The fact that the iPhone was (initially) very expensive, and exclusive to only one of the four major carriers, which greatly limited the initial market uptake. The "all screen" form factor, which eschewed the physical keyboard, was also seen with much skepticism initially. In the mid 2000's, when the iPhone was in gestation, Microsoft had all it could do putting out the twin fires of getting Longhorn (Vista) out the door, and patching the (barn door size) holes in XP's security. Though the decision proved calamitous in hindsight, it wasn't entirely unreasonable to devote resources to propping up what was (at the time at least) Microsoft's core product-line.

Regarding the selling of VM licenses: Apple is primarily a hardware company. Yes, they make software, but that's just to make the hardware work better and look shinier, and thus more appealing to consumers. The fact that you can "only get that software on pricy Apple hardware" is, arguably, the major pillar propping up the sales of their well-made, but outrageously pricy hardware. The "Hackintosh" phenomenon has already demonstrated that, if you're not concerned about slick industrial design (or EULA compliance), it's completely possible to build a working OSX computer for half what Apple charges for similar hardware specs.

Making a version of OSX that would run on VM's would necessarily require the OS to not perform the "Am I being installed on blessed Apple hardware?" check. Setting up a Hackintosh would be trivial, compared to the current level of effort required. Apple likely fears that someone would actually mount a serious (and potentially successful) legal challenge to the "only run it on Apple-branded HW" clause of their EULA. If that clause of the license were invalidated, the Hackintosh floodgates, including "store-bought" variants would be opened, and Apple's Mac sales would be eviscerated. I imagine Apple has decided that ceding the server market to competitors is a small price to pay for the continued sales (and fat margins) on their consumer machines.

Free as in beer... Apple has wisely realized that most users care more about the user experience, and having the system meet their needs, then they do about the nebulous freedom RMS says they need to care about more than these the actual, you know, usefulness of their device. Besides, running OSX on non-Apple hardware is a violation of the software's EULA...

This explains the rash of $249 PC's I've seen recently. The $300 PC market just became the $250 PC market. There's just not enough meat left on the bone, after paying the full boat Windows license, to make a $300 box better enough than a $250 box to justify the incremental cost, in the eyes of the typical "cost senstive" consumer who's actually buying these crap-can PC's. Aside from the bottom-feeder Celeron and AMD E-xxx CPU's already common at these price-points, OEM's will cheap out on fit/finsh, put fewer cells in the laptop battery, and eliminate the expansion slots on desktops.

My 2000 Toyota Camry 4 cylinder, and my wife's 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan both beg to differ with you. Though electronic control of forward gear shifting has been the norm for a couple decades at least, most automatics still use mechanical control for selection of the operating mode (Park, Reverse, Neutral, Drive). Mis-adjustment of the neutral safety switch continues to be a cause of no-start symptoms, even in late model cars. I will grant you that the trend is toward purely electronic controls.

Many of these uncontrolled acceleration cases involved hybrid Toyota vehicles. In addition to the electronic throttle, Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive uses brake by wire, so the computer can dynamically use any desired combination of regenerative and friction braking, based on the hybrid battery charge state and the severity of the driver's control input on the pedal. These cars also eschew mechanical control for the gear-shift and the push-button ignition switch, relying on interface through the ECU.

It thus seems entirely plausible that a stack overflow, race condition or other crash/freeze/whatever could result in a wide-open throttle with no brakes and no gear-shift or ignition off control. if this is the case, it represents a epic lack of fail-safe design. It certainly doesn't help prevent operator error when Toyota uses a non-PRNDL shift pattern on their hybrids, to say nothing of the lack of industry standardization of the behavior of push-button ignition.

So there's a definite public safety problem going on, with people getting mugged for their phones and what-not. For the record, I think this concern is what's driving this legislation. But there's definitely room for the Big Brother Let's Stop the Flash-Mob-esque City Square Filling Demonstrations appeal to the Kill Switch, so the government shouldn't have any access to it. Hell, ideally the carriers shouldn't either. Make it something only the customer can initiate.

Theft by mugging is People don't carry laptops around at nearly the same rate they do smartphones, so the theft by mugging isn't nearly as big a problem. When laptops get stolen it's typically because the owner was careless and left it unattended. Meanwhile violent muggings, where people's cell phones are stolen, is reaching epidemic proportions in major cities. In the 90's people got jacked for their Air Jordan's, now it's for their iPhones. And unlike many other commonly stolen items, this anti-theft capability can be added at no incremental cost. Hell, the iOS Find My iPhone function is already nearly compliant with the proposed California and federal "kill switch" legislation. If they changed the initial setup such that it was enabled by default, it would be compliant in all respects.

As for cars, just about every car made in the last decade and a half has a passive anti-theft system. These systems have been credited with reducing theft of certain models by 90%. Don't have the right programmed smart key? That car isn't starting without some major effort. The process to replace lost or stolen keys is byzantine, inconvenient, and unique to each manufacturer, by design.

And they're making out like bandits with the rip-off "lost phone insurance".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Not to mention but the stolen phone that's not black-listed could find itself re-activated on their network, and that's another customer gained or retained without having to subsidize their phone.

The Constitution grants power to regulate interstate commerce to the federal government. They can totally railroad this through on that basis.

It's spurred mostly by the fact that AT&T and T-Mobile have been sand-bagging, claiming GSM/SIM's don't allow for black-listing. The utility of Sprint and Verizon's blacklists is predicated on the "SIM" being integral to a CDMA phone; they can limit access to their networks to phones locked to their networks. The proliferation of phones containing GSM, CDMA and LTE hardware regardless of the carrier's network, opens the distinct possibility of a stolen phone being unlocked/jailbroken/rooted and re-used on a different carrier, rendering even Sprint and Verizon's blacklist useless.

This law is looking to have all the carriers actually implement a lost/stolen black-list, and to further have communication between the carriers, so that a black-listed phone can't be re-used on anybody's network. This sounds like something that could (and should) be implemented in response to market forces. The proliferation of passive anti-theft systems in late model cars provides a good model. There's no legal requirement for car-makers to implement RFID-encoded key-fobs, yet they are nearly ubiquitous and have massively reduced theft of vehicles so equipped.

You people are all forgetting about inevitable discovery. If the prosecution can prove that a piece of evidence would have been "inevitably discovered" then the fact that it was actually obtained by illegal means becomes a moot point. This inevitability can be empirically proven if the illegally obtained evidence is later also obtained via legal means. See Segura vs. United States. Grand juries are allowed to question witnesses based on evidence that was allegedly collected illegally. See United States vs. Calandra. The Court has also ruled that the exclusionary rule goes out the window if the evidence was obtained, even illegally, by a private citizen. Purely coincidentally, law enforcement agencies have a penchant for using confidential informants.

You've clearly never been picked for jury duty... A court case, be it criminal or civil, is to be decided SOLELY on the basis of evidence and testimony introduced at trial, and in accordance with instruction given the jury by the presiding judge. Yes this means the prosecution gets to cherry-pick what evidence they decide to make their case with.

They're counting on it being cheaper to put butt warmers, GPS nav, etc. in all the cars, even though some of the customers ultimately won't pay for them. Couple of inter-related problems:

1. Any such system will obviously be hacked/cracked by owners. First-sale doctrine, as well as various state-level "right to repair" laws mean their recourse to legally prevent such shenanigans will be very limited. Don't be surprised if independent shops specializing in luxury makes (who already own said scan tools) offer such services at low cost.
2. Ignoring #1, the business case only closes if the take rate on the option is high (say >80%) and/or the incremental manufacturing cost is low. Otherwise it's cheaper to eat the manufacturing complexity and leave out un-ordered options.
3. #1 will erode the take rate of affected options, exacerbating #2.