It's illegal in China too!

The cause of this problem is nothing to do with Apple, Western consumers, or anything else outside of China.

In China, pretty much everything is illegal. They have laws against everything you can think of, including adulterating milk with melamine to produce false test results. The problem is that you can't do anything in China without getting permission from the government. Businesses that actually comply with all the Chinese regulations go out of business very quickly because their competition is willing to gain an advantage by cheating - i.e. bribing officials, whatever.

The culture that has developed under this situation is such that nobody complies with regulations in China. It is simpler, faster and cheaper to pay bribes and to lie about compliance.

Once in a while, they'll do something that results in people getting hurt or killed, like the melamine in the milk. The government will round up the head of the milk company and execute him, but nothing really changes that will make their food supply more trustworthy or safe.

I have seen photographs of raw materials processing plants in China spewing huge clouds of colorful smoke into the air. It looked like a movie special effect. The same type of plant in a modern country like Brazil, for example, is three times the size of the Chinese plant - 2/3 of the Brazilian plant's volume is dedicated to equipment that captures the harmful byproducts given off by the process and prevents them from getting out into the environment. This is why the Chinese shut down a fair portion of their raw materials and manufacturing industry just prior to the Beijing Olympics - to allow the pollutants to dissipate and raise the air quality for the games.

I know of at least one manufacturing plant in California that can demonstrate that they are actually discharging air that is cleaner than the intake air. They are required to meet environmental standards, and they do it. In China a similar plant would just pay off the inspector.

Short of customers such as Apple stationing full-time inspection crews all the way down the supply chain (pretty much impossible), there's not much they can do. I have also seen pictures of expensive Italian quality control equipment in Chinese plants - everything in the plant looked dirty and worn, but the quality control equipment looked brand new. It was in place so they could pass their quality certification audit but it wasn't in normal day-to-day use, and nobody at the plant actually knew how to use any of it!

Frankly we're lucky Chinese products aren't falling apart or killing people all the time. Go on Youtube and look for Chinese car crash tests if you want a real eye-opener.

Almost any product made in China carries the risk of poor quality, false components, or pollution at some point in the supply chain. It's not an Apple problem. It's a China problem.

Had it not failed to separate from the large fuel tank, then they might have had a chance.

The RC Reliant glider model, while not exactly making a smooth landing, wasn't going very fast when it hit the ground.

After the perfect separation of the SRBs you might suspect that it was rigged to fail, for television.

But is a VOIP phone, or just an analog phone with an 8-conductor cable?

I've done all the phone work for the little company I work for for the past 20 years, and helped some other companies with their systems. RJ45 plugs and cables were often used with the old analog key systems and PBXs, long before VOIP came around. You can't tell what communication method the phone uses by looking at the plug. A lot of the newer business VOIP phones look very similar and to the user appear basically the same as the analog systems that went before, as those analog systems had become pretty advanced.

Wait a second, stop right there.

The Apple TV is shiny and black .

On top of that, it's $99. I don't think you can buy any other similar device for $33 to $66, and there isn't a "I want to pay even more money" button on the Apple Store website, or do you expect us to believe that people wander into Apple's retail stores and try to haggle the price up?

If you're going to troll, at least try and be informed about the subject.

I have an unlocked iPhone 4, on T-Mobile's US service.

Edge is slow, but it's very reliable and doesn't use much power. Sure, I'd like to have 3G speed but I guess I'm not really missing it much since most everything works acceptably on Edge (no Youtube, but again I don't think I'm missing much there). I have had other 3G phones, and and I have a 3G iPad on AT&T, so it's not like I don't know the difference. The lower monthly cost and better customer service from T-Mobile outweighs the speed deficit for me.

The one advantage is that I can use the "Personal Hotspot" tethering feature on the iPhone to share the connection without incurring an additional $20/month charge as I would on AT&T. Phone service is already too expensive (and yes I get the irony that I'm talking about a $650 device).