Design, defined as the part of something we see/touch/interact with, is everything. Technologies without design are useless. For whatever reason (maybe because they don't understand humans) nerds seem to forget this. His genius went way beyond making stuff look pretty. He took the equivalent of a rock (great tech for hitting stuff!) and turned it into the equivalent of a ergonomic claw hammer. That's design.

As for closed-ness, you can make an argument that OS X/Darwin itself brought a bit of openness to the PC platform at a time when windows was, at best, highly restrictive. Steve is/was pragmatic about products and didn't give a damn one way or another, but where open genuinely works better than closed, I think they chose it. Apple has done an amazing job of picking technologies that help it reach its goal of making money for shareholders.

With the iPhone/iOS they nailed it. Apple understands just how stupid consumers are, has done an incredible job of simplifying things for them. The fact of the matter is that iOS works so well for most people because it's frustratingly closed off to those of us who would implement a bunch of half-assed hack-y apps/mods to it.

Jobs, as the leader of Apple, was absolutely brilliant. Just stop for a moment and think what the technology landscape would look like if he'd never made his comeback, let alone if he'd never started Apple. Computers before the Mac? Laptops before the iBook/Powerbook? The truly terrible MP3 players before the iPod? 'Smart' phones before the iPhone? All the miserable tablets before the iPad? Even if you hate those specific products, you have to admit that the products Apple's competitors put out as a response have absolutely improved our lives as consumers. I think his company changed the world for the better, regardless of what you think of his philosophies or personality or methods or even the specific products he brought to market.

iOS doesn't have any less functionality than any other operating system. Security *is* functionality. A single managed source for new applications *is* functionality. It's functionality that, like all functionality, comes with huge tradeoffs.

I easily spend as much time using my iPad for work as I do consuming media on it. It's not necessarily good for the sort of work we do on traditional desktops, but it's definitely become the tool I grab 95% of the time I walk out the door.

For my work it's like a very, very sophisticated clipboard or pad of paper. Drawing, note taking, marking up technical drawings during review sessions, etc. I take it with me in situations where I wouldn't dream of taking a laptop. You can't beat the battery life, unobtrusive weight/form factor, small personal space impact (laptops sitting on conference tables can be a little alienating...it's like throwing up a wall), time it takes to go from briefcase to usable, etc. Plus, it's very social in that you can pass it from person to person very easily which is maybe its killer ability in a corporate environment.

The more I see and use tablets in the wild, the more I wonder if maybe laptops are the niche product. My laptop rarely gets used as a portable machine, and when I do it's usually to do stuff that the iPad excels at (web browsing, presenting materials, taking notes) rather than working with more hardcore tools like AutoCAD/ArcGIS/Photoshop/Excel. Those heavier pieces of software that work great on a 27" LCD all feel cramped and miserable on a laptop screen. I usually put off working with them on a laptop until it's plugged back into a monitor. A laptop never really feels right being used like a desktop, but a tablet feels great because it's not trying to be something it isn't. Sadly for Apple, I doubt I'll ever buy a $2000 MacBook Pro again when a desktop/ipad combo seems to be so much more flexible for my needs.

Not being a doctor, researcher or expert in EMF fields, I gotta ask: is there a plausible explanation for why this would be? It seems to me that there are a lot of researchers out there fishing for weird correlations with cell phone use, and if you look for statistical fish long enough you're going to find something that isn't really there. Without a plausible mechanism for messing with bone density, I'd be tempted to write this one off entirely until someone else confirms it. Especially since it's the first study of its type and is a relatively small group of subjects (n=24).

Recipe for science fail: conduct 30 studies looking for some type of harm done by a random controversial bogey man. Don't publish the 29 that fail to reject the null hypothesis. Publish the one that does.

I've never heard anyone say laptops are dead, although I think *I* may not need one any longer. I'm not an Apple fanboy, but it's safe to say I'm a serious convert to the iPad.

Author misses the point or deliberately ignored it. The iPad is defined entirely by its physical simplicity. Why would I want a slot for disks when anything I want to watch or listen to can be streamed from my PC at home or from the cloud? Why would I need a terabyte of storage when I have a fast network connection back to my stockpile of data at all times? Why in the hell would I want to watch video while typing (though YES you can listen to music or internet radio while you do other things)? Why do I want to carry around 5+ lbs of machine that does everything a little bit worse than my desktop when I can carry a 1.3lb featherweight that focuses on doing what it does better than anything else while still letting you do a bit of standard computer work on the go?

If I need more battery life I'll get an external battery pack. If I need to connect a camera I'll get a $30 dongle or two. If I need output to a monitor I'll buy that dongle, too. But most people don't need any of those things. Sure it doesn't have a real keyboard, but I can still type at about 75% keyboard speed. Certainly well enough to take the notes I'll need to do my real work when I'm back in front of a desktop.

It is what it is. Whether you like the iPad or want to hold off for a decent Android tablet, the tech gods should bless Apple for what they've done. It's not a laptop, doesn't need to be and doesn't want to be. Comparing it to a laptop is missing the point BIG TIME, but that's what I'd expect from an author who doesn't own one! Laptops always have and always will feel like cramped desktops. Mine is connected to a 27" LCD 95% of the time because a 13" or 15" screen is just too damn small for the multi-windowed interface. The iPad gets around that by doing away with the desktop OS and input devices. It's tactile, paper-like experience that doesn't try to emulate a "real" computer. It can be whipped out and used while you're walking, held over your head while you're in bed, put between you and a coworker on a table to share documents or put on a table in a restaurant and used as a checker board with your kids. When you're using it for what it does well, the experience is entirely transparent and the device disappears.

Finally, hell yeah it's expensive. The thing is a little over a pound, goes 10 hours on a charge and benchmarks almost as fast as a G5 processor from a few years back. It's beautifully designed in a way few other consumer products are. It has a fancy capacitive multutouch IPS display you can see from any angle rather than a turd TN monitor. The funny thing about the iPad compared to other Apple products is that it's a steal. No one who buys an iPad 2 is going to get it home, use it for a week, and thing that they got anything other than an absolutely amazing value for their money.

For what it's worth, I can type on the iPad almost as fast as on my desktop. I have to look at the keyboard a bit while I do it, but I can take notes faster on the ipad than on paper, and I've only had it a week. After some time setting it up so I can access all my documents and media from the tablet, I haven't felt the need to use my laptop since buying it. Obviously it's not a full blown desktop, but it's incredible if you think of it as simply a window to content. It's definitely going to replace the gigantic reams of paper I used to carry around to meetings, replace all my paper auto repair manuals and be the end of hauling a laptop around as a multimedia device. Like the iPhone (and later Android/WebOS stuff), it's a device that truly opens up a lot of possibilities that weren't there before and developers are only getting started with it. It's just going to take a while for people to figure out exactly what its strengths and weaknesses are.

Engineering is about taking old solutions to problems and tailoring them to fit a unique case. The best part of engineering is, at least in my mind, about finding the most direct route to a sufficiently robust solution. Sometimes you need a mass-producible widget that works 99.999% of the time, sells for $500 and only costs $1.25 to make. Sometimes all you want is a collection of stick and twine that will hold together long enough to let you climb over those pesky prison walls.

True. My early-'07 MBP will probably still net me $700 or so on ebay, which goes a long ways towards the purchase of a new one. It's still a roughly $1300 loss over 3 years, but given how much time I use my laptop, it seems silly to worry about the price too much. It works out to around $20-$40 per month to own an Apple, compared to maybe $15-$35 for an equivalent Dell. It's worth ten extra bucks a month to me. I like running OS X without all the minor issues I get with my hackintosh netbook. I like the minimalist design and consistency from generation to generation. I like how solid they feel compared to most other laptops. I've had good experience with their customer service. And OF COURSE it's a bit of a fashion accessory. I don't buy $5 dress shirts or drive a used Aztek, either.

You know, here's the problem: it's still the best mobile device. Period. You can bitch all you want, but I don't know anyone who has purchased one and decided to sell it for a Pre or G1 or anything else. Any geek that uses one knows the app store approval process is HUGELY problematic, but what am I going to do? If I were a developer, I'd still want access to its user base. As a user, I still want access to its unbelievably nice hardware and awesome apps. The whole thing pisses me off, but I'd rather get screwed by Apple than switch to something with nowhere near the user experience. And yeah, I realize I sound like a woman in an abusive relationship.

Right. At some point a bunch of congressmen sat down and decided the most logical thing to do would be to put in some tax loopholes to keep those multinationals here. Right.

In the real world, what actually happened was that some lobbyists drafted a bill that a congressman put forward, and then everyone voted 'aye' because they were scared of loosing campaign donations. Also in the real world, there's a fair bit of evidence that companies headquarter in places with the deepest talent pools, regardless of local tax rates. I think if you look at states with high tax rates, you'll see that they also contain a fair number of large businesses.

I don't think you really addressed the compromise or reasonableness aspect of this.

Apple wants DRM free stuff and RIAA doesn't. Apple stuffs personal info in there so there will be some accountability should the file get P2P'd. Sounds like compromise to me.

As far as reasonableness? Your scenarios sound pretty darn unlikely. Almost as unlikely as someone stealing my iPod with my contact info in it, then deliberately leaving it at the scene of a murder in order to frame me. Or maybe space aliens will steal the music on my iPod and accidentally broadcast it back to Earth. NASA will pick it up, magically determine the email address associated with it, send spooks to pick me and perform experiments on me for the rest of my life.

Not all gamers feel the need to learn the intricacies of each game they play. I used to have hours and hours to dedicate to a game to 'get better' but now it's virtually impossible to find extended periods of time when I can play without having a toddler trying to help me push buttons. Most of my gaming is short duration, iPhone or Flash games, emulated console games that I can freeze/thaw so that I can pick it up EXACTLY where I left off, etc.

The best games for me are ones where things keep flowing along or happen in nice tidy chunks. I want to experience what the developer put together in the short time I've got to play, but if I'm punished constantly and made to replay the same piece over and over, I'll give up long before I get to see all of the marvels of the game's world.

WRT inexperienced gamers, I think they're worth listening to. They're a lot more interested in 'fun' rather than overcoming never ending frustration. Hardcore gamers never seem to be able to get the same sort of glee out of something like Katamari Damacy or Guitar Hero. They're way too jaded. :)