Your points are true *if* you have to change your plan to get a new smartphone. I replaced my old smartphone with a new one and kept the exact same service plan. The only difference was whether or not they are subsidizing a new phone for me.

What, so they were too good to attach a bunch of balloons to their house and fly it away? Greedy bastards.

My thoughts exactly. For how much I use it, a new smartphone is a steal at $200, yet the monthly service fee is the same whether I have a new phone or not. So every month I sit there with an old phone is another month I am not making the carrier pay for part of a newer, better phone. And you can "subsidize" even more of that price if you can manage to sell your old phone on Craigslist for a hundred bucks.

I do tech support and staff training in K-8 schools. I've covered the whole range from complete technology immersion (1:1 student/laptop ratio) to classes that don't use computers at all.

In my time doing this job I've seen plenty of people take the attitude that there are two kinds of teachers -- those who use technology and those who suck. But even as a techie myself, I feel this is a very shortsighted opinion.

You could make the argument that, all else being equal, an environment rich in technology is more conducive to learning. But I've also seen plenty excellent of teachers who don't use computers for anything but state mandated testing, which is all online now.

As the cliche says, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Just because it makes some people more effective teachers doesn't mean it's the only way.

As someone who does IT/support for hundreds of computers daily, believe me when I say training is always an issue. People tend to memorize the exact steps necessary to complete a task, including the appearance and location of buttons. If an icon changes or a button gets moved, they don't try to intuit where it might have gone or look in menus that sound like they're related to the function they're looking for. Instead they react as if their world has been turned upside down, and they just give up and call for help.

In his keynote Jobs did say they increased the sensor size (and consequently the size of the lens.) A pixel captured on the iPhone 4's camera represents about the same physical space on the sensor as a pixel on the older iPhone.

In related news experts say Frank Zappa would have used Linux.

Agreed, GIMP vs Photoshop is actually a very valid comparison. Photoshop does have its advantages, but for many people's needs they'll both get the job done just fine. In a lot of cases they could be used interchangeably.

My thoughts exactly. The post seems a bit confused – it starts off with a slight slap-in-the-face to the iPad but concludes with a statement that this device won't have broad appeal beyond hackers. It doesn't make sense to compare those two any more than it makes sense to compare a motorcycle and a dump truck. They both have wheels and an internal combustion engine, but the similarity ends there.

I'm sorry to say Rush Limbaugh is very much alive and a Mac user. He once volunteered to appear in an Apple ad but his offer was refused, thank goodness.

Also I'm pretty sure the author of the article is smoking crack. How did this make the front page?

You're right, iPhone OS is different in that it doesn't use Google for its wifi data. Thanks for clarifying that!

On a related note: In my limited testing I found that wifi triangulation worked surprisingly well on a wifi-only iPad – provided that I was in a reasonably well-populated area of course.

Actually iPhone OS devices use wifi location too and have for quite some time. If your iPhone can't get a GPS fix, or if you have an original GPS-less iPhone, or if you have an iPod or wifi iPad, it will fall back on cell towers or wifi to determine your location. This functionality is built into the OS and works with any app that uses the location APIs.

You can't specifically enable/disable wifi location on iPhone, it's just another tool that may be used if location services are enabled but GPS is not available.

I appreciate your comments and you're right that the iPad alone isn't going to totally change the web. But it's an example. It's a sample of the way that many people may end up getting online in the near future. If millions of users are hitting major websites on touch-screen devices running Chrome OS, iPhone OS, and Android (many of them Flash-less and Java-less, and most/all of them running WebKit browsers) then yes, the web will most definitely change.

You joke, but I do think that the real difference will be how and where we use the browser. As smartphones and other mobile devices become more prevalent, the browser will be used less on the desktop and more on the couch, in the car, etc.

Some people don't like the idea that the iPad (for example) is locked down as much as it is. But that may be a blessing in disguise. If a huge chunk of web clients are locked-down devices that can only run one browser, web developers will find it harder to say that a specific browser is required. They'll have to distribute content in ways that work on all devices, rather than just pop up an alert telling the user to install XYZ Browser instead.*

* Fine, based on the way things are going they may just be able to say a WebKit-based browser is required.

I think that firewall administration has been allowed to remain shoddy because most people who aren't gamers or server admins don't need to change the settings at all. Gamers are usually obsessed enough with playing that they will take the time to figure it out. And sysadmins, well it's their job to know how to do that stuff.

This isn't an excuse for things being the way they are, but an explanation. Most people just vaguely understand that a firewall protects their computer, but they don't know any more than that and will probably never have to configure one. If the archetypal grandmother or joe six pack ever has a reason to manage firewall settings (unlikely) then an easy configuration tool will appear over night. Unless a widespread need arises, limited demand will translate to limited effort spent developing user-friendly tools.