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Have you seen Microsoft's mobile web browser?

That's the answer to your question. That, and the fact that the original HDD-based Zune would not have run any browser worth a shit. Notice that the iPod classic isn't running Safari either.

From OLED to Tegra: Five Myths of the Zune HD

Microsoft knows WiMo is a mess, and didn't want to associate its nerdy IT office image with the 16-year old E orgy imagery it used to launch the Zune.

Now, Microsoft is trying to copy the iPhone App Store with WiMo and Zune has an entirely different set of Xbox-realted dev tools in XNA. So it is a mess. The problem is that XNA isn't going to do anything for the Zune without any installed base (it struggles on the Xbox, which has a large audience), and Microsoft's efforts to copy the App Store are not just late, but more draconian than Apple's.

Microsoft expects developers to pay $99 for every app they submit to the WiMo Marketplace (free or paid), in addition to the annual fee. That's not exactly going to kick WiMo into developer overdrive.

Things go south from there. I'm writing up a report on what's involved in Microsoft's restrictive new store. It's fairly shocking to see what Microsoft thinks it can pull. Clearly lots of delusional management going on.

From OLED to Tegra: Five Myths of the Zune HD

The HD in "HD Radio" doesn't stand for high definition. It's a bs market confusing effort to push proprietary digital radio broadcasting, and it's US only. That's also why the Zune HD isn't being sold overseas, because it doesn't work with open digital radio in Europe.

From OLED to Tegra: Five Myths of the Zune HD

Actually, the iTunes Extra content (both for audio albums and for movies) is just a self contained web site of HTML/CSS/JS and standard files wrapped up in a bundle (a directory acting as a file) so its easy to use and easy to author.

What it is competing against is stuff like DVD-A, WMA-CDs, BluRay authoring, etc. Anyway, it's free bonus content for fans, not something that could concern those who don't believe in intellectual property.

Apple rivals DVD with new iTunes Extras for movies and albums

Why will developers flock to a platform with zero installed base?

It's not even compatible with Windows Mobile, and nobody even cares about WiMo software. So with no apps, why will anyone buy a ZHD? For the angular 80s look? Because they missed out on the previous two generations of Zune, which also promised XNA games before being discontinued?

Microsoft's office/server/desktop monopolies are doing nothing to give it any credibility in the mobile space.

Why Can't Microsoft Develop Software for Zune HD?

In this case, the most straightforward, simple explanation is that Microsoft floated its portfolio of Linux patents on the market as bait for patent trolls, and instead they were bought by a patent defense outfit.

What's your explanation, that Microsoft wanted to do good, but didn't want any credit for it? Because that's ridiculous on many levels. That Microsoft suddenly needed an insignificant few million for patents that it had suddenly reversed its clearly stated strategy on? Equally absurd.

There's nothing "conspiracy theory" or paranoid about Microsoft trying, and failing, to use its Linux-related patents to attack Linux, as it clearly signaled the intent to do with overt, not implied, threats. Microsoft is regularly badgered by patent trolls, so its not like the company doesn't understand how the game works.

And Microsoft's last attack on Linux via SCO, which involved overt "investment" in SCO after funding it with Caldera settlement money, slipped most people's radar and created near zero problems for the company while holding up Linux in a FUD-bath of terror. Why not try to do the same thing again? It's not like Linux suddenly isn't a thorn in Microsoft's server hide.

Daniel Lyons: Fake Steve Jobs and the SCO Shill Who Hated Linux
Microsoft's Unwinnable War on Linux and Open Source

In this case, the most straightforward, simple explanation is that Microsoft floated its portfolio of Linux patents on the market as bait for patent trolls, and instead they were bought by a patent defense outfit.

What's your explanation, that Microsoft wanted to do good, but didn't want any credit for it? Because that's ridiculous on many levels. That Microsoft suddenly needed an insignificant few million for patents that it had suddenly reversed its clearly stated strategy on? Equally absurd.

There's nothing "conspiracy theory" or paranoid about Microsoft trying, and failing, to use its Linux-related patents to attack Linux, as it clearly signaled the intent to do with overt, not implied, threats. Microsoft is regularly badgered by patent trolls, so its not like the company doesn't understand how the game works.

And Microsoft's last attack on Linux via SCO, which involved overt "investment" in SCO after funding it with Caldera settlement money, slipped most people's radar and created near zero problems for the company while holding up Linux in a FUD-bath of terror. Why not try to do the same thing again? It's not like Linux suddenly isn't a thorn in Microsoft's server hide.

Daniel Lyons: Fake Steve Jobs and the SCO Shill Who Hated Linux
Microsoft's Unwinnable War on Linux and Open Source

If you step back from your ideology for a moment, you can look at examples of patents being used defensively to de-escalate wars.

For example, Microsoft has plenty of patents on things Apple uses. If Apple gave all of its IP to the public domain, then Microsoft could have sued Apple into oblivion, and your peace and love strategy would have rendered the company an ineffectual footnote of history.

Instead, Apple presents its own patent portfolio to Microsoft and the two have regularly worked out patent sharing deals. Apple also has reasons to side with Linux and BSD groups, and reason to step in and defend attacks from Microsoft and others who lack this. Apple owns CUPS, Linux' printing system. It relies upon Samba for its Windows sharing compatibility. If it weren't for Apple's involvements, Microsoft would have nothing holding it back from suing these groups out of existence, and mainstream users wouldn't ever even hear about it.

If you look at how things are and how things really work as opposed to fabricating a world view described in over the top language, you'll clue into why "progress and freedom" isn't being delivered by naive ideologues, but is won through competition and struggle.

I agree that there are plenty of problems with the patent system, and Microsoft and Apple both support the idea of reform. But change is scary and nobody wants to give up what they have for something less, whether they are patent holders, potential patent holders, or even consumers with uncertain fair use rights. As in most areas, we need more constructive talk and less overstated dogma. But to suggest that certain companies "ought" to just lay down their weapons and let the others crush them before any change can happen is simply uninformed idealism that only seems like a good idea to people who bear no risk in the outcome.

Symbiotic: What Apple Does for Open Source

Rethink your position. The point of defensive patents is to leverage what you have to make up for what you don't have.

If you sue me over patent A, I can countersue you over patent B, and force you to settle with me amicably in a sharing arrangement.

If I give away by patent B so that unicorns dance among sunshine and rainbow farts, then I end up fucked when you sue me over patent A. I am also powerless to help anyone else in the open source community being attacked over patent A, because I gave away my leverage to the public domain.

I'm all for beating swords into plowshares, but if you're likely to show up and stab me with your sword, I better keep my sword around, too.

Inside Mac OS X Snow Leopard: 64-bits

I posted a link to that story because it fills in additional details about the original approval of C64.

You are certainly right that Apple doesn't want iPhone apps or components being sold outside the App Store. The obvious reason is so that it can take a 30% cut of all software being sold for its platform (just like game console makers do, although their cut is much larger). But the linked article also points out other reasons why Apple is working to maintain control over the iPhone's apps.

For starters, it means that malware for the iPhone will be really hard to create and viruses will be even harder. If an app goes berserk, Apple can revoke its certificate to stop it dead. It also prevents shovelware from making the iPhone software market look like a dump. Go browse a WiMo or Symbian store. Most of their apps look as bad as DOS-era software. Apple is pretty strict about not just looks, but style, preventing nagware and begging. Apple even canned an entire developer of shovelware, banning something like 800 garbage apps from the App Store because many of them were appropriating unauthorized data, just like SEO trashmen who steal content and put up fake blogs paid for by Google.

Google thinks there is no trash beneath their ads, which is why it naively opens its arms to developers in Android. I claimed some time ago this would be a problem for Android (once it gets going), and I still think I'll be right. Nobody is agreeing yet.

Google's Android Market Guarantees Problems for Users

Apple also doesn't want to allow Flash/Silverlight/Java to take over its mobile platform and compete against Cocoa on the iPhone. This is more controversial, but is related to the "we don't want your insecure junkware tainting our platform" motivation. Most of the vulnerabilities reported for Mac OS X are actually flaws in Flash and Java. Apple doesn't want to maintain the same effort on the iPhone, and currently it doesn't have to.

In June 2007, I was the first to say Apple clearly didn't want Flash or Java on the iPhone, at a time when everyone was assuring us that Adobe would deliver Flash for the iPhone by the end of 2007. They were wrong. Apple clearly does not want Flash, and was only telling pundits just enough to keep them pacified.

Gone in a Flash: More on Apple's iPhone Web Plans

In this case, Apple isn't worried about C64 creating a BASIC platform that rivals Cocoa. Instead, it's mostly worried that an exposed BASIC interpreter could be used to distribute unauthorized "ROMs," potentially exposing Apple to copyright claims, or to open some can of worms about viruses or "malware" that might be used to suggest the iPhone had security problems. You know Wired would jizz itself over C64 BASIC malware running on the iPhone, using headlines that again equated it to Windows 95, as it did at the iPhone's launch.

Kim Zetter and the iPhone Root Security Myth

When you judge Apple, don't forget that the company swims in a tank of piranhas.

I posted a link to that story because it fills in additional details about the original approval of C64.

You are certainly right that Apple doesn't want iPhone apps or components being sold outside the App Store. The obvious reason is so that it can take a 30% cut of all software being sold for its platform (just like game console makers do, although their cut is much larger). But the linked article also points out other reasons why Apple is working to maintain control over the iPhone's apps.

For starters, it means that malware for the iPhone will be really hard to create and viruses will be even harder. If an app goes berserk, Apple can revoke its certificate to stop it dead. It also prevents shovelware from making the iPhone software market look like a dump. Go browse a WiMo or Symbian store. Most of their apps look as bad as DOS-era software. Apple is pretty strict about not just looks, but style, preventing nagware and begging. Apple even canned an entire developer of shovelware, banning something like 800 garbage apps from the App Store because many of them were appropriating unauthorized data, just like SEO trashmen who steal content and put up fake blogs paid for by Google.

Google thinks there is no trash beneath their ads, which is why it naively opens its arms to developers in Android. I claimed some time ago this would be a problem for Android (once it gets going), and I still think I'll be right. Nobody is agreeing yet.

Google's Android Market Guarantees Problems for Users

Apple also doesn't want to allow Flash/Silverlight/Java to take over its mobile platform and compete against Cocoa on the iPhone. This is more controversial, but is related to the "we don't want your insecure junkware tainting our platform" motivation. Most of the vulnerabilities reported for Mac OS X are actually flaws in Flash and Java. Apple doesn't want to maintain the same effort on the iPhone, and currently it doesn't have to.

In June 2007, I was the first to say Apple clearly didn't want Flash or Java on the iPhone, at a time when everyone was assuring us that Adobe would deliver Flash for the iPhone by the end of 2007. They were wrong. Apple clearly does not want Flash, and was only telling pundits just enough to keep them pacified.

Gone in a Flash: More on Apple's iPhone Web Plans

In this case, Apple isn't worried about C64 creating a BASIC platform that rivals Cocoa. Instead, it's mostly worried that an exposed BASIC interpreter could be used to distribute unauthorized "ROMs," potentially exposing Apple to copyright claims, or to open some can of worms about viruses or "malware" that might be used to suggest the iPhone had security problems. You know Wired would jizz itself over C64 BASIC malware running on the iPhone, using headlines that again equated it to Windows 95, as it did at the iPhone's launch.

Kim Zetter and the iPhone Root Security Myth

When you judge Apple, don't forget that the company swims in a tank of piranhas.

I posted a link to that story because it fills in additional details about the original approval of C64.

You are certainly right that Apple doesn't want iPhone apps or components being sold outside the App Store. The obvious reason is so that it can take a 30% cut of all software being sold for its platform (just like game console makers do, although their cut is much larger). But the linked article also points out other reasons why Apple is working to maintain control over the iPhone's apps.

For starters, it means that malware for the iPhone will be really hard to create and viruses will be even harder. If an app goes berserk, Apple can revoke its certificate to stop it dead. It also prevents shovelware from making the iPhone software market look like a dump. Go browse a WiMo or Symbian store. Most of their apps look as bad as DOS-era software. Apple is pretty strict about not just looks, but style, preventing nagware and begging. Apple even canned an entire developer of shovelware, banning something like 800 garbage apps from the App Store because many of them were appropriating unauthorized data, just like SEO trashmen who steal content and put up fake blogs paid for by Google.

Google thinks there is no trash beneath their ads, which is why it naively opens its arms to developers in Android. I claimed some time ago this would be a problem for Android (once it gets going), and I still think I'll be right. Nobody is agreeing yet.

Google's Android Market Guarantees Problems for Users

Apple also doesn't want to allow Flash/Silverlight/Java to take over its mobile platform and compete against Cocoa on the iPhone. This is more controversial, but is related to the "we don't want your insecure junkware tainting our platform" motivation. Most of the vulnerabilities reported for Mac OS X are actually flaws in Flash and Java. Apple doesn't want to maintain the same effort on the iPhone, and currently it doesn't have to.

In June 2007, I was the first to say Apple clearly didn't want Flash or Java on the iPhone, at a time when everyone was assuring us that Adobe would deliver Flash for the iPhone by the end of 2007. They were wrong. Apple clearly does not want Flash, and was only telling pundits just enough to keep them pacified.

Gone in a Flash: More on Apple's iPhone Web Plans

In this case, Apple isn't worried about C64 creating a BASIC platform that rivals Cocoa. Instead, it's mostly worried that an exposed BASIC interpreter could be used to distribute unauthorized "ROMs," potentially exposing Apple to copyright claims, or to open some can of worms about viruses or "malware" that might be used to suggest the iPhone had security problems. You know Wired would jizz itself over C64 BASIC malware running on the iPhone, using headlines that again equated it to Windows 95, as it did at the iPhone's launch.

Kim Zetter and the iPhone Root Security Myth

When you judge Apple, don't forget that the company swims in a tank of piranhas.

Seriously, "duplicating core functionality" is not the only restriction in the iPhone SDK.

This is quite obviously related to the restriction on exposing an executable shell and other forms of executing arbitrary code, such as external plugins or frameworks. iPhone apps can't run random code downloaded from the Internet or run other files on the system. They are all sandboxed to prevent PC-style chaos.

"An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)."

That same restriction is what kills any prospects for implementing Flash, Silverlight or Java on the iPhone.

Apple approves Commodore 64 emulator for iPhone

I would have supported the author with a direct link to his blog.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/09/05/inside-mac-os-x-snow-leopard-exchange-support-2/

You're probably lying about the cookie, but you now owe me one:

The reason the RIM BlackBerry Curve's outselling the iPhone 3G in Q1 was not newsworthy (as the iPhone in Japan is) is because...

* The Curve is sold by every provider in the US: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, TMobile. The iPhone is only sold by AT&T, meaning it has something like slightly more than a third of the Curve's reach (Sprint/TMobile are smaller than AT&T and Verizon). It's not newsworthy to discover that Dell is outselling Apple, but it would be newsworthy to find that Apple was outselling Dell.

* RIM has an established market for sales in the enterprise. Lots of companies sell users on BlackBerry phones, and even many iPhone users also carry a BB tied to their work.

* The BB Curve is a simpler phone. If the BB Storm were outselling the iPhone, that might be newsworthy, because RIM would be demonstrating its ability to outsell Apple in the touch/large screen form factor that differentiates Apple. The Storm has tanked.

* Q1 is one of Apple's weakest quarters for iPhone sales. Unlike other makers, iPhone sales are very cyclical because Apple trots out a new introduction every end of June like clockwork. That results in a huge surge in the fall quarter (when Apple outsold even RIM last year), another christmas surge in the winter quarter, but a rather anemic spring and summer quarter as early adopters saturate and people start anticipating the next big model to come.

Things that would/will be newsworthy:

* An Android model that outsells the iPhone
* A WiMo model that outsells the iPhone
* The Palm Pre outselling the iPhone
* A Symbian phone outselling the iPhone in the US

Things that are not newsworthy:

* Microsoft's PR attempts to suggest that global sales of all WiMo phones are close to or tied to sales of the iPhone itself
* Nokia's retention of a plurality of market share world wide (it's slipping too fast)
* Android half-assedly appearing on another model that its vendor won't really promote
* Palm still being in business (this might become newsworthy next year if it happens)
* RIM still selling lots of phones (this will become newsworthy if the company can't maintain it)
* Apple continuing to inhale all the oxygen in the US market despite being tied to AT&T's network.

Letters from Microsoft: An Employee Tosses His Zune

Being that I am Daniel Eran Dilger, I'll have to call you out here for making "shit up as you go along and claiming it's the truth."

Seriously, who are you, Sarah Palin?

The irony here is that everything I reported has found to fit the facts since, including the top popularity of the iPhone 3GS despite its being tied to the third largest carrier (and only GSM service in Japan). And the story you wanted to believe was exposed to be a sloppy fabrication. Do you have no shame Ms Palin?

What Obama could learn from Apple... on Health Care

This is in stark contrast to reports from earlier this year that the Japanese hate the iPhone.

This "hatred" was debunked shortly thereafter:

AppleInsider has posted a great article explaining that Wired's story about Japanese iPhone hate was completely false and has been edited at least twice. The comments in the article were recycled and taken out of context, with those interviewed blogging about the mistakes. The piece then goes on to analyze the iPhone's standing in Japan, as well as some of the major factors working for and against it. At last it points out that the Wall Street Journal tried the same myth of failure just after the phone's launch in Japan, recycled from a myth the year before, pushed by a research company with a possible anti-Apple agenda.

This is in stark contrast to reports from earlier this year that the Japanese hate the iPhone.

This "hatred" was debunked shortly thereafter:

AppleInsider has posted a great article explaining that Wired's story about Japanese iPhone hate was completely false and has been edited at least twice. The comments in the article were recycled and taken out of context, with those interviewed blogging about the mistakes. The piece then goes on to analyze the iPhone's standing in Japan, as well as some of the major factors working for and against it. At last it points out that the Wall Street Journal tried the same myth of failure just after the phone's launch in Japan, recycled from a myth the year before, pushed by a research company with a possible anti-Apple agenda.

This is in stark contrast to reports from earlier this year that the Japanese hate the iPhone.

This "hatred" was debunked shortly thereafter:

AppleInsider has posted a great article explaining that Wired's story about Japanese iPhone hate was completely false and has been edited at least twice. The comments in the article were recycled and taken out of context, with those interviewed blogging about the mistakes. The piece then goes on to analyze the iPhone's standing in Japan, as well as some of the major factors working for and against it. At last it points out that the Wall Street Journal tried the same myth of failure just after the phone's launch in Japan, recycled from a myth the year before, pushed by a research company with a possible anti-Apple agenda.

[..]Apple has had a far superior OS to Windows for the last 8 years, and they've barely dented the PC market.

How do you figure? True, they have like 5% of sales compared to PC sales, but those 5% make more money than Dell and HP put together. They may not be "mainstream", but that's a very very lucrative niche they got there.

And, more importantly, this niche (slick turn-key personal devices) is a niche that Microsoft cannot get into, nor replicate, because Windows wasn't designed for that. The OEMs might be able to replicate it, if they ever get over Windows and start customizing Linux to its full potential.

Repeating something doesn't make it true.

The Promise of NT
In order to deliver NT as an entirely new operating system, Microsoft assembled a design team of engineers lead by Dave Cutler, who was hired from DEC. Cutler had worked on DEC' VMS, which was the main OS contender against Unix in the higher end workstation market. NT's design reflects many conventions of VMS, although it also included many new ideas.

DOS was purchased from Patterson, whom has admitted to hacking CP/M. And if you go back a few years, you'll see that CP/M was based on a DEC's operating system. So while Bill/MS didn't write DOS from scratch that was sold to IBM, MS didn't just outright steal CP/M either.

... and how ironic is it that the complainer who is alleging "soviet style bureaucracy creating mediocrity" is upset because he wanted to publish a boring book as an "application" rather than just putting his content on a web site?

Sounds like an ambulance chasing, nuisance lawsuit attorney complaining about the courts being backed up. Hey, here's a solution: get out of the way! There are lots of worthy apps in the App Store, just as there are lots of cool apps for any platform. Of course, for every great app, there are a hundred piles of crap, which is pretty much also the case on any other computing platform.

If anything, Apple is raising the signal to noise ratio in iTunes so that there's more good stuff available and it rises to to top better than every other mobile platform store. In Apple's wording, a meritocracy. I hear complaints from two sources: developers peddling crap, and users on other platforms "assuming" without examination that the iPhone app store probably isn't any better than Symbian/WinMobile/PalmOS/RIM etc. Well it obviously is, take a look before you criticize things. And consider who is doing the complaining. Given Apple's previous lack of experience in retailing software successfully, and its less than ideal record in catering to developers, the App Store is doing quite amazingly well.

Microsoft Bing share vs Google smaller than Safari vs IE

Actually, Apple has been selling iPhones liberally in Singapore and Taiwan (?) with none of the restrictions it put on sales in the US and Europe precisely to create a black market supply for China.

The people getting the iPhone in China are not rice paddy peasants, they are the urban rich, and there are shitloads of them. The mobile market in China is already absurdly big. In a report on notes from Analyst Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros, AppleInsider wrote:

"[China Unicom,] the smaller of the two Chinese carriers has 'just' 133 million carriers compared to [state-run] China Mobile's 488 million but is in the middle of deploying a 3G cellular network that uses UMTS [rather than China-proprietary TD-SCDMA]."

AT&T & Verizon+Alltel in the US have around 78M and 80M subscribers respectively. That's why everyone is talking about China.

China Unicom leading the pack for iPhone deal
Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble

How many Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones supported WiFi in Europe at the release of the iPhone?

How many US phones supported WiFi at the release of the iPhone? Not very many. Verizon Wireless had been staunchly opposed to functional WiFi (and Bluetooth) on its phones, and Apple essentially forced AT&T into being cool with WiFi because in 1997 AT&T could barely support the EDGE traffic generated by iPhone users.

Note that the China-export versions of Nokia's flagship N95 do not support WiFi, for the same reason.

And what are these anti-features of the iPhone? You mean a battery that doesn't fall out when you drop the phone? A camera with less than 8MP in its tiny sensor so that you can't record noise? A software platform that keeps requiring you to buy apps that don't exist for Symbian or other struggling platforms? A browser that not only works, but looks so good it has the rest of the industry in an embarrassed panic to clone it? Or are you just dropping turd bombs because you're bitter that Apple released a good product that a lot of people like?

Apple launches HTTP Live Streaming standard in iPhone 3.0

Or more accurately, Chrome OS will push HTML 5 apps, making Flash and MS Flash (Silverlight) obsolete.

Microsoft is already targeting Smooth Streaming as the trojan horse for pushing Silverlight (and already successfully managed to force anyone who wanted to watch the Olympics or the DNC last year to download Silverlight 2). However, Apple has done an end run around Microsoft by submitting very similar technology it calls HTTP Live Streaming to the IETF as a proposed standard, patterned after SHOUTcast/Icecast HTTP streaming of MP3 (basically upgrading Internet radio to Internet TV).

And while Microsoft dutifully tries to push Silverlight out as The Only Client of its Smooth Streaming, Apple already has shipped HTTP Live Streaming in iPhone 3.0 to its installed base of +40 million active mobile iPhone/iPod Touch users, with partners Akamai and big name MPEG transport stream encoder vendors. In contrast, Smooth Streaming is designed to tie streaming only to Microsoft's streamer, IIS, and Silverlight on the client (surprise!).

Any client that can play H.264/AAC audio/video from MPEG transport streams can play content targeted to the iPhone. You can serve it from any web server. You don't need to create an iPhone App to deliver content to the iPhone, it streams right from the web, right now. That means it will be easy for vendors such as Palm or Android to support streaming video targeted to the iPhone, despite having a much smaller installed base than the iPhone. And with the release of Snow Leopard, QuickTime X will stream HTTP Live Streaming from the desktop, and presumably, Apple TV.

This tears away the primary need for Flash or MS Flash (Silverlight), paving the way open for HTML 5 to push compliant browsers (FireFox, Opera, Safari, other WebKit browsers) into the forefront and leave a dwindling minority on IE 6/7/8 with Silverlight/Flash. Best, HTML 5 can provide fallback, offering HTTP Live Streaming as the first option, H.264 progressive download as a secondary, Ogg Theora for Wikipedia hosting videos that won't play on any mobile devices outside of the desktop PC, and Flash for the Neanderthals among us.

Apple launches HTTP Live Streaming standard in iPhone 3.0 : with a timeline and history of Internet streaming and links to example sites.

Or more accurately, Chrome OS will push HTML 5 apps, making Flash and MS Flash (Silverlight) obsolete.

Microsoft is already targeting Smooth Streaming as the trojan horse for pushing Silverlight (and already successfully managed to force anyone who wanted to watch the Olympics or the DNC last year to download Silverlight 2). However, Apple has done an end run around Microsoft by submitting very similar technology it calls HTTP Live Streaming to the IETF as a proposed standard, patterned after SHOUTcast/Icecast HTTP streaming of MP3 (basically upgrading Internet radio to Internet TV).

And while Microsoft dutifully tries to push Silverlight out as The Only Client of its Smooth Streaming, Apple already has shipped HTTP Live Streaming in iPhone 3.0 to its installed base of +40 million active mobile iPhone/iPod Touch users, with partners Akamai and big name MPEG transport stream encoder vendors. In contrast, Smooth Streaming is designed to tie streaming only to Microsoft's streamer, IIS, and Silverlight on the client (surprise!).

Any client that can play H.264/AAC audio/video from MPEG transport streams can play content targeted to the iPhone. You can serve it from any web server. You don't need to create an iPhone App to deliver content to the iPhone, it streams right from the web, right now. That means it will be easy for vendors such as Palm or Android to support streaming video targeted to the iPhone, despite having a much smaller installed base than the iPhone. And with the release of Snow Leopard, QuickTime X will stream HTTP Live Streaming from the desktop, a

Silverlight can only be "thought of as a sort of HTML 5" if you also sort of thought of Win32 as HTML 4.

Jesus Christ, it's just a clone of Flash that attempts to make Vista's .Net as a binary substitute for the open web.

And yes, Microsoft is desperately trying to compete with Chrome/Chrome OS/HTML 5, just like the company successfully killed Client-side Java and non-IE browsers as a threat to the Win32 monopoly, then sat back and let IE go rotten once it ruled the roost.

If you still live in the late 90s and think Microsoft is invincible and can decree standards by fiat with its monopoly share of the PC desktop and the web browser, let me welcome you to the 2000s, where:

- Microsoft's WMA/WMV-VC-1 codecs failed to kill or even matter in the face of MPEG H.264/ACC.
- Microsoft's HD-DVD + HDi failed against Blu-Ray and H.264 content in iTunes.
- Microsoft's ASF/AAF container files failed to win against QuickTime/MPEG-4 (with even MS now using MP4 in Smooth Streaming).
- Efforts to push Zune and PlaysForSure DRM and MS-DRM music subscriptions failed against the iPod and iTunes.
- Efforts to push Windows Mobile as a brand have collapsed in the face of the iPhone.
- Microsoft's IE monopoly over the web has shrunk down to 60% and continues a rapid decline as Firefox, Chrome and Safari eat up share.
- Microsoft's Windows monopoly is facing a global shrinking PC market, mass rejection of a heavyweight Vista/Win7 type operating system as systems move toward netbooks and ultra cheap PCs and laptops that can't support a fat OS, and the loss of the premium PC market for higher end systems to Apple.

Microsoft might be all you know, but it's time to start learning about alternatives or you'll be stuck with the dinosaurs.

Apple launches HTTP Live Streaming standard in iPhone 3.0
Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble
Why Windows 7 is Microsoft's next Zune
Why Windows 7 on Netbooks Won't Save Microsoft

Silverlight can only be "thought of as a sort of HTML 5" if you also sort of thought of Win32 as HTML 4.

Jesus Christ, it's just a clone of Flash that attempts to make Vista's .Net as a binary substitute for the open web.

And yes, Microsoft is desperately trying to compete with Chrome/Chrome OS/HTML 5, just like the company successfully killed Client-side Java and non-IE browsers as a threat to the Win32 monopoly, then sat back and let IE go rotten once it ruled the roost.

If you still live in the late 90s and think Microsoft is invincible and can decree standards by fiat with its monopoly share of the PC desktop and the web browser, let me welcome you to the 2000s, where:

- Microsoft's WMA/WMV-VC-1 codecs failed to kill or even matter in the face of MPEG H.264/ACC.
- Microsoft's HD-DVD + HDi failed against Blu-Ray and H.264 content in iTunes.
- Microsoft's ASF/AAF container files failed to win against QuickTime/MPEG-4 (with even MS now using MP4 in Smooth Streaming).
- Efforts to push Zune and PlaysForSure DRM and MS-DRM music subscriptions failed against the iPod and iTunes.
- Efforts to push Windows Mobile as a brand have collapsed in the face of the iPhone.
- Microsoft's IE monopoly over the web has shrunk down to 60% and continues a rapid decline as Firefox, Chrome and Safari eat up share.
- Microsoft's Windows monopoly is facing a global shrinking PC market, mass rejection of a heavyweight Vista/Win7 type operating system as systems move toward netbooks and ultra cheap PCs and laptops that can't support a fat OS, and the loss of the premium PC market for higher end systems to Apple.

Microsoft might be all you know, but it's time to start learning about alternatives or you'll be stuck with the dinosaurs.

Apple launches HTTP Live Streaming standard in iPhone 3.0
Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble
Why Windows 7 is Microsoft's next Zune
Why Windows 7 on Netbooks Won't Save Microsoft

Silverlight can only be "thought of as a sort of HTML 5" if you also sort of thought of Win32 as HTML 4.

Jesus Christ, it's just a clone of Flash that attempts to make Vista's .Net as a binary substitute for the open web.

And yes, Microsoft is desperately trying to compete with Chrome/Chrome OS/HTML 5, just like the company successfully killed Client-side Java and non-IE browsers as a threat to the Win32 monopoly, then sat back and let IE go rotten once it ruled the roost.

If you still live in the late 90s and think Microsoft is invincible and can decree standards by fiat with its monopoly share of the PC desktop and the web browser, let me welcome you to the 2000s, where:

- Microsoft's WMA/WMV-VC-1 codecs failed to kill or even matter in the face of MPEG H.264/ACC.
- Microsoft's HD-DVD + HDi failed against Blu-Ray and H.264 content in iTunes.
- Microsoft's ASF/AAF container files failed to win against QuickTime/MPEG-4 (with even MS now using MP4 in Smooth Streaming).
- Efforts to push Zune and PlaysForSure DRM and MS-DRM music subscriptions failed against the iPod and iTunes.
- Efforts to push Windows Mobile as a brand have collapsed in the face of the iPhone.
- Microsoft's IE monopoly over the web has shrunk down to 60% and continues a rapid decline as Firefox, Chrome and Safari eat up share.
- Microsoft's Windows monopoly is facing a global shrinking PC market, mass rejection of a heavyweight Vista/Win7 type operating system as systems move toward netbooks and ultra cheap PCs and laptops that can't support a fat OS, and the loss of the premium PC market for higher end systems to Apple.

Microsoft might be all you know, but it's time to start learning about alternatives or you'll be stuck with the dinosaurs.

Apple launches HTTP Live Streaming standard in iPhone 3.0
Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble
Why Windows 7 is Microsoft's next Zune
Why Windows 7 on Netbooks Won't Save Microsoft

Silverlight can only be "thought of as a sort of HTML 5" if you also sort of thought of Win32 as HTML 4.

Jesus Christ, it's just a clone of Flash that attempts to make Vista's .Net as a binary substitute for the open web.

And yes, Microsoft is desperately trying to compete with Chrome/Chrome OS/HTML 5, just like the company successfully killed Client-side Java and non-IE browsers as a threat to the Win32 monopoly, then sat back and let IE go rotten once it ruled the roost.

If you still live in the late 90s and think Microsoft is invincible and can decree standards by fiat with its monopoly share of the PC desktop and the web browser, let me welcome you to the 2000s, where:

- Microsoft's WMA/WMV-VC-1 codecs failed to kill or even matter in the face of MPEG H.264/ACC.
- Microsoft's HD-DVD + HDi failed against Blu-Ray and H.264 content in iTunes.
- Microsoft's ASF/AAF container files failed to win against QuickTime/MPEG-4 (with even MS now using MP4 in Smooth Streaming).
- Efforts to push Zune and PlaysForSure DRM and MS-DRM music subscriptions failed against the iPod and iTunes.
- Efforts to push Windows Mobile as a brand have collapsed in the face of the iPhone.
- Microsoft's IE monopoly over the web has shrunk down to 60% and continues a rapid decline as Firefox, Chrome and Safari eat up share.
- Microsoft's Windows monopoly is facing a global shrinking PC market, mass rejection of a heavyweight Vista/Win7 type operating system as systems move toward netbooks and ultra cheap PCs and laptops that can't support a fat OS, and the loss of the premium PC market for higher end systems to Apple.

Microsoft might be all you know, but it's time to start learning about alternatives or you'll be stuck with the dinosaurs.

Apple launches HTTP Live Streaming standard in iPhone 3.0
Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble
Why Windows 7 is Microsoft's next Zune
Why Windows 7 on Netbooks Won't Save Microsoft

Wrong, HTML 5 is already implemented in Safari and Safari Mobile on the iPhone. It already supports audio/video tags and client side databases. Obviously things will continue to develop over the next few years, but its flatly inaccurate to talk about HTML 5 as if its several years out. It's here now, and its staunchly supported by the company that represents more than half of all mobile web traffic.

Firefox, Chrome and Opera area also on board. And remember when IE was the reason nothing every happened because it had 95% of the web audience? Well its under 60% now. Hard to believe. Another reason why HTML 5 will be huge:

Apple launches HTTP Live Streaming standard in iPhone 3.0

Or more accurately, Chrome OS will push HTML 5 apps, making Flash and MS Flash (Silverlight) obsolete.

Microsoft is already targeting Smooth Streaming as the trojan horse for pushing Silverlight (and already successfully managed to force anyone who wanted to watch the Olympics or the DNC last year to download Silverlight 2). However, Apple has done an end run around Microsoft by submitting very similar technology it calls HTTP Live Streaming to the IETF as a proposed standard, patterned after SHOUTcast/Icecast HTTP streaming of MP3 (basically upgrading Internet radio to Internet TV).

And while Microsoft dutifully tries to push Silverlight out as The Only Client of its Smooth Streaming, Apple already has shipped HTTP Live Streaming in iPhone 3.0 to its installed base of +40 million active mobile iPhone/iPod Touch users, with partners Akamai and big name MPEG transport stream encoder vendors. In contrast, Smooth Streaming is designed to tie streaming only to Microsoft's streamer, IIS, and Silverlight on the client (surprise!).

Any client that can play H.264/AAC audio/video from MPEG transport streams can play content targeted to the iPhone. You can serve it from any web server. You don't need to create an iPhone App to deliver content to the iPhone, it streams right from the web, right now. That means it will be easy for vendors such as Palm or Android to support streaming video targeted to the iPhone, despite having a much smaller installed base than the iPhone. And with the release of Snow Leopard, QuickTime X will stream HTTP Live Streaming from the desktop, and presumably, Apple TV.

This tears away the primary need for Flash or MS Flash (Silverlight), paving the way open for HTML 5 to push compliant browsers (FireFox, Opera, Safari, other WebKit browsers) into the forefront and leave a dwindling minority on IE 6/7/8 with Silverlight/Flash. Best, HTML 5 can provide fallback, offering HTTP Live Streaming as the first option, H.264 progressive download as a secondary, Ogg Theora for Wikipedia hosting videos that won't play on any mobile devices outside of the desktop PC, and Flash for the Neanderthals among us.

Apple launches HTTP Live Streaming standard in iPhone 3.0 : with a timeline and history of Internet streaming and links to example sites.

Yeah, Microsoft promises not to sue users to propagate Silverlight creep on Linux, as long as they are content to use an old version.

Silverlight = MS Flash: replacing the open web with a closed binary that only works well on Windows.

Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble

Opera Mini isn't really a web browser, it's a Java ME client for Opera's proxy servers, which render pages and send a proprietary slimmed down version to the applet. There's nothing "standards compliant" about it.

Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble

Microsoft hasn't released any apps for the iPhone, clearly indicating that it isn't a legitimate software company, but merely a marketing company that perpetuates the Windows monopoly.

Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble

Market share implies a market. Comparing "Linux" to the iPhone is like comparing "a 10% increase" of two totally different numbers.

If you're talking about Linux on the desktop, then it can be compared to other desktop operating systems.

- It's hard to pinpoint how many Linux users there are, because .iso downloads are meaningless and Linux isn't represented in hardware sales as Mac OS X and Windows are.
- Browser logs give some idea of the installed base of Linux users, but compared to other PCs, it isn't very high. That's because most Linux PCs are acting as servers and not browsing the web as consumer oriented Macs and Windows PCs are.

If you're talking about Linux on mobile devices, then it can be compared to the iPhone.

- It's easier to identify the mobile market share of Linux, as it is tied to hardware. But Linux is rarely the platform on mobile devices. The Android, the Palm Pre, and many Motorola Chinese phones all use a Linux kernel, but it's not relevant to the platform or the software they run. The only mobile devices that are really Linux are maybe Nokia's failed Maemo tablets.
- Browser logs clearly indicate that despite only representing a sizable chunk of the smartphone market, Apple dominates the mobile web with more than 50% of mobile web traffic.

While it's true that mobile traffic doesn't compare with desktop traffic volumes, it is clearly the future and has the potential to dramatically alter the computing landscape. So Microsoft's current ~60% of the desktop (who'd have thought!) is close to Apple's share of the mobile web. That gives Apple the ability to push HTML 5 and the use of open standards, including ISO MPEG H.264 and Apple's IETF-proposed HTTP Live streaming protocol on the iPhone, the opposite of what Microsoft has done over the last 15 years to tie every standard to its own proprietary platform: Windows.

Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble

Mac OS X Leopard, obviously.

Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble

Microsoft tried to derail MPEG4 to establish its own Window Media codecs and the ASF container, which the ISO had rejected in 1998 for a container based upon QuickTime's instead.

So Microsoft got its proprietary technologies rubber-stamped by its pet standards org, the SMPTE, as VC-1 and has since failed in the market as well.

In its HTTP Streaming proposal for MS Flash (Silverlight), the vanquished Microsoft is now specifying the MPEG4 container.

But yes, the MPEG4 patent pool has tech from everybody in it, that's why its the most desirable codec. At least we have some idea of where the tech came from.

Microsoft's Plot to Kill QuickTime

I'm in the same boat. For years I've been looking for a file system can hold files larger than 2GB and can be mounted from Windows and Mac OS X (and maybe Linux). That would allow me to store all my work on one partition, and access it from Mac OS X, from Windows via Boot Camp, or from Windows inside Parallels or VMware Fusion. It would also allow me to transfer large files back and forth between my Mac and other Windows computers. I was hoping ZFS would be that file system.

The last time I checked (the middle of 2008), the only way to do this was via NTFS, and the only read-write support for NTFS on OSX was the MacFUSE NTFS driver, which was pretty slow.

I just saw that MacDrive 7.2 now allows Windows Vista x64 (my Boot Camp OS) to read HFS disks, so maybe I'll give that a try. There are also rumors that Snow Leopard's Boot Camp utility will include drivers for Windows to read HFS disks, so maybe that will help too.

Microsoft Office for Mac OS X is a joke. It is not 100% compatible and function/feature complete. Connecting to an Exchange 2003 or 2007 server is not well supported with several known problems that have yet to be completely resolved.

True, if I recall right Office for Macs uses Entourage not Exchange. That's Microsoft's fault not Apple's though. Now if you want to use something like Exchange there are alternatives for OS X including open source software. But ah, there is an Apple iCal / Microsoft Exchange fix for Leopard.

There are also alternatives to MS Office. Though Open Office 3.0 runs on Macs natively now I still use NeoOffice. I've been using for almost 2 years and I've only had one problem opening an MS Office document, several months ago I tried to open a document off the web but it wouldn't. After I upgraded my NeoOffice, an old version was installed to begin with, it opened up fine.

Falcon

CueCat had a lot riding on it and lots of fairly high profile partners. Perhaps if it wasn't in the retarded shape of a big plastic cat it might have taken off.

But what's this about the "ludicrously priced Apple Lisa"? Sure it was $10,000 in 1983, but it wasn't targeted to home users. The only other graphical computing package available at the time, the VisIon hardware/software kit from the makers of VisiCalc, the killer app spreadsheet, was less impressive and just as expensive.

"the base VisiOn software and a mouse cost $790, each application cost between $250 and $400, and it required a $5000 hard drive upgrade on top of a $2000 PC"

It was not hard to price a $10,000 PC in the mid-80s simply by adding a little RAM and a hard drive. The Lisa pioneered a new class of hardware at a reasonable cost compared to its newness and the competition.

Apple's Lisa also invented the Office desktop suite, which was bundled into its price. If you wanted an integrated suite of Office software, you'd have to wait out the 80s for another seven years before Microsoft could reassemble its own Office suite for the Macintosh, and then later Windows.

Office Wars 3 - How Microsoft Got Its Office Monopoly

In the dictionary that ships with Mac OS X:

Security is defined as "the state of being free from danger or threat" and Safety is similarly defined as "the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk, or injury."

Security comes from the Latin securitas or securus "free from care" while safety comes from the salvitas or salvus meaning "safe."

So if there were any real nuance of difference between being safe and being secure, then security would have the edge in meaning over "feeling safe", while safety could be said to imply actually "being safe." But the words are really interchangeable, and how you use them can suggest either.

The real discrepancy that needs to be pointed out between the Mac and Windows is that while Microsoft has recently invested more into building a fancy security infrastructure, Mac users continue to both feel safer and to actually be safer in the sense of being free from danger or threat.

There is clearly no immediate or impending threat to Macs, and there is little in the way of market forces or that wishful thinking pundit invention of "hacker pride" that will result in something to turn Macs into the disaster that has dogged Windows since the late 90s.

What pundits like to do is equate low risk, self-injury actions with high risk, difficult to escape from events. This is straight up misinformation mixed with fear, uncertainty and doubt. For example, nearly everyone is claiming that:

* Downloading iLife warez that pretend to be stolen software
* from a non-trusted source
* assigning it privileges to install on your system
* and then finding that you have installed a background process that does something ugly that you can trivially remove

is the same as:

* Trying to use Windows to browse the web and use email
* finding that you've been automatically infected with adware and viral malware without knowing it
* then finding that your PC is also self replicating attacks or sending spam on to other systems
* then realizing that the design of Windows' registry makes it difficult to clean things out
* then noticing how much of your CPU capacity is being used to protect you from all of these threats via malware and virus scanners
* then finding out how expensive it is to spend hours cleaning up the mess yourself, or alternatively paying some Nerd Patrol $300 to "diagnose" that your PC is hosed.

They are not the same, and only a liar would keep suggesting that Mac and Windows users face the same dangers and threats. If you're paying attention, you'll notice that those who keep suggesting this almost always work for an Anti-Virus company working to make money off of Mac users. This shouldn't require any help in dot connection.

Kaspersky Sells Mac AntiVirus Fear Using Charlie Miller... Mac AntiVirus Foe

It could also be argued that software benefits from regular bug fixes and feature enhancement releases. Are you trying to say XP was so good that it didn't need more than 3 SP updates in the last 8 years? Because that's a ridiculous thing to say.

It also sounds like you're tying to spin SPs as a collection of fixes that come down the pipe at regular intervals. Sure, Apple issues regular security patch updates outside of its minor updates; these are also rolled up into its minor releases, which serve as a the "benchmark minimum specification" for new Macs being sold. So I'm at a loss to see your point.

As as far as attacking my constructive arguemnt on the grounds that I've "already decided that Apple is better than Microsoft" in this regard, well yes, I've know this over the last eight years of experiencing the facts as both a Windows admin and a Mac user. But no, I didn't construct this argument out of "thin air" to support my bias, they're both based on my experiences.

See, some people construct opinions based on observable facts and research and then relate them with the supporting facts to bolster their assertions.

Apple certainly can improve, but if you want to talk about "glaring holes in Safari," perhaps you should take off your advocacy/imagination hat and look at the actual facts. Safari isn't the browser related to 99% of the world's spyware and adware infestations. That would be Internet Explorer.

Safari is the browser that pioneered the development of web standards, something IE is just now getting around to addressing after ruling the industry as a terrible monopolist.

I don't dislike Microsoft for its success, I have contempt for the company for using its success to spread failure.

Why Windows 7 is Microsoft's next Zune

Perhaps while you were on Newegg you could have searched for Mac OS X Leopard and discovered that its available for $102.99.

Or you could ask Microsoft how much they want for the eight year old XP ($264.99) directly? Of course, MS really wants you to buy Vista and then Windows 7, neither of which do much beyond copying Apple's looks and compositing graphics engine.

Why Windows 7 is Microsoft's next Zune

This is wrong:

"encourages developers to target 64-bit primarily (thus leaving out the pre-Core 2 machines)"

On Windows, targeting 64-bit might leave out 32-bit PCs, but Apple's Universal Binary architecture makes it easy to compile applications that support both 32/64-bit hardware in the same application package. And 64-bit Macs running OS X can run both natively. Windows requires a WOW emulation level to run 32-bit EXEs on the separate 64-bit version of XP/Vista. Which is part of the reason only a minority of Windows users have moved to 64-bits.

Road to Mac OS X Snow Leopard: the future of 64-bit apps

Since it shipped in 2001- 8 FREAKING YEARS AGO - WinXP has gotten three SP releases. Microsoft's SPs don't often add significant new features, they fix broken things. Although sometimes, things are so broken (such as USB, or Firewall/security, that an SP appears to "add new features").

Apple doesn't call it a service pack when they release a minor update to Mac OS X, but they deliver these far more often than Microsoft. Apple is gearing up to deliver its *seventh* significant free update to Leopard!

Ten Myths of Leopard: 2 It's Only a Service Pack!

Since 2001, Apple has shipped 40 free updates to Mac OS X at regular intervals, compared to the three SPs you outlined for XP.

There's no way to dance your way out of that corner. Apple has consistently out-delivered Microsoft across the board in both paid upgrades with major new features (six major reference releases this decade, compared to Microsoft's 3 desktop OS releases- Win 5.1 (XP), 6 (Vista), and 6.1 ("7")) and 40 minor free releases compared to Microsoft's 5 SPs.

The main feature of Snow Leopard is its 64-bit kernel and an upgrade across the board to 64-bit apps.

The problem for porting this to PowerPC is that the move to 64-bits only makes things slower on PPC because, as it is based on a modern 64-bit architecture with plenty of registers, it's already gained most of the benefits of 64-bits even when using 32-bit apps. Moving to 64-bit apps just means it has to move around more memory.

On the other hand, 32-bit Intel CPUs are register starved, so the additional memory overhead of the move to 64-bits is far outweighed by the improvement in moving to the 64-bit "Intel" architecture (developed by AMD).

So faced with spending twice the efforts to optimize SL for PPC machines that Mac users have known to be marked for death since 2006, resulting in a product that only runs 64-bit versions of PPC apps slower than Leopard, Apple decided to target its modern 2009 operating system to its modern hardware platform.

There are probably some G5 owners who might like the idea of being able to upgrade to SL, but they probably don't realize that it would only result in some new trim and slower overall performance. And if you compare the number of G5 machines Apple was selling in 2005-2006 with the number of Intel machines it has sold since, you'll see another reason why Apple is supporting Intel exclusively.

FYI:

Apple sold 0.8 to 1 million PPC Macs per quarter in 2005-2006.
Apple sold 2.3 to 2.6 million Intel Macs per quarter in the last year.

Why Windows 7 is Microsoft's next Zune

Apple isn't losing money on the Apple TV, and certainly hasn't pumped $8billion into it.

Second year sales have jumped 3X, and the company has only ever halfassedly marketed it as a hobby.

To draw a parallel between Apple TV, a slow selling device that supports the success of iTunes against other set top boxes and services (including Microsoft's feeble attempts to enter this market) and the Xbox, which has only sold devices at huge subsidies and rang up massive hardware bills for Microsoft while only doing little to maintain Microsoft's monopoly grip on games development, is fantastically ignorant.

The death of Microsoft's Xbox 360

The Bandai Pippin was not made or sold by Apple, which is why the Bandai brand is there.

Bandai (the Japanese company that licensed "Power Rangers") jumped on board when Apple offered to license Mac hardware designs to third parties, along with Panasonic and Motorola and a variety of companies that either did or did not actually bring a Mac clone to market.

Most of the Mac clones were just rebranded Mac models with more RAM or a faster CPU, but Bandai wrapped it up as a game console that was more of a web-centric device. That made it more powerful in some respects than a Playstation, but also more expensive. It was also not trying to be compatible with much Mac software, so it ended up being neither fish (a basic games console) nor fowl (a cheap desktop Mac), and instead joined the ranks of middling stuff that nobody saw a reason to buy.

Suggesting that Apple designed it 15 years ago, and that it has some bearing on what Apple would release today is fantastically ignorant.

The iPhone isn't coming to Verizon.

This smacks of Verizon using vaporware to kill the hype around iPhone OS 3.0 (as suggested by Roughly Drafted), someone trying to give Verizon's stock a bump with an Apple rumpr (a tactic that previously hasn't been very well hidden) or perhaps Apple trying to gain some leverage in its negotiations with ATT.

well no, it's not at all.

It's like saying herpes and poking yourself in the eye are both pretty much the same thing, and there's nothing you can do about either.

Windows users have thousands of ways of getting herpes without realizing it because there is so much viral malware out there, and so few obvious and complete ways to protect yourself, and its so hard to recover after and infection.

There are a couple ways to poke yourself in the eye on the Mac, just as there is on any platform. Here, you download an obviously illegal piece of software from an unknown origin, then grant it rights to install on your system. That's not a virus, it's poking yourself in the eye.

If you were browsing a regular website and it installed this script without you knowing, then you'd have a serious problem that needs addressing.

Kaspersky Sells Mac AntiVirus Fear Using Charlie Miller