.php

Not in ARM. While everyone is distracted about the atrociousness of what M$ is trying to pull on the x86 with UEFI, an attempt several order of magnitude worse is being made on ARM. The intent, if M$ is given its way by OEMs, is to prevent 'secure' boot from being disabled. ARM is not some fringe architecture, it is the architecture found on today's (and tomorrow's) tablets and phones.

Apart from the 5000 minions they will lay off this year on top of the 2000 they've sent home last year.

But you're right, it is good they're selling a corporate jet. It is however still a move motivated from sheer desperation. I mean, selling an airplane isn't exactly a sign of confidence in the success of their coming products.

Provided the DMCA exemption allowing jailbreaking is renewed.

People were jailbreaking before that, and they would be after. What you can DO is not modulated by anything so stupid as a permission slip.

SHAME on a Slashdot reader for not understanding that intrinsic fact of life.

1. All major Android phones and tablets support adb install;

Jailbreak, so does iOS.

2. Android has an IDE on the Market, unlike Apple

Try Again. Or don''t, if you can't get it right to begin with.

Perhaps you forgot that you can use gcc (or llvm) on a jailbroken iPhone to compile also...

The simple fact remains that for technical hackers iOS is the superior platform, because there are no limits and it's much easier to hack (by that I mean the traditional sense of mod) any app on the system, even third party apps.

I suppose a good example to reinforce what you are saying would be this post. Just go to the comments and look what happens when an article about the Facebook login page gets promoted to the #1 Google result for "facebook login". So many helpless people. Just imagine what changing the method to open a browser would do to them.

And no, they didn't come out and say "fix this or you're going to be blocked", but rather strongly hinted "either we sit down and talk about this or it's a 15,000 fine per user per incident". Since every page access is one incident, that works out to more than the entire GNP of the world.

From Firefox 13 onwards there will be no more Windows 2000 support. So for the minorty of systems still using it they should make upgrade plans. Microsoft left you behind with IE6 there, and Safari and Chrome never supported it.

oh yeah ? and then where is that self-perpetuating, end-of-hollywood idea ? it has been more than a decade since internet has entered living rooms. where is that idea ?

apple does not have the means to catalogue all spendings of almost every western citizen on the planet, and link those spending directly to their identity. if they had it, maybe they could do it.

There's apparently more truth than I realized to the saying "never argue with an idiot, they'll only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience". Rather than acknowledge any of the actual trends that are occurring around you, you instead shoot from the hip of your wonderfully insightful gut and instead respond with "oh yeah? prove it!" ?

Well, after this post I guess it's up to the mods, because I'm done with this bullshit you're trying to perpetuate.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/9/2693228/ubuntu-tv-has-unity-inspired-ui-will-ship-on-televisions-by-end-of
Unity, on TV sets, by the end of this very year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_TV#Second_generation
Apple TV second generation sales (Good thing SOPA blackout is over)
http://reviews.cnet.com/apple-tv-review
Apple TV Reviews

http://www.google.com/tv/
http://googletv.blogspot.com/2011/01/samsung-and-google-tv.html

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/from_ces_a_few_hints_about_the_future_of_tv.php
CES 2010: Apps on smart TV's, "The Future of TV"

You're on the fucking internet for god sake, use it to get learned.

That depends on where your existing mail is coming from. If you have a small number of legitimate sources, you can add a filter that makes sure nothing bad happens to their mail (select any mail from them, "filter messages like these;" you can select multiple emails, each from a different source, to make a single large filter). You'll also want to change your "reply-to" address in your gmail settings to a new canon, to prevent complications from people you email. This suggests you may soon be able to filter by google+ circle, which may help with this task.

Aside from that, you may be out of luck. If you get email for a wide variety of sources, or you can be reasonably assured that you will get a lot of miscellaneous email that's hard to filter, I don't have a clever solution. It's possible there are other solutions out there from REAL power-users, but I don't know them.

From the same Google India IP range comes a vandalism attack on OpenStreetMap, the open-data alternative to Googlemaps:

The bogus changes range from the obvious adding or deleting of nodes to the map or posting junk labels on locations, to the subtle but dangerous – such as reversing traffic flow on one way streets. Two accounts have been noted modifying maps in London and New York, and have been making more obvious changes since last Thursday 12 January. OpenStreetMap has yet to do a full analysis of activity from the IP range which amounts to 102,000 hits using 17 accounts over the last year.

OpenStreetMap claims map vandalism traced to Google IP range
OpenStreetMap blog posting
Troubling Google Contractor Allegedly Caught Vandalizing Open Street Map

This is the very consequence many people imagined the moment Google announced this. For clear examples of how Search Plus pushes Google+ over relevant results, read this article by Danny Sullivan at SearchEngineLand. Some of the examples include popular music artists, like Katy Perry, who has one of the most popular Facebook pages but doesn't appear in the Search Plus results because she doesn't have a Google+ account. How is that delivering the most relevant results, which was the original goal of the Google search engine? In fact, Google's search engine is becoming less useful at delivering relevant results compared to alternatives, with the major example in that link being a search for "gold price" on Google versus Wolfram Alpha: Google gives you a big, brown box of sponsored links, while Wolfram Alpha gives you a simple price chart.

The biggest reason, in my opinion, to dislike Search Plus is that it continues the trend of search engine bubbling that is filtering the content you see on the Internet today, possibly limiting you from seeing opposing information that might change a currently held perspective.

It will probably be like the last time facebook "changed their layout".

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_loginpage3.php

Millions of people will log into whatever page is highest ranked when they search google for facebook. Or bing for facebook or lycos it or whatever search company is still live that day. Honestly, it sounds like a hacker's dream. use SOE to get to the top that day and make a page that resembles facebook's normal login and bam! watch as you suddenly get half the internet's email addresses and passwords(most people use the same password for multiple sites).

I'm willing to bet 100 bucks people will be more pissed off at facebook itself than whatever this SOAP thing is. Facebook and Google users are way dumber than you can imagine.

I'm one of those "spoiled brats". I'm curious what lesson I learned. I left Netflix and left loudly. So... not sure how it got worse. The service price exceeded benefit. People left. Netflix lost.

Netflix didn't lose money to whining. Netflix lost money because people left. And having left, why do we care one iota if it becomes worse or is bought by Verizon or the People's Republic of China.

Let me nail this point for you: we don't care.

All you are saying is, "Hah! See, the price went up, and you left! Now the service is going to get worse because you left! Aren't you sorry you left now!"

Well, um... no. I'm actually pretty satisfied with my decision. You see, the problem here is that you love Netflix, and you don't want to go to Verizon. And you blame us, because we don't. So you are throwing a tantrum because we all left you like it was MySpace and your baby is bought by the big bad corporation, though it is by Verizon this time, not Rupert Murdoch.

You say that whining made people leave. FYI: Most Netflix subscribers don't read Slashdot. But they did see their bill jump up at least 60%, a minimum of $6, not $2. Don't rant if you don't know what the hell you are talking about.

If you think Netflix lost 800,000 customers because of Slashdot or bloggers... You're a moron, a certified moron. Strike that, you're a troll. How you were ever modded insightful is beyond me. Maybe sympathy for your pity party nobody else wants to attend.

Besides, you stole your rant from RWW: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/10/stop-whining-about-netflix-and.php and at least he had a real point.

Good! After all the whining of a measly $2/month increase in price brought on Netflix by the movie studios, I'd say the spoiled brats that make up TEH BLAGOSPHERE needed a cold, hard lesson in "shut your fucking trap and learn to appreciate what you've got or someone might make it worse"! If it weren't for their incessant, self-centered whining*, Netflix wouldn't have lost quite so many customers and money and would've still looked too expensive for Verizon to absorb! So, congrats on digging too deep, guys! All hail Verizon! :-D

*: You may point out that, by definition, whining is already inherently self-centered. To that I say, well, touche.

Thank goodness I use an iPhone. Apple would never track me....urr...crap! Nevermind.

That's OK. Apple's carrier AT&T is looking out for your privacy.

Thank goodness I use an iPhone. Apple would never track me....urr...crap! Nevermind.

You know iPads and iPhones had VLC until the VLC rightsholder took his toys and went home.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/08/pirate_party_european_parliament/

Doesn't have to be Sweden, the movement is gaining a foothold.

Not true. Malware apps have been found and removed from the Android Market.

I'm not surprised, because it is eminently clear that Google wants to concentrate their social features on Plus (in effect, to compete with Facebook by cloning Facebook), but I am still disappointed.
I genuinely like Buzz; it aggregates activity from a whole range of services that I don't care to deal with (personal blogs, google reader, twitter, tumblr, etc.) for easy reading, instead of being another one of those services (Hi Plus!). It was even better because it used an open standard mechanism for identity management to do what it did.
Apparently the APIs for re-posting into Plus from external sites are starting to come together, so I guess that is the migration plan, even though it isn't as open or convenient. It would be nice if Google would set up rel=me peering behavior for plus to replace the functionality.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_hands_wikileaks_volunteers_gmail_data_to_us.php

Microsoft has a patent specifically on how to best sell your private data to the highest bidder. I'm trying to find it at the moment, but searching for Microsoft and patents mainly returns results on Novell, Nortel, Android, etc. And why exactly did Microsoft file this patent in conjunction of their purchase of Skype:

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/72771.html

And you may want to read these:

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-04-18/social-media/29443159_1_facebook-profiles-status-updates-advertisers
http://mashable.com/2010/05/20/facebook-caught-sending-user-data-to-advertisers/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_sells_your_data.php
http://www.financetechnews.com/how-facebook-sells-your-personal-info-and-gets-away-with-it/

A kick in the teeth to Google+ http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/09/google-app-engine-pricing-ange.php

Ironic you pick that example, as google have specifically said Mark Twain would be acceptable:

For a hypothetical example, Samuel Clemens could choose to be known as ‘Mark Twain,’ although we wouldn’t allow him to go by Authordude88.

Source.

Can't say I'm super-impressed.

Maybe you're not, but artists and journalists are flocking to Google+. Let me give you just one example of the former: read what Trey Ratcliff wrote. 40.000+ followers on G+ and half as many on his Facebook fanpage. As to journalists - countless examples. This video might explain why: Google Plus on Rocketboom.. Pay attention to the twitter part, or to what Ratcliff says in the interview. Communication is simiply more fun on G+ - and far more effective. On facebook, you can't chose who among your 300 "friends" sees what you want to say. Facebook "filters" (well, censors) your post to a select people based on various past indicators. You have no control over this process whatsoever. On Google+ you are in control. And thanks to control over what you see (direct links to circle streams, the ability to "mute" discussions) you don't have to listen to the flood of stupidity that is overwhelming on Facebook. That also makes it easier to follow others, share content, etc. - as you can see in Ratcliff's example.

Here you go.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php

Still going strong, too. Comments as recent as a week ago. Even with the readwriteweb logo and the part of the article in bold that tells them what just happened, people still ignore it all and go down to the little white box and type stupid things in.

Alternatively, you can just type "facebook users are idiots" in google and get blog posts about the blog post that started it all and many contain screenshots of some of the dumber comments.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=%22facebook+users+are+idiots%22

Here it is. It was the top hit for a while when you searched Google for 'facebook login'. The comments are hilarious and rage-inducing at the same time.

Here you go. That page discusses the event, and the blog in question was Read Write Web. Found with google, of course :-)

You'll need to sort the comments to show the oldest ones first, but they're all still there...

ReadWriteWeb - Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login

A few months ago this

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php

was on the first Google page for "facebook login". A few precious comments:

Margaret Beck
i don't understand this
Like Reply
2 weeks ago 2 Likes

Margaret Beck
why should i subscribe by e-mail
Like Reply
2 weeks ago 2 Likes

Margaret Beck
why can't i get into facebook--i signed up wks ago

Be shocked.

A wise man once said this.

Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over

what happened to "developers developers developers" ?

They moved into the "O-cloud-O cloud-O cloud"

In no particular order and for no particular reason, I'm just going to disagree with everything you say.

• - web apps are easy to deploy.

Be that as it may, the difference in various browsers means the results are not always what you were hoping.

• - web apps can't match efficiency of native apps (it doesn't matter when you have a multicore desktop, it matters when your smartphone has way less autonomy than it could.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/05/doom-ported-to-javascript-and.php
Ignore moore's law at your own risk. It isn't so much that computers are getting faster, now - they're getting smaller and drawing less power. Today's "mobile device" is as powerful as yesteryear's computer, and that trend won't slow down for some time.

• - web apps everywhere means they will have to be secured (compared with web 1.0 with standard ports for every protocol and a multitude of client/server software vs. port 80 and a handful of browsers)

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean, here.

• - web apps can be seamlessly upgraded (even when user doesn't want to, though)

And that's good and bad.

• - native apps are hard to deploy (a free OS with package management, look at debian or experiments like nixos, solves this problem)

No current OS worth talking about is hard to deploy to.

• - FOSS native apps can be owned by the user.

Why not a web app?

• Anyway, this is just a trend. Games will still be native, and people will hold onto their office suites, and some html5 features reduce the dependency from the network (local storage) which is good.

http://docs.google.com/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/05/doom-ported-to-javascript-and.php
http://www.kongregate.com/
http://facebook.com/
Javascript
Flash
Java Applets (har har)
HTML5
etc.

HTML5 and friends are only recently/beginning to be implemented and already they are shaking things up. Javascript is one of the most optimized languages in existence. There may be a bright future of desktop-like apps that are deployed via the web.

In no particular order and for no particular reason, I'm just going to disagree with everything you say.

• - web apps are easy to deploy.

Be that as it may, the difference in various browsers means the results are not always what you were hoping.

• - web apps can't match efficiency of native apps (it doesn't matter when you have a multicore desktop, it matters when your smartphone has way less autonomy than it could.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/05/doom-ported-to-javascript-and.php
Ignore moore's law at your own risk. It isn't so much that computers are getting faster, now - they're getting smaller and drawing less power. Today's "mobile device" is as powerful as yesteryear's computer, and that trend won't slow down for some time.

• - web apps everywhere means they will have to be secured (compared with web 1.0 with standard ports for every protocol and a multitude of client/server software vs. port 80 and a handful of browsers)

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean, here.

• - web apps can be seamlessly upgraded (even when user doesn't want to, though)

And that's good and bad.

• - native apps are hard to deploy (a free OS with package management, look at debian or experiments like nixos, solves this problem)

No current OS worth talking about is hard to deploy to.

• - FOSS native apps can be owned by the user.

Why not a web app?

• Anyway, this is just a trend. Games will still be native, and people will hold onto their office suites, and some html5 features reduce the dependency from the network (local storage) which is good.

http://docs.google.com/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/05/doom-ported-to-javascript-and.php
http://www.kongregate.com/
http://facebook.com/
Javascript
Flash
Java Applets (har har)
HTML5
etc.

HTML5 and friends are only recently/beginning to be implemented and already they are shaking things up. Javascript is one of the most optimized languages in existence. There may be a bright future of desktop-like apps that are deployed via the web.

How can a drone attack not be hostile, but a hack / cyber-attack be defined as an act of war? (ref http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/pentagon_declares_cyberattack_an_act_of_war.php

Please order drone attack on the "lawyers" who are making this assertion, because after all, it's not hostile.

Apparently a scary number of people can't even log in to social media websites without using Google.

I feel the same way. RDFa is the only standard and is the one seeing measurable adoption, with big names as Best Buy and the IPTC (Reuters, AP, AFP, etc.) recently announcing their adoption. Heck, even Google and Yahoo were already supporting RDFa for ecommerce through GoodRelations. This decision does seem more driven by politics then technical reasons. If it would be a truly innovative step, I'm more sympathetic to following actors instead/until a standard has been written, but in this case I seems a somewhat conscious effort to avoid a perfectly good W3C-standard...

ReadWriteWeb agrees with you. The comments are hilarious. Of course they are newest first so you have to load piles of spam before getting to the beginning.

The short version: http://www.lastpodcast.net/2010/02/10/facebook-login-is-hard-welcome-to-idiocracy/

The important bit: Dear visitors from Google. This site is not Facebook. This is a website called ReadWriteWeb that reports on news about Facebook and other Internet services. You can however click here and become a Fan of ReadWriteWeb on Facebook, to receive our updates and learn more about the Internet. To access Facebook right now, click here. For future reference, type "facebook.com" into your browser address bar or enter "facebook" into Google and click on the first result. We recommend that you then save Facebook as a bookmark in your browser.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php

Read the comments starting with oldest-first. It's either depressing or hilarious, depending on your view of life.

Tried the link, but got tired of trying to figure out which of the 25 third party scriptlets enabled the comments view through NoScript.

No thanks.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php

Read the comments starting with oldest-first. It's either depressing or hilarious, depending on your view of life.

You make a valid point, but Safari seems to auto-open certain "safe" files in the case of this crimeware kit: http://www.securitynewsdaily.com/new-malware-goes-after-mac-users-0747/

However, a huge amount of malware doesn't propagate by someone running an executable - these days it frequently uses exploits in browsers, Flash, PDF readers, etc. Simply visiting an infected website or opening a malicious PDF is enough to execute the malware on your machine. Exploit kits make it easy to set up a website that will try many exploits against the visitor, based on the browser and plugins they are using.

This infection model affects Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. While there are security architecture differences between OSs, the main reason Macs haven't yet got a big malware problem is that they haven't been targetted that much.

From something I wrote earlier - short version is that using Firefox/Chrome and a commercial antivirus on Macs is a good idea:

Here''s a survey of security experts, giving a fairly balanced view: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10444561-245.html - they believe that the Mac is less attacked but less secure than Windows and that Safari is not very secure. Using Firefox or Chrome is probably a better bet on Mac. Chrome - http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/mac/?p=667 - probably more secure than Safari, and it now does have Adblocking, Flash blocking and NotScripts (like NoScript but a bit painful to install.)

See http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apple_quietly_updates_mac_anti-malware_feature.php for some comments - the OS X actually has malware detection built in, showing that Apple thinks there is something to protect against. Mostly Trojans at present. Here's a list of OS X malware: http://www.iantivirus.com/threats/

ClamXav may be OK, but Clamav, the underlying tool, is generally nowhere near as good as a commercial antivirus based on tests â" see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clam_AntiVirus#Effectiveness for a summary.

On Windows I generally recommend Kaspersky, who have good heuristic / proactive detection of zero days (the average signature AV only detects about 40-60% of in-the-wild threats). They do have a Mac version: http://www.kaspersky.co.uk/kav-mac-latest-versions

Mac reviews mention Intego as good: http://theappleblog.com/2010/02/04/antivirus-software-on-your-mac-yes-or-no/ and http://www.macworld.com/article/51438/2006/06/antivirussw.html (old review but includes ClamXav). Sophos is a reputable tool on Windows, which has a free Mac version: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2010/11/02/anti-virus-mac-free/

Due to the blended threats that attack first a PC and then your website, and increasing popularity of Macs particularly for web design, it's only a matter of time before a blended threat attacks Mac+websites.

>"They are quickly cutting in to the iPhones marketshare and are predicted by a number of people to be the top by a long margin in a few years."

Android hasn't just "quickly cut" into the iPhone (ios) market share, it has already SURPASSED the iPhone market share and is zooming ahead more rapidly every month.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/Android_number_one_in_us_smartphone_market_share.php

Real Android tablets have only just now arrived to market. I don't expect them to have hardly any market share for the first several months- but like you said, let's see what happens in a year or two. That is all it took for Android to dominate not just over iOS phones, but over ALL other phone operating systems. I do think Android will have a harder time unseating iPads.

People compare marketshare of "MS-Windows" machines to Apple (MacOS) machines all the time. One is a huge variety of machines (MS-Windows) and the other is just a few models all from one company (Apple).

So what is there to not understand?

There are a dozen Android phones for which the hardware is superior to the iPhone. And the "environment" is basically Android for all of them, and they can almost all run almost all the same apps. So yes, it *does* make sense to lump all of the Android phones together when comparing to lumping the three models of the iPhone together.

And I don't know where you are getting your statistics, but there are already a lot more Android OS phones in use than there are iOS phones.... get your facts straight!

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/Android_number_one_in_us_smartphone_market_share.php

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php