That sentence is straight from NASA. LOL! Come on, y'all, this isn't rocket-science!

I would and have picked the iPhone. You can get started without paying anything if you're already a Mac user. You only need to pay the $99 to join their iPhone Developer Program when you want to build for a hardware device instead of the iPhone simulator and to submit to the App Store. It's thanks to Apple's low barriers to entry that I have Shuffle Dialer on the App Store, another application in queue and awaiting approval, and another one in the works.

It's exciting to see something you created up on the iTunes Store. Especially so in this job market.

I wish I could buy a 15" MacBook Pro with a higher capacity, non-user-serviceable battery.

I agree with you on all of your other points, except for this one...

No one feels honored to pay $50 for a matte screen.

Plus, the batteries go bad after a couple years

Do you realize that the lithium-polymer battery tech Apple is using in the 17" MacBook Pro battery is expected to have a life of 5 years? That is longer than most people keep a computer.

I would understand if there something to gain by not having a removable battery. But really, does it save any space at all? Usually the bottom of the battery is the exterior of the laptop, so it doesn't have to fit "inside."

They gain considerable volume by ditching the rugged battery encasing that other laptops must have. Apple claims that they were able to achieve 40 percent greater capacity than they could have with a traditional user-serviceable battery. That means to get the same battery capacity, they would have had to make the battery about twice the size with a user-serviceable battery. That would add a good bit of thickness and weight to the laptop.

Thanks for the link.

You can also drop files in the Public folder of your iDisk that people can easily mount from within the Finder (select iDisk from the Finder's Go menu) or any WebDAV client. And your public folder can be password protected. Your friends and family can easily store that password in their Keychain so they don't have to remember it.

That's great! Now my neighbor won't be penalized for the 6 different virus and anti-spyware applications he has installed on his Windows XP notebook. /sarcasm

You're right. I guess I wasn't entirely clear. I was somewhat happy using Windows 2000. But, back then Windows XP was coming along and was going to be the future of Windows. XP is what debuted Product (de)Activation and I wasn't going to have a part of it.

So, like I said, I switched from Windows 2000 to the Mac (once Mac OS X was shipping on Macs) and I haven't looked back.

The funny thing about your comment is that my mother uses Quickbooks on her iMac that I bought her all of the time. So, it is even worse than you said, they also have to overcome the mere assumption that software they're used to on Windows isn't available elsewhere.

You know, I switched from Windows 2000 to the Mac back in 2001 because of similar stupidity Microsoft was engaging in. Back then it was Windows Product (de)Activation. I haven't looked back.

Apple doesn't have crazy long keys that you have to enter in to install the OS, you just install it. You don't buy your computer from a vendor that didn't feel like giving you a restore disc. You don't have to ask Apple for permission before using your computer, you just use it. They don't use copy protection on their iLife applications (iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, etc.), they trust their users. They recently dropped copy protection from retail copies of their iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, Keynote). And Apple has been fighting the good fight on getting rid of copy protection in music and finally won that as well.

It just strikes me as bizarre that people put up with all of these restrictions from Microsoft and let themselves be treated as criminals first and customers second when there is a company like Apple that doesn't do any of that and arguably also has a better user interface.

This is a good point. And it really does fully discount what was a somewhat silly hypothetical instance of trying to frame someone. But, there is still the possibility of this coming back on the purchaser in cases where the original iTunes Plus music was actually stolen.

But, as I have said in other posts I haven't heard of any cases of this since May 20, 2007 when iTunes Plus was rolled out. So, it doesn't appear to be a practical concern.

I have the same concern as you. However, Apple includes the Apple ID of the purchaser. Whatever e-mail address you find for your hypothetical enemy probably doesn't match their Apple ID. But, it might.

Secondly, Apple has included this information in iTunes Plus files since May 30, 2007. It's been over a year since then and I haven't heard of any cases of the RIAA bringing a lawsuit to anyone with similar circumstances. As time goes by, my concern around this becomes less and less.

The identification tags are applied on the client-side.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PyMusique

I agree with you for the most part. This isn't anything new. Apple has embedded identifying information about the purchaser since iTunes Plus was launched on May 30, 2007.

The only situation where I could see this being a problem is if your equipment is stolen (MacBook, iPod, etc.) and it resulted in your iTunes Plus files being loosed into the wild. There is the potential for the recording industry to come at you with a lawsuit stating that you willfully infringed copyright. However, it has been over a year since iTunes Plus has been around and I haven't heard of any problems like this, so I suppose it isn't really something one should worry about.

By the way, AtomicParsley can already remove the identifying information from the files.

Perhaps it is because Verizon is notorious for crippling features that manufacturers build into their phones?

Also, Verizon did have a crack at the iPhone, but they turned down Apple.

Verizon's general suckiness aside, I really do like the Palm WebOS and think it might be a decent competitor to the iPhone. We'll have to wait and see what happens when it comes to market. But, it has some neat ideas.

However with Apple supporting round-tripping of photo meta-data with Facebook in the new iPhoto '09, I wouldn't be surprised to see Facebook integration with the iPhone's Contacts application in the next version.