*Morse code. Named after Samuel Morse.

Good. And they profited from that investment. Why should they be allowed to have the whole market to themselves and sit on their laurels? Do you not believe in competition?

So... because Apple took the risk and profited insanely from it at the beginning, they get a monopoly on it? I'll bet Henry Ford would have loved to keep anyone else from making black vehicles, especially if they had spoked wheels.

Design patents are a new concept, and they're detrimental to the industry and society as a whole. There's no pressure to improve if you don't have any competition.

Besides... it's not as if Apple has stolen major design paradigms from Android. Notification bar? OTA updates and backups? Voice commands?

Yeah... people go with the Samsung because they're confused and think it's an iPad. It's been proven over and over again that knock-offs INCREASE the market share for the originals. Unless Samsung actually made a better device than Apple, and now Apple is just behaving in an anti-competitive manner.

It's not as if Apple hasn't stolen things wholesale, either: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU

They just lie about it better.

Apple just hasn't gotten around to suing the other companies yet. Samsung is the biggest threat, so they're trying to cut the head off the snake. It's not like Apple steals liberally from Android, either... biggest bunch of hypocrites. They do good design, but they take liberal inspiration from other products and then somehow convince their faithful that they're unique. They execute well, but they don't design in a complete vacuum.

Because fashion changes. That's how things go. Apple is a fashion leader, but having a monopoly on any "style" of design is just... stupid. Or should Ferrari be the only car company that can design supercars, because they were the first?

Apple steals liberally from competitors (iOS5 status bar and wireless updates and sync, anyone?), and then sues them when the opposite happens. How do you arrive at your conclusion?

You sure are demanding and lazy, aren't you?

You obviously haven't worked with many doctors and their computer problems.

As it should be. But if your machine is the one that starts spamming the network with a new virus, then you should also be the one run up the pole, not IT.

I've found a lot of it goes down to the disconnect from hardware. I've met WAY too many developers that'll just allocate more RAM rather than understand WHY they have to keep doing so, and what the performance implications are, especially on lesser hardware or when the dataset grows beyond their testing data set and hits the production data set.

I'm in a similar position, but it's a really small company. So I was actually hired on with the intention of me being a part-time sysadmin. I actually like it like that, being able to do stuff other than just development all the time. Wearing many hats makes me happy, but I realize that I'm in the minority usually.

And those are still a pain in the ass. An audio adapter of some sort to your music player or phone is much handier, and removes another device from the chain. I personally just use Bluetooth A2DP to my car stereo, which removes yet another cable.

It's not hard to rip movies, and once you do it once you're done... it's something you can just go check every now and then and swap disks when necessary while you're doing something else. Kinda like doing the laundry.

Not specifically with the computer, but getting systems/cables set up for presentations or work in a new location. It's pretty handy when you're a consultant. I sure as shit don't miss the work, though.