But iOS /is/ at least "slightly" open source due to its basis on Darwin, whereas Windows Phone is not even "slightly" open source, having nothing at all about its foundation being open source.

In Soviet Russia, meteor strikes YOU! FTFY

Um, you do realize that Google maps is in the App Store now, and far superior to the Apple built Google Maps? It has turn by turn, vector tiles, etc. You can have and use both. I do.

And, by the way, other Touareg owners have managed to achieve as much as 45MPG on long distance trips.

I think 38MPG could be achieved in a pickup truck of that size in the very near future quite easily. I drive a 2012 VW Touareg V6 TDI, and achieve between 25 and 30 MPG. This is a 5,000 pound SUV capable of towing up to 7,500 pounds. On the highway if I don't lead foot it, I can easily achieve 30MPG. In the city, it stays at or slightly above 25MPG. I can see technology improving enough to squeeze out another 10MPG.

That's not true at all. I drive a 2011 Jetta TDI, bigger than a Golf. I get 52 MPG U.S. quite easily on the highway and around 42MPG in the city. The Golf certainly gets the same or better, being a smaller and lighter car. Been driving it for almost two years, the mileage has actually improved as its total miles driven have increased. I also have a Touareg V6 TDI, a 5,000 pound SUV, and it gets 25-30MPG, 30 on the highway and 25 in the city, which is the same as the gasoline engine Passat it replaced.

But, isn't another plausible scenario that people will periodically convert bit coin to another currency, such as dollars, to spend the accrued wealth, and then buy back into bit coins because even if you're paying more, the value will increase? I'm asking an honest question here, I don't fully understand what it's all about. But speaking hypothetically, if I were to get involved in such a thing that's how I'd use it. At least, I would until the day when something you're describing takes place, if that is in fact the ultimate outcome. I have no desire to perpetually hoard wealth, I want to use it to take care of things that matter to me. Get in, make some money and get out. Rinse and repeat. Though I understand that if enough people like me were to do that, the ever increasing value of the currency might not manifest in the way you describe.

It was never said "stuff that matters" to everyone. Obviously it matters to some, enough so to bring forth a post for the community to partake. If it doesn't matter to you, then why are you wasting your time reading and commenting on said article. Update your Brian's software to skip what doesn't interest you. Problem solved.

You say that as though you have some personal experience with this.

You may not like Apple, but the retina display is awesome. Being forced to settle for a 1080p display is a crock of shit. At least now that Apple is pushing higher resolution displays, it just might force this ridiculously inept notion that 1080p is the best display we can hope for out the window, and force other manufacturers to once again push the bar on high dpi on LCD displays.

I'm a Mac head, I love my Apple computers. But, I'm not happy at all with this push for non-upgradeable machines. I have upgraded the RAM in my MacBooks, I have swapped out hard drives, I have swapped optical drives for hard drives. I love being able to change out parts. So, personally, I'm not too keen on having no upgradeability in the retina MacBook Pro, and I probably won't be getting one. I'd be perfectly happy if Apple continued to do "pro" and "non pro" lines, but it seems they are going all consumer these days, and people like me mean less to them than ever before, and the word "pro" in the line's name has become meaningless.

I don't find the base price of the machine unreasonable, on the other hand, I do find the upgrade pricing for RAM and solid state storage to be unreasonable. I can now buy a 512GB solid state drive for $400. Getting the same through Apple, I have to pay a hefty premium. Same goes for RAM. That's always been true. And I don't really buy their argument that it has to be that way to make them so thin.

But back to my original point, the high res display itself is great, and personally, I want more of that kind of innovation in the market, not less. The soldered on RAM, SSD, and glued in batteries? Not so much. I'm capable of looking at this objectively and giving praise where it is due and leveling criticism where it is due. Is it just because Apple came out with a nice high-res display that we're now to think it is somehow not useful or innovative? Dumb question, this being Slashdot I expect very little in the way of reasonableness toward Apple.

Where are these regressions you're talking about? I've been using Lion since it came out. I have 'Save As' in every application it makes sense to appear in. In a few apps that became 'Save a version', since auto save was implemented in those. Does the same thing. Duplicate? Right click, "Duplicate". I've had no problems at all with text selection, I've programmed many many thousands of lines of code using os x text editors, and I know every selection shortcut there is. You can turn off resuming applications. It's in System Preferences -> General. One of the first things I turned off. You claim the setting doesn't work, it works for me. Don't like the UI of iCal or Address Book? Use different apps. Never had a problem with the animations. I love Lion, I'm very much looking forward to Mountain Lion.

And yet, if the iPod was just another music player, it wouldn't have been so successful would it? And if the iPhone was just another phone with a music player function, it wouldn't have completely redefined the smart phone industry. If there were no iPad, there would be no tablet market. And I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but the iPad is much more than a big iPod Touch. There's more to it than shiny and pretty and fucking marketing. Yes, there is more involved than a reality distortion field. If it were really that simple Apple would have been another me too company putting out the same old shit as everyone else, for their marketing prowess would be so great they'd be able to sell anything. Yes, many of these ideas were there before Apple came along, but no one put them together in meaningful, usable, or appealing ways. Such that anyone at all can pick one up and immediately userstand how to use it. It means fuckall if the average person isn't able to easily use these things without a BS in computer science. And falling victim to malware. And having reasonable battery life. And having fast, responsive hardware. And having tiny lightweight form factors. And not chewing through your data plan. All areas where Apple has innovated. Not just UI. If that isn't innovation, I don't know what is. If those who had come before had made anything close to any of these, we'd be talking about those companies instead of Apple, and yet we aren't, are we? Because they didn't. Turns out making a touch screen worth a damn takes a hell of a lot of engineering or you end up with a jerky, unresponsive pile of dung much like the early Android touchscreens or Blackberries. You may not like Apple, you may prefer something else, more power to you. But give credit where credit is due. I'm willing to bet you couldn't engineer Apple's products having only those products that came before them, the ones that you beleive equal or superior, available to you even if given your entire lifetime. Big companies with deep war cheats can barely compete. But somehow I think you'll still be on with saying they did nothing different or innovative than anyone else. Somehow I think that the very fact that they have become the world's most valuable tech company easily discredits you.

Uh, so you can't do that on an iPad? I do all of that on my iPad, comfortably. Even custom software, because I have a developer account.

Google is not a person? Not according to the Supreme Court. Corporations have been using the 14th amendment to claim personhood since the late 1800's.

Facebook has open sourced quite a few things. http://developers.facebook.com/opensource/ Looking at this from Facebook's point-of-view, I think they see having their own browser as being absolutely essential to their future. There's so many things they could bring to the table in terms of user experience if only they had their own platform. Nerds see the privacy conundrum very clearly, the average person on the other hand, could give a shit. They've probably looked at Webkit, and see that working on a browser engine with their arch enemy as totally unworkable. That arch enemy being Google, not Apple. Google is, of course, a big contributor to Webkit. No one seems to take Gecko seriously. Apple passed on Gecko. Google passed on gecko. Buying Opera makes perfect sense to me. I've never cared for it personally, so I don't have a dog in this fight. As to whether or not they open source it, they have open sourced things in the past. As for Opera I can see a lot of reasons for them to open source the engine, and I can see a lot of reasons why they wouldn't open source the engine. If they open source, they win points with geeks, what was Opera can be forked and continue on. They get free improvements via community involvement in the project. And they can keep proprietary bits proprietary. On the other hand, it's already closed source, and it would be easy for them to keep it that way. Easy for them to keep their work under wraps from the likes of Google. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they're also working on their own web search.