I am curious how they got to those numbers; namely, what do they mean by "shipped". Do they mean produced and sent to stores? Or actually sold to customers?
We know how many iPad's are actually bought by people; but how much of that 30% this analyst is claiming Android has is retail channels filling up but not actually being bought? Where are they getting their numbers?
I'm not saying there aren't plenty of people who may be interested in some of the latest Android offerings, but a 2:1 ratio of iPad's:Android's doesn't at all jive with what I've seen or heard in reality. (Granted, my anecdotal evidence isn't all that more awesomer then your anecdotal evidence)
I think you're confused about what "jury nullification" means. It is not the right of a single juror to decide not to vote to convict -- it is when a jury reaches a verdict that is contrary to the law. Thus, by definition, it has to be all 12 people -- otherwise there is no verdict. Jury nullification is not a mistrial, its not a hung jury.
The law says "this act is a crime"; the judge interprets and applies the law (including determining if the law is valid or not, and such), and the jury then determines the *facts* of the case -- they determine what is true and not true, evaluating evidence and deciding what did, or did not, happen. Then they use those facts to determine if the law was violated or not: but the law is the law. They aren't (in general) supposed to determine if the law itself is invalid, if the act itself shouldn't really be a crime or not, or what not.
Jury nullification isn't about a juror voting their conscience, or failure to convict -- jury nullification is about the jury looking at the facts, deciding that the person did do the thing, and voting not guilty *anyways*, thus... (especially if it becomes a pattern) nullifying the law itself, as it applies to that case at least.
Yes, its a power juries have innately, by being... juries, and there's nothing you can do to take away the power, really. But its not, in general, SUPPOSED to be their part of the job to counter and nullify law. That's what the legislature and the judicial branches are supposed to do. Juries are the triers of fact, not law.
Jury nullification can be used for good or ill. You can have them vote not-guilty in some tragic one-off case where despite the law, in the interests of justice and their conscience, they can't convict someone due to extenuating circumstances. Or, a community can decide that killing black people is A-OK, and in effect essentially nullify the law against murder so that it only says "thou shalt not kill white people".
I don't use every Android phone; nor do I read every review. But its something I've read very consistently -- and something I've experienced with the Nexus S first hand. A lot. Its a LOT worse with the EVO 4G then the Nexus, and in more places -- but on the Nexus S itself, its there. Responsiveness is really comparable. Just in browsing the web you can see it (though flipping around controls and lists and the like in both standard and third party apps its often there too)-- or if you can't, then I just think you have to be coming from a perspective that you've never seen how smooth the iPhone is.
Credit where credit is due, its a lot better now then it was. Nexus S and Gingerbread are a lot more snappy and basically responsive then the Nexus was.
As for your links, err, the one I can read is an individual complaint about the latest OS with 2+ generation old devices. I didn't say "no iPhone user has ever experienced slowness!", and I wasn't talking about old devices on the new software. Get back to me when every 2 generation old Android device can update at the same time to the latest OS.
Yes, its true: IOS outgrows old hardware. That's not news. So does Android. I said "reviews" -- I was talking about new hardware, new OS's, on both sides of the comparison.
I had an iPaq. I was a big fan, I was super-into the PDA revolution, I saw the potential of it all, I watched HP, Compaq, Palm and others, and thought something really awesome was coming. I owned two different iPaq's, a HP PocketPC and a PalmOS device. I saw a lot of promise. I thought mobile computing would be great, something far more then just messaging for work and nerds -- something real people could get ahold of, could make their lives better with. I bought a lot of hardware, a lot of software, and invested a lot of time in the promise that I thought was coming.
But it didn't come.
If you can look at the best -- the absolute best -- and brightest of the iPaq, its web browsing, its usability, its apps -- and even vaguely compare it to what came from the iPhone six months after its SDK was released, you're a joke.
It doesn't even compare.
What Apple brought with the iPhone was transformative, it wasn't just a prettier thing in a better made case as some have derided it. Before the iPhone, "smartphones" were the PDA's and phones of the past sorta mudged together, and for some of us geeks they worked well and we were inspired. For everyone else, they were junk.
The initial iPhone was beautiful and a bit shocking, and yet not really meaningful -- but it was only in the next generation when the SDK was released that the full promise of the platform came to fruition. There are a LOT of apps on the iTunes store which are not just great, but which direclty encourage real lives from the simple and idle things they want to do to the serious and meaningful things they need to do.
Anyone who doesn't look at the smartphone and "mobile device" market and see the line/before/ iPhone verses/after/ iPhone: that don't look at these odd things called 'PDA's which have essentially ceased to exist; that don't look at "tablets"/before/ the iPad and after, and just handwaves everything Apple has done as copying and obvious extrapolation of what others have come up with -- you're laughable, and more then a little bit sad.
To compare the days of the iPaq with a PCMCIA sleeve, with all the power and gadgetry, to the iPhone can't be interpreted as anything but a bad joke. Did you really use the device? I did. Did you really use the accessories? I did. Did you really use the software? I did.
And it doesn't even *vaguely* scratch the surface of waht my iOS devices to today -- and its not simply a subject of time and more stuff evolving over time. The model of the pre-iPhone "smart" device era was fundamentally broken. Palm had a bit of promise, but it wasn't able to do power. The PocketPC was powerful in its own way, but it couldn't complete on a basic usability level.
Its not simply a function of adding an incredibly responsive touch screen to the device-- though that is part of it. (And its a part that is extremely important: the/basic/, fundamental, simple,/responsiveness/ of the iPhone is unmatched. No Android device compares to the simple basic fluidity of its interface. Some have been fast, snappy, usable -- but find me an Android review which doesn't mention the lag, choppy, hesistancy of thebasic operations at least on occassion, and find me an iPhone review that does).
The "a-word" company focused on building user expectations, growing user experiences, and folding them into devices which met and exceeded -- and expanded -- those expectations. The sorts of apps and experiences available on the iOS devices are things that NO ONE saw in the old PDA era where the iPaq was the nerd god.
Its not just "apps": its from bottom to top, the vision of the whole experience. It matters.
Now, all that said? I am not at all happy with this patent action, anymore happy then I am with the other. I find parts of it indefensible (though other parts, impossible to not defend), but in the end -- its not a useful way for things to play out for us as consumers. But the system is screwed.
They won't make more money selling music at $0.99/track -- they, various reports indicate, don't really make much money off of that at all. They do, however, make enormous, mountain-sized piles of cash that they can't manage to haul off to the bank fast enough, selling their devices that tie into their Ecosystem. The iTunes Music Store isn't about making a ton of money selling music -- its about keeping customers (and record labels) happy-ish in the iUniverse that Apple is providing for both, so everyone gets something and everything someone wants is available.
Selling infringers to the lawyers would make them some bucks, maybe. I'll even grant you the extremely generous many-millions number.
"Millions" isn't real money to Apple, though. Selling infringers to the lawyers would threaten the iUniverse and put in jeopardy the BILLIONS they rake in selling things that depend on iTunes, soon-to-be-iCloud, and the like, to make the whole experience great.
"For example, an achievement dealing with a character’s prowess in unarmed combat is highly correlated to the achievement badge associated with world travel – even though there is no clear link between the two badges to the outside observer."
Am I the only one who sees a really clear link between those two things? I did both back when I played wow -- for the same reason. I was achievement farming, for no real reason except it was something to pass the time doing waiting for a raid or PVP queue to pop.
Neither are things I ever even would have thought to bother with, except suddenly they presented a checklist of Things To Do, so I went and mindlessly did them.
I don't play WoW anymore, but back when I was -- I have a pretty clear memory of my guildies, and I swear, everyone who would have gone and gotten one of those were the people who I bet went and got the other, later. They weren't, of course, the sane* people who mostly ignored ToDo List of Boredom (except the raid ones, because you got a kickass mount out of it).
I entirely agree with and support the idea that those with terminal or debilitating illnesses should have the right to end their life with dignity, when they choose, instead of suffering through a horror that they don't want to face.
But -- things just aren't quite as simple as that. There's several issues that complicate it to varying degrees, such as:
1. Pressure: There's a not insignificant fear that if we allow a framework for assisted, legal suicide, it will start to become a pressure that gets placed upon the elderly -- to self-euthanize before they become a burden on their family (or society). I'm not talking about the family deciding or truly forcing their Mom'n'Pop with threats or any such thing, but mild and even unintentional pressure to just get with it and move on.
2. Choice: Who chooses? Is it an unqualified right, the patient simply decides that they don't want to or are unabel to deal with their prognosis? Or does it need to meet some Doctor-approved point where its considered a legitimate consideration, and if so who decides when such a point is? Is it just any other medical decision, and as such can be decided by the next-of-kin according to their understanding of your wishes (provided a living will or DNR or such is not present) if you're in a coma or otherwise incompetant -- or is it a new special class of medical decision which requires your personal, specific invocation?
3. Mental fitness: The medical community have established ways to judge if someone is competant to make a medical decision, and assuming that this right only can be invoked in extreme situations, they'd likely suffice... but if its unqualified, if "It is every person's right to decide how they die", not simply, "Those with a terminal prognosis or...", then those methodologies would almost certainly result in the person being considered severaly depressed and in need of treatment and not competant to make the decision.
4....
There's more.
I don't think those issues are insurmountable (except in the US, with the religious-right holding enough political power to make sure none of this is ever allowed), but there's a lot of i's that need dotting and t's that need crossing for society to legalize assisted suicide in the modern world. There's multiple of dangerous slippery slopes involved.
... except iCloud is way more then that. The media sync is not even the interesting part.
The interesting part is direct access to the syncing functionality is now available to all Apps: so now everyone's app, and everything about everyone's app, can automatically sync to all their devices instantly, without any effort or thought.
You can open Pages and work on your mac (Yes, I am aware they haven't announced Mac iWork as iCloud capable officially yet -- but they have implied it and other mac apps have been mentioned) to edit your document. You wander off, later you pick up your iPhone as a thought hits you, launch Pages, and the doc is just there. You just edit it. Later, you're back on your mac, and you open Pages -- and the changes are there.
Now, just saying that, it isn't too interesting. Well, its nice -- but you can get it with those apps with Dropbox integration. But! With iCloud you can use it to sync all your application state. Like, you're playing a game on your iPhone, and later on your iPad you open it up and pick up at the same point. Yes, some games include that -- but I've found its actually rare, even for universal games. But here/now, with iCloud, apps can do it seamlessly and easily.
iCloud isn't about syncing media: its about syncing *everything*.
Including backups, all the boring information stuff like contacts/calendars/etc, and the like.
But media syncing? Maybe they "stole" it (er, yeah okay). But what they came out with was a lot more then a bunch of obvious features. (admittedly, what they came out with could only have been done on an OS level).
Does Android have a mechanism to provide ubiquitous application state/document/personal data syncing to applications across all Android devices (assuming a world where people have multiple Android devices)? Does WP7? Does RIM?
People are hung up on iCLoud being "sync media", and not really getting what that's just kinda the boring part. The interesting part is everything else, and if its obvious, then no one else has done it that I'm aware of.
I may be wrong though.
(But -- no one else is in a position where 'it' is important, I think. Android is trying to be involved in the tablet market, btu they aren't there yet, so they haven't yet gotten to a world where multiple devices start building on and fully seamlessly integrating with each-other to create a better overall experience)
You have to be a monopoly to do monopolistic behavior.
What Microsoft got in trouble for relates directly to the fact that Windows was a legal monopoly, and leveraged that monopoly to unfairly compete in OTHER markets.
Nothing Apple does or does not do, no matter how much you may or may not like it, is comparable. Apple is not a monopoly in any way, shape or form -- Android fans are quick to point this out. (Sorry, iPhone is not a market). Even if they did wholesale steal this idea from this guy (which is fairly absurd, since calls for this functionality goes back to the very beginning -- and the "WiFi" sync of iTunes library is only one, and frankly not even that impressive, part of what iCloud is) it is not in any way, shape or form related to what Microsoft got in trouble with.
Its not monopolistic, its not anticompetitive. Apple is not competiting with this guy.
I'm not saying what they did is right, or that there aren't other grounds for an objection (or civil suit) -- but no. Microsoft's actions is not a precedent for Apple to be worried in the least about any of this. Its not an anti-trust violation.
Its something that keeps coming up again and again and not just related to Apple: people seem to have no idea what the word "monopoly" means or what, actually, is illegal for a monopoly to do.
Being a monopoly is entirely legal: its only illegal to use that monopoly in certain ways, to unfairly compete and hold that monopoly, or use it to leverage against other markets. But what is illegal ofr a monopoly to do is entirely legal -- even good business -- for someone else to do. (As much as they can -- monopolies inherantly can do stuff other businesses acn't)
Dear lord, because the vast majority of people are not nerds, man.
I mean, I'm a nerd. I got me my NAS with many many terabytes of storage and nice control and features.
Most people would like to just buy something and just use it and not bother thinking about it.
Also, iCloud is FREE -- for up to 5gb, which when you consider does NOT include apps, music, photos, etc, but only your personal data you and your apps upload, is actually quite a bit more then most people will need (Yes, I know, not all)
Are you really asking why people use a built-in, fully integrated, automatic, free service -- verses something that you have to set up, maintain, keep plugged in, and pay hundreds of dollars for?
I'm not sure I agree with your "likely" consideration; option 'a' doesn't really make sense as a choice in and of itself.
iCloud isn't really a service on its own: you don't "not bother" with it -- you are either considering or already own an iP([ao]d|hone) or this whole question is null. All by itself, even with your WinXP box and your iP([ao]d|hone), iCloud brings you various benefits and features. The question is, the more iCloud-supporting things you have, the more benefits it potentially brings you.
Yeah, it can't auto-sync your photos and stuff to your WinXP box, so that sucks for you-- you're stuck back in the old days of needing that damn wire ot get stuff onto your old machine. But its not like iCloud is not, by itself, something of value to a singular iP([ao]d|hone) -- and that's the thing.
If you already own or are inclined to buy a iP([ao]d|hone), the question becomes a bit different. You're likely to already be a happy Apple customer, or not be turned off by the fandroids and/or reasonable negative considerations inherant in the Apple mobile ecosystem.
Is it possible that not being able to auto-sync to the WinXP may disincline you from buying an iP([ao]d|hone)? --- sure. Will it turn *most* people off, or even *many*, who were otherwise inclined to buy one? I bet not.
So option a) is just meaningless-- you just don't get certain features of iCloud. You get some others.
And while you may do option b) -- you may very well be more inclined to choose c) buy a Mac as your next machine instead. Lots of people opted for that before this was even a factor, the Halo Effect and all.
Will most WinXP users who are considering or own an iP([ao]d|hone) buy a Mac/because/ of this? Of course not. Will some be more inclined maybe to think of upgrading sooner -- and getting a Mac instead of that new Dell -- more because of this? I bet so. Not most, but some. Its just a factor, not a deciding one, but one nonetheless.
Mac marketshare is still very much in a minority. But its increasing at a healthy, steady and profitable rate -- for reasons like the above. Once you're inclined to buy one Apple device, you quite often end up inclined to buy another later on.
You're absolutely right: IOS related sales is the vast majority of their revenue.
That does not, *at all*, mean "iTunes Store". It could mean, "revenue from our products, AND the iTunes store" -- but the vast majority of the profit in that category is their products. IPhone, iPad, etc.
Getting precise break outs is impossible, because Apple doesn't specifically release a profit per product, but they do give certain numbers.
for instance. See where "music" and "software" are, compared to "iPad", "iPhone", "iPod" combined?
You're doing some really weird math where you're saying, "before the store" verses "after the store" and equating the fact that they'd have explosive growth TO profits from the store itself. You're missing the part where they've also had record after record after record breaking quarters selling the actual *products*, iThings -- at a high margin, with huge profits.
Again: no. You're imagining that Apple is first and foremost a media and content delivery hegemony, and you're wrong. They're the biggest music seller in the world right now, but they still make most of their money, hands down, on their devices.
Profits due to "IOS" is not "app store": not even kind of. For apps, they've paid out 2.5b to developers total so far -- TOTAL. For the rest of the content, they don't lump iTunes Store (music, movies, etc) into "IOS" because its NOT part of the IOS profit category. You can get all that content (except books) on the Mac, and they have never really given (at least as long as I've been listening to their financial conference calls) really specific details about how much of their running profit comes from the content stores.
Apple makes money hand over fist all on what they're actually making; the 30% on "other people's products" is nice and all, but isn't even in the same league.
The iTunes store is like 5% or so (maybe a few points higher, but not a lot) of their revenue -- and while it probably doesn't have a big margin since they don't have to go out and like, build physical things? Their margins on the things they actually make are huge.
Something like two thirds of their PROFIT comes from their actual iThing products. Then a bit under a quarter from Macs.
The actual, y'know, products they themselves make.
This is just, frankly, idiotic. Its not even anything *new* in its idiocy -- there have been NO signs that Apple is going to ditch OSX, there's not even any actual reasonable signs that they are even thinking of locking up OSX like they do with IOS.
The Mac is profitable for them; its very profitable for them, even. Yes, IOS is significantly bigger -- but Mac is a GROWING business. Its growing better then the PC business and has been for quite awhile now.
Will there be cross-polination between the platforms? Absolutely.
But IOS devices are not even remotely viable Mac replacements: and there's absolutely nothing that has come out of Apple which indicates they think otherwise.
IOS devices are application appliances: they're locked up not just because Apple are greedy bastards and want a piece of every pie, and not only because Apple are control freaks who know better then you what you want. They're locked up because it lets them create an excellent experience AS an application appliance: you can't choose the wrong set of apps and run them in the wrong way and have your battery life get destroyed, for instance.
You can't choose the wrong set of apps and have them lock up and crash out your device; you can't choose the wrong set of apps and get malware eating at it.
You also can't choose to do some thigns you may want to do-- granted. And for those who care, there are other devices you can choose to use instead. But for a lot of people who want to just use the thing, and who want to just immerse in the usage of whatever apps they want (that are available on the App Store), the experience is superb and effective.
But a computer isn't just an application appliance. There's a lot more to it, and there's obviously GROWING demand for Mac computers despite the huge growth and record-breaking sales of the application appliances. The models can coexist happily together just fine.
There are some people who can do everything they'd ever want to do with just an IOS5 device, and never get a computer. But there are plenty who will always see the IOS device as a companion to the computer, and not just a replacement of it.
And its not just "consumers" vs "creatives", as quite a few people have shown the app appliance can be a very effective tool at creating certain types of things. But not everything, so there's some truth to those groups. Its also not purely power vs simple users, but ther'es some truth to those groups, too.
It doesn't have to be one world or the other.
And did I mentino? Mac business is doing better then ever? Its GROWING? And its PROFITABLE?
Apple will basically keep a list of all songs you "own" online. All songs you bought from iTunes are obviously on that list, automatically. Any songs you own you can use on any iDevice attached to your account, free. If you add any song to this owned list, it gets synced automatically to all your iDevices.
Your iCloud system gets 5GB of personal storage -- but this is 'extra' storage, it does NOT count your music, apps, last 1000 photos in 30 days, and such.
This is all completely free.
You can also, for free, upload music that you have on your system manually to Apple -- by uploading it with your regular bandwidth. This is completely free: these songs are now "owned", and you can use them on all your devices. Now, it is not exactly clear if these songs count for your 'extra' storage or not. I could see them checking the song on upload, and if they already have it in their database, just mark you as having that and be done with it... and only count the storage for songs you upload that they don't already have. Or, they could count all 'uploaded' music -- perhaps as an incentive to get the match service. It could go either way, it wasn't clear to me how that'd work.
But all of this is still free. There are no limit to how many songs you can be marked as 'owned' under this service (unless storage gets to be a problem, see previous point of uncertainty).
Now, another option for getting that "owned" list updated is to pay $25/year for the match service. That will scan your harddrive, mark any music they already have as "owned", and upload any that they don't -- here it was pretty strongly implied that the music uploaded this way would NOT count towards your 5GB total, because they specifically for example pointed out unlimited-songs under this plan. (Specifically as an example they mentioned 20k, but pointed out they have a flat fee)
But only that last part of the process costs any money at all, and it only has to do with how you manage getting non-iTunes stuff to the server. Everything else is the same.
They also didn't mention anything at all about options for buying extra "personal" storage-- I'm sure they'll provide it, but this $25 isn't about storage at all.
Re:Reminds Me of Something the Sony CEO Said ...
on
Has iTunes Been Hacked?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Seriously, "mistakenly", "trained"?
Sorry, no.
Sure, the companies deserve ire and disdain if they don't take care of our information securely. They even deserve some real civil liability -- a lot more then they're getting now.
But asshat little fuckheads who go around breaking into said company deserve ire, irregardless of any other ire given.
Cracking into networks and systems and grabbing data, damaging systems, anything of the sort-- even if they aren't properly secured-- is not noble.
It its worthy of ire, scorn, and jail time.
Now, its not worth as much jail time as is being handed out often these days, nor silly, inflammatory words like "terrorism" being thrown around to make it all worse -- and adolescents who are frankly incapable of understanding that being an idiot even though its a rush or fun is dangerous and has real consequences, should be treated like the kids they are, not adults.
But, no. Its not a mistake to give them all kinds of ire.
I pretty much hate Sony, for instance. But what the cracker-jackass groups are doing is pretty sociopathic.
There's no Greater Good involved, thats self-delusion at best. There could have been a way to go about it that may have been ethical, in a vigilante, internet-patriot sort of way. But these data dumps of real, personal information (including usernames and password hashes) is not at all it.
What? Provide links. That's not at all what was said in the keynote, nor what I have read anywhere authoritative.
They are not charging for storage at all -- you get 5gb for your personal data (apps, music, and the like that they provide do NOT counted towards this*) for free, everyone, period.
The $25/year is NOT for storage, *explicitly*. It is for the matching service, and you do NOT have to 'buy replacement songs' because the premise (if not reality) is that you are uploading legally obtained music that you ripped yourself (or bought through other means).
Yeah, its music laundering.:P
* I'm not sure if a song you upload which is NOT a part of the iTunes Music Library, and thus does not successfully "match", counts against the 5GB or not.
I'd be REALLY surprised -- no, shocked -- if it turned out that they only supported music that was specifically ripped by iTunes.
They said ripped, but its a marketing thing, I think. Apple's in the legal music selling business, and isn't going to really talk very loudly about details like that.
Its not like iTunes requires that it is what ripped a song to play a song -- you could have gotten it from Amazon, for example. Everything that the keynote said indicated that you're getting your whole library here, including everything not bought in iTunes.
But the reason the matching service even costs anything at all, I think, is just to appease the labels about the inevitable chunks of pirated content that would be in it.
The thing is, the record companies were never going to make any money off of that library of yours-- ever. No matter what. At best, they were making some off of those blank media taxes around, whining about it.
This way, they not only will make some -- but hopefully you'll like the iTunes store experience, and buy more music via iTunes, thus get less "questionably procured" music.
They aren't advertising the service as any sort of 'amnesty' for previously illicitly copied material, but seriously: Apple is in the music selling business, why would they focus on that? But since there's *no way* for them to tell the difference, and since they are finally getting some money off of you,... how are they getting away with this?
The labels are starting to give in. They still may sue you if you go and share out your library, but damnit, if they can get some money off of you for what you already have and are just using -- they'll take what they can get.
Yes, because Apple is in the business of suing its customers for using content in their ecosystem.
Paranoia.
Question: how exactly can Apple, the RIAA, or anyone, tell the difference between the fact that I got this MP3 here by ripping it off my CD that I legally bought -- verses, downloading it through some illicit means?
Say I have a folder on my drive with a bunch of MP3s: there's multiple ways I can legally get all of those. There's also multiple ways I can "pirate" them. To the iCloud service, there's no way to tell the difference between the two -- and that $25 fee is going to the music labels for *something*.
I can't see how its anything but a buy-out for the fact that they (the record companies) were grumbling about the fact that a solid chunk of the music synced around is going to be pirated, and there's absolutely no way for them to do anything about it, prove it, or monetize it at all. So they gave in, a bit. (If only to set a precedent against Amazon and Google) And since you're paying the labels for the right to sync it around -- its not piracy to "replicate" it to all of your devices. There's no way those aren't licensed copies then.
Its not 5gb for $20 -- its 5gb for free. Everyone gets 5gb... and that 5gb ONLY counts your personal data-stuff. Not your music, apps and the like which is bought from Apple's servers. None of that counts towards your storage limits at all.
The only thing that costs anything with iCloud (which completely suprecedes MobileMe, IIUC) is the iTunes music match service. Everything else is completely free.
I'm not sure I get your comment on applications-- they seem to be spending as much time working on their apps as they do the core OS, but iWork's compatibility is a good point... But its also one I think will be addressed soon. It wasn't announced but it was implied that a future update will hook it up to the iCloud too. Other mac apps are going to be hooked in right away.
But since iWork for iPhone was just recently released, I think they were just busy doing that first -- as its the thing they'd want to be showy about at WWDC.
$30. Its tied to the App Store, like any app even though its an OS. You can download it to any authorized machine after buying it once, like all apps. I don't know if authorized machines per account is still 5, because in one part of the keynote they said up to 10 machines -- but that may have been specific to a separate feature.
All the major labels are on board. That's what the $25/year cost is for, to pay them so they don't go apeshit. The stuff you bought from iTunes gets that for free.
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I am curious how they got to those numbers; namely, what do they mean by "shipped". Do they mean produced and sent to stores? Or actually sold to customers?
We know how many iPad's are actually bought by people; but how much of that 30% this analyst is claiming Android has is retail channels filling up but not actually being bought? Where are they getting their numbers?
I'm not saying there aren't plenty of people who may be interested in some of the latest Android offerings, but a 2:1 ratio of iPad's:Android's doesn't at all jive with what I've seen or heard in reality. (Granted, my anecdotal evidence isn't all that more awesomer then your anecdotal evidence)
I think you're confused about what "jury nullification" means. It is not the right of a single juror to decide not to vote to convict -- it is when a jury reaches a verdict that is contrary to the law. Thus, by definition, it has to be all 12 people -- otherwise there is no verdict. Jury nullification is not a mistrial, its not a hung jury.
The law says "this act is a crime"; the judge interprets and applies the law (including determining if the law is valid or not, and such), and the jury then determines the *facts* of the case -- they determine what is true and not true, evaluating evidence and deciding what did, or did not, happen. Then they use those facts to determine if the law was violated or not: but the law is the law. They aren't (in general) supposed to determine if the law itself is invalid, if the act itself shouldn't really be a crime or not, or what not.
Jury nullification isn't about a juror voting their conscience, or failure to convict -- jury nullification is about the jury looking at the facts, deciding that the person did do the thing, and voting not guilty *anyways*, thus... (especially if it becomes a pattern) nullifying the law itself, as it applies to that case at least.
Yes, its a power juries have innately, by being... juries, and there's nothing you can do to take away the power, really. But its not, in general, SUPPOSED to be their part of the job to counter and nullify law. That's what the legislature and the judicial branches are supposed to do. Juries are the triers of fact, not law.
Jury nullification can be used for good or ill. You can have them vote not-guilty in some tragic one-off case where despite the law, in the interests of justice and their conscience, they can't convict someone due to extenuating circumstances. Or, a community can decide that killing black people is A-OK, and in effect essentially nullify the law against murder so that it only says "thou shalt not kill white people".
Okay, I was exaggerating some :)
I don't use every Android phone; nor do I read every review. But its something I've read very consistently -- and something I've experienced with the Nexus S first hand. A lot. Its a LOT worse with the EVO 4G then the Nexus, and in more places -- but on the Nexus S itself, its there. Responsiveness is really comparable. Just in browsing the web you can see it (though flipping around controls and lists and the like in both standard and third party apps its often there too)-- or if you can't, then I just think you have to be coming from a perspective that you've never seen how smooth the iPhone is.
Credit where credit is due, its a lot better now then it was. Nexus S and Gingerbread are a lot more snappy and basically responsive then the Nexus was.
As for your links, err, the one I can read is an individual complaint about the latest OS with 2+ generation old devices. I didn't say "no iPhone user has ever experienced slowness!", and I wasn't talking about old devices on the new software. Get back to me when every 2 generation old Android device can update at the same time to the latest OS.
Yes, its true: IOS outgrows old hardware. That's not news. So does Android. I said "reviews" -- I was talking about new hardware, new OS's, on both sides of the comparison.
I had an iPaq. I was a big fan, I was super-into the PDA revolution, I saw the potential of it all, I watched HP, Compaq, Palm and others, and thought something really awesome was coming. I owned two different iPaq's, a HP PocketPC and a PalmOS device. I saw a lot of promise. I thought mobile computing would be great, something far more then just messaging for work and nerds -- something real people could get ahold of, could make their lives better with. I bought a lot of hardware, a lot of software, and invested a lot of time in the promise that I thought was coming.
But it didn't come.
If you can look at the best -- the absolute best -- and brightest of the iPaq, its web browsing, its usability, its apps -- and even vaguely compare it to what came from the iPhone six months after its SDK was released, you're a joke.
It doesn't even compare.
What Apple brought with the iPhone was transformative, it wasn't just a prettier thing in a better made case as some have derided it. Before the iPhone, "smartphones" were the PDA's and phones of the past sorta mudged together, and for some of us geeks they worked well and we were inspired. For everyone else, they were junk.
The initial iPhone was beautiful and a bit shocking, and yet not really meaningful -- but it was only in the next generation when the SDK was released that the full promise of the platform came to fruition. There are a LOT of apps on the iTunes store which are not just great, but which direclty encourage real lives from the simple and idle things they want to do to the serious and meaningful things they need to do.
Anyone who doesn't look at the smartphone and "mobile device" market and see the line /before/ iPhone verses /after/ iPhone: that don't look at these odd things called 'PDA's which have essentially ceased to exist; that don't look at "tablets" /before/ the iPad and after, and just handwaves everything Apple has done as copying and obvious extrapolation of what others have come up with -- you're laughable, and more then a little bit sad.
To compare the days of the iPaq with a PCMCIA sleeve, with all the power and gadgetry, to the iPhone can't be interpreted as anything but a bad joke. Did you really use the device? I did. Did you really use the accessories? I did. Did you really use the software? I did.
And it doesn't even *vaguely* scratch the surface of waht my iOS devices to today -- and its not simply a subject of time and more stuff evolving over time. The model of the pre-iPhone "smart" device era was fundamentally broken. Palm had a bit of promise, but it wasn't able to do power. The PocketPC was powerful in its own way, but it couldn't complete on a basic usability level.
Its not simply a function of adding an incredibly responsive touch screen to the device-- though that is part of it. (And its a part that is extremely important: the /basic/, fundamental, simple, /responsiveness/ of the iPhone is unmatched. No Android device compares to the simple basic fluidity of its interface. Some have been fast, snappy, usable -- but find me an Android review which doesn't mention the lag, choppy, hesistancy of thebasic operations at least on occassion, and find me an iPhone review that does).
The "a-word" company focused on building user expectations, growing user experiences, and folding them into devices which met and exceeded -- and expanded -- those expectations. The sorts of apps and experiences available on the iOS devices are things that NO ONE saw in the old PDA era where the iPaq was the nerd god.
Its not just "apps": its from bottom to top, the vision of the whole experience. It matters.
Now, all that said? I am not at all happy with this patent action, anymore happy then I am with the other. I find parts of it indefensible (though other parts, impossible to not defend), but in the end -- its not a useful way for things to play out for us as consumers. But the system is screwed.
What?
The drugs, man. Lay off the drugs.
They won't make more money selling music at $0.99/track -- they, various reports indicate, don't really make much money off of that at all. They do, however, make enormous, mountain-sized piles of cash that they can't manage to haul off to the bank fast enough, selling their devices that tie into their Ecosystem. The iTunes Music Store isn't about making a ton of money selling music -- its about keeping customers (and record labels) happy-ish in the iUniverse that Apple is providing for both, so everyone gets something and everything someone wants is available.
Selling infringers to the lawyers would make them some bucks, maybe. I'll even grant you the extremely generous many-millions number.
"Millions" isn't real money to Apple, though. Selling infringers to the lawyers would threaten the iUniverse and put in jeopardy the BILLIONS they rake in selling things that depend on iTunes, soon-to-be-iCloud, and the like, to make the whole experience great.
"For example, an achievement dealing with a character’s prowess in unarmed combat is highly correlated to the achievement badge associated with world travel – even though there is no clear link between the two badges to the outside observer."
Am I the only one who sees a really clear link between those two things? I did both back when I played wow -- for the same reason. I was achievement farming, for no real reason except it was something to pass the time doing waiting for a raid or PVP queue to pop.
Neither are things I ever even would have thought to bother with, except suddenly they presented a checklist of Things To Do, so I went and mindlessly did them.
I don't play WoW anymore, but back when I was -- I have a pretty clear memory of my guildies, and I swear, everyone who would have gone and gotten one of those were the people who I bet went and got the other, later. They weren't, of course, the sane* people who mostly ignored ToDo List of Boredom (except the raid ones, because you got a kickass mount out of it).
* no I wasn't sane.
I entirely agree with and support the idea that those with terminal or debilitating illnesses should have the right to end their life with dignity, when they choose, instead of suffering through a horror that they don't want to face.
But -- things just aren't quite as simple as that. There's several issues that complicate it to varying degrees, such as:
1. Pressure: There's a not insignificant fear that if we allow a framework for assisted, legal suicide, it will start to become a pressure that gets placed upon the elderly -- to self-euthanize before they become a burden on their family (or society). I'm not talking about the family deciding or truly forcing their Mom'n'Pop with threats or any such thing, but mild and even unintentional pressure to just get with it and move on. ...", then those methodologies would almost certainly result in the person being considered severaly depressed and in need of treatment and not competant to make the decision. ...
2. Choice: Who chooses? Is it an unqualified right, the patient simply decides that they don't want to or are unabel to deal with their prognosis? Or does it need to meet some Doctor-approved point where its considered a legitimate consideration, and if so who decides when such a point is? Is it just any other medical decision, and as such can be decided by the next-of-kin according to their understanding of your wishes (provided a living will or DNR or such is not present) if you're in a coma or otherwise incompetant -- or is it a new special class of medical decision which requires your personal, specific invocation?
3. Mental fitness: The medical community have established ways to judge if someone is competant to make a medical decision, and assuming that this right only can be invoked in extreme situations, they'd likely suffice... but if its unqualified, if "It is every person's right to decide how they die", not simply, "Those with a terminal prognosis or
4.
There's more.
I don't think those issues are insurmountable (except in the US, with the religious-right holding enough political power to make sure none of this is ever allowed), but there's a lot of i's that need dotting and t's that need crossing for society to legalize assisted suicide in the modern world. There's multiple of dangerous slippery slopes involved.
... except iCloud is way more then that. The media sync is not even the interesting part.
The interesting part is direct access to the syncing functionality is now available to all Apps: so now everyone's app, and everything about everyone's app, can automatically sync to all their devices instantly, without any effort or thought.
You can open Pages and work on your mac (Yes, I am aware they haven't announced Mac iWork as iCloud capable officially yet -- but they have implied it and other mac apps have been mentioned) to edit your document. You wander off, later you pick up your iPhone as a thought hits you, launch Pages, and the doc is just there. You just edit it. Later, you're back on your mac, and you open Pages -- and the changes are there.
Now, just saying that, it isn't too interesting. Well, its nice -- but you can get it with those apps with Dropbox integration. But! With iCloud you can use it to sync all your application state. Like, you're playing a game on your iPhone, and later on your iPad you open it up and pick up at the same point. Yes, some games include that -- but I've found its actually rare, even for universal games. But here/now, with iCloud, apps can do it seamlessly and easily.
iCloud isn't about syncing media: its about syncing *everything*.
Including backups, all the boring information stuff like contacts/calendars/etc, and the like.
But media syncing? Maybe they "stole" it (er, yeah okay). But what they came out with was a lot more then a bunch of obvious features. (admittedly, what they came out with could only have been done on an OS level).
Does Android have a mechanism to provide ubiquitous application state/document/personal data syncing to applications across all Android devices (assuming a world where people have multiple Android devices)? Does WP7? Does RIM?
People are hung up on iCLoud being "sync media", and not really getting what that's just kinda the boring part. The interesting part is everything else, and if its obvious, then no one else has done it that I'm aware of.
I may be wrong though.
(But -- no one else is in a position where 'it' is important, I think. Android is trying to be involved in the tablet market, btu they aren't there yet, so they haven't yet gotten to a world where multiple devices start building on and fully seamlessly integrating with each-other to create a better overall experience)
Also?
Syncing the iTunes library (a heavily requested and talked about feature for a long time) via Wifi isn't even the interesting part of iCloud.
Yes, iCloud is a rip off of this guy's thing.
Only with, er, all that other stuff it does too, that his thing doesn't even kinda do.
You have to be a monopoly to do monopolistic behavior.
What Microsoft got in trouble for relates directly to the fact that Windows was a legal monopoly, and leveraged that monopoly to unfairly compete in OTHER markets.
Nothing Apple does or does not do, no matter how much you may or may not like it, is comparable. Apple is not a monopoly in any way, shape or form -- Android fans are quick to point this out. (Sorry, iPhone is not a market). Even if they did wholesale steal this idea from this guy (which is fairly absurd, since calls for this functionality goes back to the very beginning -- and the "WiFi" sync of iTunes library is only one, and frankly not even that impressive, part of what iCloud is) it is not in any way, shape or form related to what Microsoft got in trouble with.
Its not monopolistic, its not anticompetitive. Apple is not competiting with this guy.
I'm not saying what they did is right, or that there aren't other grounds for an objection (or civil suit) -- but no. Microsoft's actions is not a precedent for Apple to be worried in the least about any of this. Its not an anti-trust violation.
Its something that keeps coming up again and again and not just related to Apple: people seem to have no idea what the word "monopoly" means or what, actually, is illegal for a monopoly to do.
Being a monopoly is entirely legal: its only illegal to use that monopoly in certain ways, to unfairly compete and hold that monopoly, or use it to leverage against other markets. But what is illegal ofr a monopoly to do is entirely legal -- even good business -- for someone else to do. (As much as they can -- monopolies inherantly can do stuff other businesses acn't)
Dear lord, because the vast majority of people are not nerds, man.
I mean, I'm a nerd. I got me my NAS with many many terabytes of storage and nice control and features.
Most people would like to just buy something and just use it and not bother thinking about it.
Also, iCloud is FREE -- for up to 5gb, which when you consider does NOT include apps, music, photos, etc, but only your personal data you and your apps upload, is actually quite a bit more then most people will need (Yes, I know, not all)
Are you really asking why people use a built-in, fully integrated, automatic, free service -- verses something that you have to set up, maintain, keep plugged in, and pay hundreds of dollars for?
I'm not sure I agree with your "likely" consideration; option 'a' doesn't really make sense as a choice in and of itself.
iCloud isn't really a service on its own: you don't "not bother" with it -- you are either considering or already own an iP([ao]d|hone) or this whole question is null. All by itself, even with your WinXP box and your iP([ao]d|hone), iCloud brings you various benefits and features. The question is, the more iCloud-supporting things you have, the more benefits it potentially brings you.
Yeah, it can't auto-sync your photos and stuff to your WinXP box, so that sucks for you-- you're stuck back in the old days of needing that damn wire ot get stuff onto your old machine. But its not like iCloud is not, by itself, something of value to a singular iP([ao]d|hone) -- and that's the thing.
If you already own or are inclined to buy a iP([ao]d|hone), the question becomes a bit different. You're likely to already be a happy Apple customer, or not be turned off by the fandroids and/or reasonable negative considerations inherant in the Apple mobile ecosystem.
Is it possible that not being able to auto-sync to the WinXP may disincline you from buying an iP([ao]d|hone)? --- sure. Will it turn *most* people off, or even *many*, who were otherwise inclined to buy one? I bet not.
So option a) is just meaningless-- you just don't get certain features of iCloud. You get some others.
And while you may do option b) -- you may very well be more inclined to choose c) buy a Mac as your next machine instead. Lots of people opted for that before this was even a factor, the Halo Effect and all.
Will most WinXP users who are considering or own an iP([ao]d|hone) buy a Mac /because/ of this? Of course not. Will some be more inclined maybe to think of upgrading sooner -- and getting a Mac instead of that new Dell -- more because of this? I bet so. Not most, but some. Its just a factor, not a deciding one, but one nonetheless.
Mac marketshare is still very much in a minority. But its increasing at a healthy, steady and profitable rate -- for reasons like the above. Once you're inclined to buy one Apple device, you quite often end up inclined to buy another later on.
You're absolutely right: IOS related sales is the vast majority of their revenue.
That does not, *at all*, mean "iTunes Store". It could mean, "revenue from our products, AND the iTunes store" -- but the vast majority of the profit in that category is their products. IPhone, iPad, etc.
Getting precise break outs is impossible, because Apple doesn't specifically release a profit per product, but they do give certain numbers.
http://www.asymco.com/2011/01/25/ios-enables-71-of-apple-profits-with-platform-products-make-up-93-of-gross-margin/
for instance. See where "music" and "software" are, compared to "iPad", "iPhone", "iPod" combined?
You're doing some really weird math where you're saying, "before the store" verses "after the store" and equating the fact that they'd have explosive growth TO profits from the store itself. You're missing the part where they've also had record after record after record breaking quarters selling the actual *products*, iThings -- at a high margin, with huge profits.
Again: no. You're imagining that Apple is first and foremost a media and content delivery hegemony, and you're wrong. They're the biggest music seller in the world right now, but they still make most of their money, hands down, on their devices.
Profits due to "IOS" is not "app store": not even kind of. For apps, they've paid out 2.5b to developers total so far -- TOTAL. For the rest of the content, they don't lump iTunes Store (music, movies, etc) into "IOS" because its NOT part of the IOS profit category. You can get all that content (except books) on the Mac, and they have never really given (at least as long as I've been listening to their financial conference calls) really specific details about how much of their running profit comes from the content stores.
... lol.
No.
Apple makes money hand over fist all on what they're actually making; the 30% on "other people's products" is nice and all, but isn't even in the same league.
The iTunes store is like 5% or so (maybe a few points higher, but not a lot) of their revenue -- and while it probably doesn't have a big margin since they don't have to go out and like, build physical things? Their margins on the things they actually make are huge.
Something like two thirds of their PROFIT comes from their actual iThing products. Then a bit under a quarter from Macs.
The actual, y'know, products they themselves make.
Only in the world where you are doing seriously unkind things to your penis, man.
You could have said cock-ring and I would have been with you.
But... a penis? No. Ow.
This is just, frankly, idiotic. Its not even anything *new* in its idiocy -- there have been NO signs that Apple is going to ditch OSX, there's not even any actual reasonable signs that they are even thinking of locking up OSX like they do with IOS.
The Mac is profitable for them; its very profitable for them, even. Yes, IOS is significantly bigger -- but Mac is a GROWING business. Its growing better then the PC business and has been for quite awhile now.
Will there be cross-polination between the platforms? Absolutely.
But IOS devices are not even remotely viable Mac replacements: and there's absolutely nothing that has come out of Apple which indicates they think otherwise.
IOS devices are application appliances: they're locked up not just because Apple are greedy bastards and want a piece of every pie, and not only because Apple are control freaks who know better then you what you want. They're locked up because it lets them create an excellent experience AS an application appliance: you can't choose the wrong set of apps and run them in the wrong way and have your battery life get destroyed, for instance.
You can't choose the wrong set of apps and have them lock up and crash out your device; you can't choose the wrong set of apps and get malware eating at it.
You also can't choose to do some thigns you may want to do-- granted. And for those who care, there are other devices you can choose to use instead. But for a lot of people who want to just use the thing, and who want to just immerse in the usage of whatever apps they want (that are available on the App Store), the experience is superb and effective.
But a computer isn't just an application appliance. There's a lot more to it, and there's obviously GROWING demand for Mac computers despite the huge growth and record-breaking sales of the application appliances. The models can coexist happily together just fine.
There are some people who can do everything they'd ever want to do with just an IOS5 device, and never get a computer. But there are plenty who will always see the IOS device as a companion to the computer, and not just a replacement of it.
And its not just "consumers" vs "creatives", as quite a few people have shown the app appliance can be a very effective tool at creating certain types of things. But not everything, so there's some truth to those groups. Its also not purely power vs simple users, but ther'es some truth to those groups, too.
It doesn't have to be one world or the other.
And did I mentino? Mac business is doing better then ever? Its GROWING? And its PROFITABLE?
That's mostly correct, but slightly off, I think.
Apple will basically keep a list of all songs you "own" online. All songs you bought from iTunes are obviously on that list, automatically. Any songs you own you can use on any iDevice attached to your account, free. If you add any song to this owned list, it gets synced automatically to all your iDevices.
Your iCloud system gets 5GB of personal storage -- but this is 'extra' storage, it does NOT count your music, apps, last 1000 photos in 30 days, and such.
This is all completely free.
You can also, for free, upload music that you have on your system manually to Apple -- by uploading it with your regular bandwidth. This is completely free: these songs are now "owned", and you can use them on all your devices. Now, it is not exactly clear if these songs count for your 'extra' storage or not. I could see them checking the song on upload, and if they already have it in their database, just mark you as having that and be done with it... and only count the storage for songs you upload that they don't already have. Or, they could count all 'uploaded' music -- perhaps as an incentive to get the match service. It could go either way, it wasn't clear to me how that'd work.
But all of this is still free. There are no limit to how many songs you can be marked as 'owned' under this service (unless storage gets to be a problem, see previous point of uncertainty).
Now, another option for getting that "owned" list updated is to pay $25/year for the match service. That will scan your harddrive, mark any music they already have as "owned", and upload any that they don't -- here it was pretty strongly implied that the music uploaded this way would NOT count towards your 5GB total, because they specifically for example pointed out unlimited-songs under this plan. (Specifically as an example they mentioned 20k, but pointed out they have a flat fee)
But only that last part of the process costs any money at all, and it only has to do with how you manage getting non-iTunes stuff to the server. Everything else is the same.
They also didn't mention anything at all about options for buying extra "personal" storage-- I'm sure they'll provide it, but this $25 isn't about storage at all.
Seriously, "mistakenly", "trained"?
Sorry, no.
Sure, the companies deserve ire and disdain if they don't take care of our information securely. They even deserve some real civil liability -- a lot more then they're getting now.
But asshat little fuckheads who go around breaking into said company deserve ire, irregardless of any other ire given.
Cracking into networks and systems and grabbing data, damaging systems, anything of the sort-- even if they aren't properly secured-- is not noble.
It its worthy of ire, scorn, and jail time.
Now, its not worth as much jail time as is being handed out often these days, nor silly, inflammatory words like "terrorism" being thrown around to make it all worse -- and adolescents who are frankly incapable of understanding that being an idiot even though its a rush or fun is dangerous and has real consequences, should be treated like the kids they are, not adults.
But, no. Its not a mistake to give them all kinds of ire.
I pretty much hate Sony, for instance. But what the cracker-jackass groups are doing is pretty sociopathic.
There's no Greater Good involved, thats self-delusion at best. There could have been a way to go about it that may have been ethical, in a vigilante, internet-patriot sort of way. But these data dumps of real, personal information (including usernames and password hashes) is not at all it.
What? Provide links. That's not at all what was said in the keynote, nor what I have read anywhere authoritative.
They are not charging for storage at all -- you get 5gb for your personal data (apps, music, and the like that they provide do NOT counted towards this*) for free, everyone, period.
The $25/year is NOT for storage, *explicitly*. It is for the matching service, and you do NOT have to 'buy replacement songs' because the premise (if not reality) is that you are uploading legally obtained music that you ripped yourself (or bought through other means).
Yeah, its music laundering. :P
* I'm not sure if a song you upload which is NOT a part of the iTunes Music Library, and thus does not successfully "match", counts against the 5GB or not.
I'd be REALLY surprised -- no, shocked -- if it turned out that they only supported music that was specifically ripped by iTunes.
They said ripped, but its a marketing thing, I think. Apple's in the legal music selling business, and isn't going to really talk very loudly about details like that.
Its not like iTunes requires that it is what ripped a song to play a song -- you could have gotten it from Amazon, for example. Everything that the keynote said indicated that you're getting your whole library here, including everything not bought in iTunes.
But the reason the matching service even costs anything at all, I think, is just to appease the labels about the inevitable chunks of pirated content that would be in it.
The thing is, the record companies were never going to make any money off of that library of yours-- ever. No matter what. At best, they were making some off of those blank media taxes around, whining about it.
This way, they not only will make some -- but hopefully you'll like the iTunes store experience, and buy more music via iTunes, thus get less "questionably procured" music.
They aren't advertising the service as any sort of 'amnesty' for previously illicitly copied material, but seriously: Apple is in the music selling business, why would they focus on that? But since there's *no way* for them to tell the difference, and since they are finally getting some money off of you,... how are they getting away with this?
The labels are starting to give in. They still may sue you if you go and share out your library, but damnit, if they can get some money off of you for what you already have and are just using -- they'll take what they can get.
Yes, because Apple is in the business of suing its customers for using content in their ecosystem.
Paranoia.
Question: how exactly can Apple, the RIAA, or anyone, tell the difference between the fact that I got this MP3 here by ripping it off my CD that I legally bought -- verses, downloading it through some illicit means?
Say I have a folder on my drive with a bunch of MP3s: there's multiple ways I can legally get all of those. There's also multiple ways I can "pirate" them. To the iCloud service, there's no way to tell the difference between the two -- and that $25 fee is going to the music labels for *something*.
I can't see how its anything but a buy-out for the fact that they (the record companies) were grumbling about the fact that a solid chunk of the music synced around is going to be pirated, and there's absolutely no way for them to do anything about it, prove it, or monetize it at all. So they gave in, a bit. (If only to set a precedent against Amazon and Google) And since you're paying the labels for the right to sync it around -- its not piracy to "replicate" it to all of your devices. There's no way those aren't licensed copies then.
Its not 5gb for $20 -- its 5gb for free. Everyone gets 5gb ... and that 5gb ONLY counts your personal data-stuff. Not your music, apps and the like which is bought from Apple's servers. None of that counts towards your storage limits at all.
The only thing that costs anything with iCloud (which completely suprecedes MobileMe, IIUC) is the iTunes music match service. Everything else is completely free.
I'm not sure I get your comment on applications-- they seem to be spending as much time working on their apps as they do the core OS, but iWork's compatibility is a good point... But its also one I think will be addressed soon. It wasn't announced but it was implied that a future update will hook it up to the iCloud too. Other mac apps are going to be hooked in right away.
But since iWork for iPhone was just recently released, I think they were just busy doing that first -- as its the thing they'd want to be showy about at WWDC.
$30. Its tied to the App Store, like any app even though its an OS. You can download it to any authorized machine after buying it once, like all apps. I don't know if authorized machines per account is still 5, because in one part of the keynote they said up to 10 machines -- but that may have been specific to a separate feature.
All the major labels are on board. That's what the $25/year cost is for, to pay them so they don't go apeshit. The stuff you bought from iTunes gets that for free.