Do I get a hat for having to go through this?

A standard implies that a specification or protocol is available to 3rd parties which is incorrect.

I still wouldn't necessarily call it a standard, but your assertion that there are no specifications available to 3rd parties is wrong.

http://wwwimages.adobe.com/www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/swf/pdf/swf_file_format_spec_v10.pdf

And people "run" iOS4. But do they run it or do they demo-crawl it?

And what is the "par" then? First android phones (G1 anyone?) were released *after* 3G. Good luck installing 2.3 onto it, lol.

The problem (for biological things, like human beings) is going out of Earth magnetic shield.

Apple is a software company and the fact that it comes inside a piece of complimentary hardware is not really that important. But look up what Mr. Kay had to say about the companies that are "serious about their software" some decades ago.

As for "Apple's secret weapon is their network of dedicated Apple stores worldwide" - well, there are ZERO of them here in Russia. iPads and stuff are still VERY popular.

Because it's impossible/complicated to have multiple "HTTPS'd" domains on a single IP address.

Also, it's not really more "secure" in most senses of this word.

It DOES have a microSD card slot, but it DOES NOT work (at least yet, maybe we should wait for 4.0 or something).

... so whether or not it has DRM is unimportant.

Thanks, Microsoft! (oof, that's a hard thing to say)

As for Google - when will these hypocrites be also removing MP3 support?

As for your first paragraph - thanks for re-confirming my point. Web was indeed built on open standards BUT commercial software. Remember when original Mozilla browser cost[ed] money? I don't even talk about the quite expensive server software. That didn't stop the web growth though exactly because the underlying standards were still [very] open. Except GIFs.

As for current Mozilla situation though - you're totally wrong. They can freely (and Freely) implement the H264 player and build it into their browser. Why they _don't_ do this is because they are citing the concern about authoring this content (which is totally not their business, but they still feel they should not do it).

As here's why Google becomes important as the content heavyweight.

Anybody still remembering "burn all GIFs" days and the associated hate?

Please prove that VP8 is not "patent encumbered"?

Also tell me that you don't use MP3 and want Google or somebody to remove its support too?

Anyway, these H264 patents expire in like 12 years or so. May seem like a long time but actually it's not quite. If CSS or GIF are any indication things on the Web don't move as fast as people would expect. When VP8 matures, gains hardware support, a critical mass of content - boom! H264 becomes totally free. Still of better quality per bit.

And generally speaking Open Standards are even more important than Open Source. Especially in the long run.

Apple is based on original software.