You are right. I should not have included the "grandstanding" remark. My apologies. I initially interpreted the official statement as attacking this specific app, but that's not what is going on here.

You're right.

I guess this squashes my idea for a "My Virtual Pope" app. At least we can still buy Pope on a Rope... oh wait, it's no longer available.

The app wasn't to make confessions anyway, but to assist Catholics in the confession process. From the original article: "So, how does the app work? It leads you through an 'Examination of Conscience' to help you figure out what your real sins are -- and not just by retreading your run of the mill 10 Commandments. The sinful suggestions the app offers are inventive and even age appropriate."

I've read elsewhere that one of the priests who designed it, had a parishioner show up in the confession box with it, and used the app during confession to help remind him of his transgressions.

So this is just grandstanding by the Papacy. The app was never meant to replace "personal dialogue between penitents and their confessor." This is like saying Google Maps is bad because it somehow replaces the actual travel you're intending to take. Uh, no.

I suspect that Sortius_Nod meant "market fragmentation", which is very relevant to the topic at hand. The Android market appears to be very fragmented, with widely varying degrees of implementation, capacity, and support.

There is actually a patent on something like this. AT&T developed it a long time ago, sat on it for a decade, then sold the patent to Zoemail (a now-defunct Internet startup) in the early 2000s, which then sold the patent to someone else. The advantage of the Zoemail/AT&T approach was that the "keyed" addresses would be created to each recipient you sent to, and they would know you by that keyed e-mail, but you could turn those off whenever you wanted. Or give them expiration dates. The keyed address would be listed in your address book with each recipient.

It was a beautiful concept, frankly, but could have been implemented better.

I have veins like that too -- and I also don't have a problem with watching the needle. Hey, I'm getting it done because it has to get done.

The grammar snob in me would like to point out that you meant "phlebotomist". But it's a tough word to spell. Probably a lot of points in Scrabble, too.

Lo said the industry had "seen this movie play several times", pointing to the Betamax vs. VHS video format war, Mac vs. Windows and various proprietary networking protocols that at one stage tried to compete with the now dominant TCP/IP. [emphasis added]

Mac vs. Windows is a silly comparison. Apple still makes a ton of money selling computers. It doesn't need to have Windows' market share to be successful; it just needs to keep customers happy and turn a profit. As long as the iPhone makes customers happy and turns a nice profit, Apple doesn't need to change its approach.

Even Betamax survived for a long time in certain markets. Sony didn't stop making Betamax equipment until 2001 or 2002.

I guess it depends on whether or not you define "success" as "market share" or "turning profit".

But where Apple goes "too far" with iProducts is that there is something like "Apple police" in that they attempt to force their will on the people who bought and own their products. They do this by force of legal action and other means.

Except, you know this when you buy the phone or tablet. You agree to it. You don't like the terms, don't buy the phone.

Point taken.

Maybe this would be better: I'm sure all Christians are like the Irish Republican Army, the Lord's Resistance Army, the National Liberation Front of Tripura, the Russian National Unity, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Hutaree.

Shoot first, ask questions later.

Also: no good deed goes unpunished.

These days, any externally facing facet of your organisation can be part of its PR. If you have lawyers acting for your company, your lawyers become your PR. That's dangerous. I hope they learned a lesson here.

Amen. Truth is, everyone at your organization engages in PR. Every single one. If your least valuable employee suddenly goes crazy and sends bombs in the mail to politicians, guess what: it's PR.

You are being ridiculous. There is no reason for the probability of someone driving in a road train running out of gas being any higher than the same for someone driving normally.

Except that if the driver is reading the paper or watching TV instead of paying attention to the car, they are less likely to notice their level of gas.

Do you disagree that letting drivers become more passive could introduce more situations like this?

You can trust the system, but the system doesn't know what's happening to your car. It knows what's happening to the leading truck. Suppose that a car in the convoy has a failure, a blown tire, anything that makes it slow down or change trajectory (maybe some bump or hole in the road). How do following cars avoid it if their drivers are sleeping, reading a book, having lunch?

Exactly. Or maybe it's not a failure, per se, but something as simple as running out of gas? Is the system going to communicate all this information to the lead driver? Is that driver going to be responsible for alerting individual drivers that they need to jump out of the train to fuel up? Will the train just automatically pull into rest areas/gas stations and have *everyone* fuel up?

These are not insurmountable questions, but they do suggest a slower adoption rate (or smaller market) for the technology.