So was I. But this is something I don't quite get. The iPhone was innovation there's no doubt about it. But the iPad... it's the same thing, bigger, with a feature removed. I have used the iPad several times and the overriding thought is always: there's nothing this thing does that my phone doesn't and it's too big to fit in my pocket... and if I have my backpack why wouldn't I just carry a laptop?

It's really not just the same thing, bigger, with a feature removed (if it were, the iPad wouldn't have UI elements like UIPopover that iPhone/iPod Touch doesn't have), but I'm clearly not going to be able to convince you otherwise. But even if the iPad had no unique UI elements, its larger display still would make it more useful for certain tasks than an iPhone--just like I'd rather write code on a 24" display (preferably two) than a 13" display.

Like you, I consume almost all of my news via RSS (using Reeder and Instapaper on both iPhone and iPad and Google reader on desktops/laptops). If I'm on the couch, in bed, or, yes, even in the restroom, the iPad is the perfect form factor to read through my feeds and mail (and even reply to the occasional mail) and watch video. It's large enough that I can generally see an entire article without scrolling, and a laptop isn't nearly as comfortable to use in those places. Plus, unlike a laptop, I can actually use it all day on a single charge without plugging it in. This alone is huge.

Since then he's stopped reading it, and the iPad now rarely seems to come out of the drawer. Yet Apple is praised for innovating a new market out of nothing.

Probably because that's what they did.

Innovating? Is that what we call releasing a phone that is too big to fit in a pocket and can't be used as a phone?

Well, I'm pretty sure the Galaxy Tab can indeed place phone calls, but I was talking about Apple, not Samsung.

Or it could have gone this way:
(1 year ago)
Apple: We like the 10" screen you make; we'd like to buy out all of them for the next year.
Supplier CEO: Ka-Ching!

(6 months ago)
Everyone else: Hey we'd like to make a small order for 10" screens. We've looked at the market and yours is the only one that's ready for production and has our price point.
Supplier CEO: We're all sold out. Sorry.
Everyone else: $&^%!

I guess that's what the rest of the market gets for betting their futures on shitty netbooks instead of innovating.

He's talking about the market of "By Neckbeards, For Neckbeards" devices.

You realize that as a result of the OpenScreen Project anyone can implement something that plays Flash video based on the open specs that are freely available without having to pay any royalties?

I congratulate "anyone" on having the freedom to implement a Flash video player. Perhaps that will be relevant to our conversation when Google does so and then ships it with Chrome.

Google, however, still ships Adobe's closed-source Flash runtime with Chrome.

What happens if Adobe decides, later on, to start charging royalties for using these standards?

As soon as HTML5 is ubiquitous, Google will drop Flash from Chrome if Adobe requires them to pay another cent.

Do you promise?

Google doesn't ship that with Chrome.

"But they could!@#!@#"

But they don't.

The problem here isn't that H.264 isn't as open as Google wants it to be - the problem is that it isn't as FREE as they want it to be.

1) How free and/or open is the Flash runtime browser plugin that Google ships (and updates) with Chrome?

2) When will Google, in the interest of adopting only open standards vs. closed standards, stop including said plugin with Chrome?

I am no fan of Apple but I can admit that they make some nice hardware. Why do they think it will play out any different this time?

The last time, the Board forced Steve out of the company and Apple stopped creating dramatically new products, favoring incremental improvements instead.

They can't do that with computers, why would tablets be any different?

Fewer moving parts.

If the company wants to own my phone, they're welcome to buy me one... :)

I'm willing to bet that your company doesn't care so much about your phone so much as they do about their data.

More delicately, a photo studio might be the only kind of business that will overwhelmingly be an Apple shop, which explains the iPhone prevalence in that case.

Talk to me when it's an accounting firm or whatever.

How about a bank? Or maybe a food manufacturer? A law firm?

Take your pick.

If the rest of the world wants to pay the developers to build that software, I'm certain that many would jump at the chance. The fact is, people get something for free and then they bitch when it doesn't do everything they think it should do, because it's never been something important to the developers.

Tell me, when you're doing your hobby, say, gardening, what would you do if some random schmuck came up to you and said "I really like peas, and you aren't planting any, so you suck. You should plant peas."?

That would depend on whether or not I'm telling passers-by that they're schmucks for shopping for food at supermarkets instead of growing their own free food.

And you have assumed I am the only developer.

How many seats of Flash CS5 do you have to purchase before the per-seat cost falls below $600?

And you have assumed all of my developers are proficient with xcode/objective-c/mac os x.

And you're assuming that all of your developers are already proficient in Flash.

And you have assumed no other costs involved with purchasing new hardware.

This one is actually a valid point. There are indeed other costs, but a keyboard, mouse, and display do not increase costs significantly.

So I will now assume you have no clue about the business side of development (or business in general).

I know plenty about business. You want maximum dollars for minimum effort. Wanting that is fine. But the shit you and the rest of your buddies on elance develop is probably just that--LCD shit.

You must use apple, apple, and apple only. If you choose to use anything but apple, you cannot use apple. So in order to develop anything useful for apple, i MUST fork over more money to apple. What's wrong with this paragraph.

Nothing. You just don't like it. Too bad.

Your statistics are void because they are about smartphones and they were compiled before the ipad was released. Care to provide a different set of statistics to further prove my point?

Instead of trying to find a set of statistics you might like, how about you cherry pick the market you want and share your statistics with me?

The problem is that it's not illegal to develop or distribute tools which violate the DMCA. It's just illegal to actually use them.

I don't like the DMCA either, kid. But let's at least be honest about what it says.

It turns out that it is in fact illegal to "manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that," among other things, "has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." (17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(2)).