How's the battery? That's the complaint I'm hearing.

Wrong. I have Google Voice on my iPhone's desktop. It is in HTML5 form, and it works fine. I inherit my google addess list, I get the transcript of any messages left, a list of phone calls, all in Mobile Safari. What Apple rejected was an app that apparently hijacked the user interface and substituted its own address book and message list. Could have told them that Steve Jobs doesn't do that. The UI is guarded like the family jewels. Google had to know that, didn't they? Could they have been arrogant? No, never. Hmm. Google Voice rejected (headlines! outrage!), which makes Gigantic Google the Victim of Sour Apple. Very quickly thereafter, the OS they had bought years earlier is unveiled, ready to run on mobile phones, and, they give it away... FREE!... to any public-spirited hardware manufacturer who will battle against the mighty behemoth who is drowning tiny developers in cash! (That just furthers their evil intention.) Free is... OPEN! LOVE! FLOWERS! The Google search algorithms? Not free. Your data? Free for them. Expensive for advertisers. Sooner or later, it's going to dawn on Google that the best strategy for them will be to give away free software and phones to every man and woman on Earth, the better to becoming trillionaires. Meanwhile, there's no way for the present Apple strategy, to have a tightly-controlled platform that peacefully coexists with every platform on the Internet and is more and more integrated with Windows and Linux, to take over 25-30% of the market, if that.

Let's get to the chase: liability law. If you're a third party and you accidentally infect my iPhone with a trojan, can I come after you? I will certainly try. If you have Apple behind you, I'm pretty sure a) they won't let that be offered for sale, and b) if they do, they'll make me whole. How about you? Will you answer my calls? Will you be awake when the subpoena arrives?

What's more, the voiding of the warranty is completely justified in this case. By altering the car in ways like this, you are subjecting it to all kinds of forces that the design did not envisage. It might be fine, or it might blow something tomorrow. The manufacturer can't possibly know, so all bets are off.

Hey, jailbreak your phone. Get all those other apps that Apple "forbids." Have the Apple cops busted down any doors? No. Just like the hacked copies of OS X, which you can make run on any Windows-type PC or netbook. Heard of any prosecutions? Nope. Except, of course, when that company tried to make a commercial business out of hacking. The judge shut that down firmly and completely, because that's against the law.

No, I condemn Microsoft for its "one software dominates all" strategy. You really don't see the objection to the Microsoft monopoly, do you? They only control the software. Make any kind of Windows-compatible commodity (cheap) computer that you want. In order to maintain that software monopoly, they have incorporated slightly-altered versions of things like Open GL and HTML and CSS and Java and all the rest, in order to kill open standards or dominate them. The soul of Apple is WebKit, and especially since Jobs' return, the embrace of open standards. In contrast, Apple controls its software and its hardware. If you don't like that model, don't buy it. They haven't put other hardware manufacturers, or software developers, out of business at all, nor will they, because some people -- large numbers in fact -- will prefer other models. Good for them. Microsoft had to go for software dominance because they don't make any computers. They just make "good enough" to fit the low-cost, commodity computers they prefer. They're cheap and powerful, but don't try to put Netscape on them.

Oh, I forgot something. I am also a self-satisfied prig from Exeter.

"The Tea Parties and the sudden effusion of pathological Apple haters has erupted at about the same time." Discuss.

I think it has something to do with the "Christian" nations exporting missionaries and soldiers to park on the lands of the pagans, extracting minerals, oil or whatever we want, and getting enormously wealthy by doing so. And then, when the inevitable political problems develop, well, it's extermination time.

Can't prove he's not Santa. To say that "Jesus was a moral teacher" is absolutely true. To say that "Jesus Christ was true God and true Man," that's the Santa Claus part. Believers insist he is the redeemer. They can't produce any evidence, just a plateful of cookie crumbs.

The title "God" is capitalized by the religious, so as a courtesy, I do too. It helps them pretend. On the other hand, you're wrong about the "American president" business. Chicago Manual of Style, the newspaper bible -- note, not "Bible" --a says that "president" is not capitalized except when used as a title: like President Barack Obama. But it's "the president says," or "I yelled incomprehensible bullshit at the president." The only circumstance where you'd capitalize president without naming the president would be in a context like, "the constitutional position of President of the United States of America," when the full title is used.

It's a boat. It's big. So he's rich, and you're not. Aren't you acting like what you accuse Democrats of doing? Now, if he had a big belching, carbon-producing motor on that boat... But he doesn't. "According to Austin, the engines are bio-diesel fueled and Gore can expect to use about two gallons an hour to cruise Center Hill Lake. With a 500 gallon capacity Austin says Gore won’t need a refill for “two or three years” though he admits having “no clue” about where Gore could get bio-diesel at the lake. The Hurricane Marina dock doesn’t sell it." Maybe the "reporter" could have asked Gore where he gets the bio-diesel. I'm sure he has a source. He's in the business. And if he needed extra motivation, he knows a bunch of radical crybabies will be on him in a flash. It's like the big story of Gore's farmhouse. Yes, it's his family farm. Very difficult to retrofit, because... well, you know what an old farmhouse is like, don't you? But when the big "expose" appeared, he was already halfway through a very big job insulating and installing solar panels. Now, he could only do that, in this case, if he had a lot of money. Which he does. But otherwise he knows the jackals are outside, waiting to say the truly dumb things like "Al Gore uses a jet plane to go to a speech!!!"

There's also the national security argument: why keep being so dependent on a region of the world where there are frequent wars, and where in 1974, a politically-motivated price rise put our economy in the ditch? A proof of warming doesn't have to be perfect to follow the same policies for other reasons.

This long-term planning, and the holding of cash reserves rather than disbursing it to investors, is Jobs' greatest accomplishments. It makes Apple stock a little more volatile than others, because people try to take their money out by playing the stock trade game. Who cares? There was also speculation that a large acquisition might be in the offing.

Does that make him those evil Hollywood stars who said all those nasty -- and largely correct -- things about the invasion of Iraq? Why am I not surprised you try to tar Gore with the label? I also like Macs. It doesn't make me gay, or capitalist, or any of your chosen epithets. It means the companies were amenable to his advice. Apple greatly improved its green practices while Gore was on the board. I'm sure Starbucks took measures in that direction too, or why would they ask Gore on the board?