My son got an iPod Touch when he was 4, for the express purpose of FaceTime with me and his grandparents. He doesn't see me daily due to a divorce. I set up the device with favorite contacts and a few games for him. He can't take it to school, and FaceTime requires WiFi, so he pretty much just uses it at home. He brings it in his bag when he travels between my house and my ex-wife's house. He is 7 now, and I can't see that it has affected him adversely. He gets good grades, reads, plays outside, has friends, etc. He probably uses the iPod Touch less than I played Atari when I was his age.

Samsung's market cap is about $170 billion USD...

This isn't about patents and conceptual design and innovation. This is about blatant copycat ripoff knockoff cloning, right down the the boxes the products ship in, the 30-pin dock connector, and the identical wall wart. Samsung's infringing products are no better than street corner Gucci knockoff handbags. Samsung has no shame, and neither do consumers who reward Samsung by buying their Apple knockoffs. Because Apple is rich and makes cool stuff, it's best for consumers to let companies who can't or won't invest in their own innovations shortcut the R&D process by merely copying Apple's successful and popular products? I like EFF in general, but was pissed off by their Robin Hood argument that Apple shouldn't be allowed to be the only one to benefit from their inventions, as it would stifle innovation which hurts consumers. Apple doesn't want or need to stifle legitimate innovation and competition, they are big enough, rich enough and smart enough to respond in kind with innovation of their own. Apple wants to stifle clones and knockoffs. Inferior products designed to look just like superior products implies to the consumer there is no difference. Yet the consumer who thinks there is no difference ends up with a fake, imitation product that does not compare to the real thing, and dilutes the value of the copied product. This harms consumers. This verdict puts copiers on notice; design you own stuff, don't use Cupertino like your personal R&D lab.

I came to Macintosh post-Steve in 1990, though my Mac Plus still had his signature inside, I only knew him as the founder that had left. Mine was a world of Scully and Spindler and Amelio. I became a Mac tech support professional during this period, and it has remained my career to this day. When Steve came back in 1997, it was a pivotal time early in that career. My second employer had decided to abandon Macs, but wanted me to stay on as a PC tech, and Apple wasn't doing so hot.. I was intrigued though by the plans to use NeXTstep as the basis of the next Mac OS, so I actually bought a used NeXT Color Turbo Slab with the 21" NeXT Color Monitor and NeXTstep 3.3. The first time I turned on that 5 year old machine, it felt like I had jumped 10 years into the future. I knew then, I would remain a Mac tech. I left that job for one supporting Macs again and never looked back. Over the remaining years, I read everything I could find about Steve and came to appreciate his unique genius. Thank you Steve for making my career and passion possible.

from 2002.

*Ring*

Hello? 2002? You want what? Your server-side web optimization catered to a device? Uh huh, ok. Ok, ok, I'll let Amazon know...

I know AT&T doesn't make the phone, but they were the ones willing to take a chance with Apple. Now, the iPhone has defined what is a smartphone. AT&T had to work with Apple to support visual voicemail. Their Mark the Spot app let's me give them real-time field reports on dropped calls, weak signal, no data, so they can improve the network. As far as competition, Apple has redefined the carrier relationship, taking much of the carriers control from them. I would like to say Android follows this trend, but it doesn't. I think carriers see Android as a way to wrest control back. I am betting my LTE iPhone 5 next year makes carriers interchangeable, and I am betting Android ends up more like Linux than Windows.

...that I wrote in 1993, haven't felt this way since Sagan went...

FOR THE STAR HUSTLER, JACK HORKHEIMER

Incandescent night and still
amazing the number
of stars
you may see
in L.A., D.C., New York, N.Y.

Ocean City, Md., on the shore once
again the stars
few yet there
visible through the orange
haze of street light, parking lot.

Just twelve miles from here,
Assateaque, the whole
of the Milky Way
spilt into view—
crystalline, star–bloom.

Drive twelve miles more, find
the radio–array
at Wallops Island
sees stars—in remote
minor galaxies—already nova

in Roman times, a million light–
years won't show
for 998,000
more here, who then
will see a star explode?

Did Edison foresee the death
of night, forgotten stars?
Jack says
no one looks up anymore.
"Keep looking up. Keep looking up!"

Perhaps some day the power out
a whole grid gone down
a city will
reignite that ancient
pinhole nuclear fusion–light

so bright, so brilliant
that despite the ache
in our spines
we crane our necks
to look up, stare, configure.

Scotty speaks into the computer mouse, "Hello computer."

Engineer: "Just use the keyboard."

Scotty: "Keyboard?" *sarcastically* "How quaint."

Some initial info....

I am an IT manager of a group supporting faculty and staff of a large university in Washington DC.

Last year, over 70 percent of new students in my university brought Macs to school. We haven't seen hard numbers on this year's freshman class, but we expect Mac use to increase linearly as it has over the past 3-4 years (especially since Intel Macs).

This year, more than 50 percent of faculty who were eligible for a new computer chose Mac.

Linux users are blocked from using the VPN which controls access to the WLAN.

The main driver of faculty and student Mac choice in our surveys has been security (perceived or real) and flexibility. Faculty want the ability to run the OS best suited to the task. One Stat professor uses mostly Unix apps in Apple's X environment, web/email/Word on the Mac, and a few Win-only apps in XP on Parallels. Another prof in Physics triple-boots Ubuntu, Mac OS and XP on a MacBook Pro. A significant number of Mac users run XP in Parallels or Fusion. Several profs only run XP on their Macs, preferring the Apple hardware, and hedging they might use the Mac capability in the future.

To me, as someone who switched majors 4 times, and took tech electives despite my English major, the flexibility of a universal computing platform capable of running the two major desktop operating systems (one of which is Unix-based) plus Linux means all your bases are covered. Setup Mac OS and sandbox Windows and Linux in virtual machines, then use whichever OS best suits your current need. If you find later that you are mostly using Windows, or mostly using Linux, set that OS up as a default boot on its own partition.

Admittedly, you can do all I describe on a PC sans Mac OS, but even if you feel you will never use Mac OS, discounting the possibility that you might need or desire it in the future is shortsighted given Mac OS's current growth vector, especially in education. A less capable PC doesn't even necessarily cost less. I just the other day spec'd a Dell Vostro 13" against a 13" MacBook Pro and the Dell was $50 more.

So, again, hedge your bets. Buy the computer that can do Mac OS, Linux and Windows and use whichever OS you need when you need it.