It's not that the rule is applied inconsistently, it's that you don't understand what the rule is. The rule is you pay apple 30% if the thing being sold can be used in the app. Doesn't matter if it's a subscription that you can ALSO use online elsewhere, if it's usable in the app, you pay 30%. A burrito can not be used in an app. Dropbox storage can. A subscription to Office365 can.

Well, you don't have to do that any more. Remember the whole "PC Free" thing from a year or two ago? You can update the OS, apps, whatever, on the device itself, and use iCloud for backup. If you ever have to reset the device for some reason it will just redownload everything automatically once you put in your iCloud login. As long as your kids' iPods can run iOS 5 or later, you never need to connect to iTunes ever again.

That's exactly how iTunes has always worked. With iCloud you no longer have to sync. With iTunes 11, purchased-but-not-on-computer items show up in the library just like any other content, but with an iCloud logo.

Why are you syncing a visitor's phone with your iTunes library?

Set your phone to "Manage manually" instead of Library sync. Then you can just drag and drop stuff onto it. No more syncing weirdness. Syncing is for people with a small amount of music that will fit neatly on one device. If you buy new things on the phone or on the computer, it doesn't matter, they will always be exact mirrors of each other after syncing (and with iCloud, you don't even necessarily have to sync any more).

You're basically correct. PDF stands for *PAGE* description format. It is intended to specify exactly how big the page is, and where all the elements go on it. epub/mobi and similar e-reader formats are mainly HTML/CSS inside, so they can reflow just like any other web page.

Seriously, that's the best you got? You can right click on the trackpad by two finger tapping or clicking in the - wait for it - lower right corner. Or holding down control, not function. Forward delete on my Macbook is Fn-Delete. My full size aluminum keyboard has a dedicated forward delete key. iTerm, which I use instead of Terminal, has auto-copy on highlight. You could certainly assign middle click to that if you wanted. I prefer auto-copy. I spend 70% of my work day in iTerm ssh'd in to remote CentOS VMs so I'm picky about my terminal functionality and I've never found the Mac wanting.

I personally think that is a great idea. It's not like it's exactly hard to launch the unsigned app. (Right click and choose Open. And you only have to do it once, it will launch normally every time after that.)

I will buy this game the instant there is a native OS X version available. Loved the first one but I don't have any Windows machines any more and I'm not messing around with virtualization or whatever just for a game.

What about bandwidth? What about support? What about being able to be up and running on a new box in a few minutes when the old one takes a dump? You are totally missing the point of cloud services like this. It's not supposed to compete with your desktop machine.

The development tools for Mac OS X/iOS are free. You don't need to pay $99/year if you just want to learn/tinker. You can run iOS apps on the Simulator on your Mac. You can't run on a hardware iOS device without paying $99/yr. If my daughter was seriously that interested in programming I would pay the $99 in a heartbeat! Do you know how much enrichment classes generally cost? Sorry, there may be arguments about why Apple is a crappy developer ecosystem but the price of the dev tools is not one of them.

You can download music, videos, apps from the iTunes store on the phone while out and about. You don't need to be connected to a computer. Remember the whole "PC Free" thing Apple was promoting last year? You don't really need to connect an iDevice to a desktop ever any more.

I make this all the time and it is fantastic. And I hate any other form of kale. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aarti-sequeira/massaged-kale-salad-recipe/index.html

You should know better. Obj-C is dynamic, you can create selectors at runtime.

Excuse me, are you from the past? You realize that mobile devices are shipping right now that can get something like 44Mb/sec down? One of the guys in my office just demoed his new iPad on LTE getting 44/20Mb/sec. Even my iPhone on AT&T's crappy oversubscribed 3G network in San Francisco can regularly pull 1Mb.