Ah, so that's why Android tablets haven't been able to out-sell the Ipad, or for that matter the TurboGrafx 16 - no-one thought to try and port a non-tablet-optimised version of Android to a tablet that was designed for another OS, whose vendor has zero interest in helping. That's the secret sauce!

In fact, I hear Apple's plans for the iPad 3 are to try and get the Newton OS running on an etch-a-sketch.

I'm a rabid Apple fanboi and a temporary Android user - because I needed a cheap non-subsidised smartphone to buy me time between my 3GS dying and the 4s/5 coming out.

Now, if you want a *cheap* first hand smartphone, then it's a straight choice, Symbian or Android, and Android wins, I'm afraid. (I've owned and loved many symbian smartphones but not any that Nokia made!)

So, a quick trip to Argos and I have a ZTE Blade - the things are dirt cheap and effortless to root and install stock android on and the hardware is excellent.

Let me emphasise that - the hardware is *excellent*. Not as fast as a high-end android device, or as fast as my 4S/5 will be, but way faster than I have any right to demand considering what it cost, and more than good enough. (Interestingly I spent some time with a Galaxy S a while back and I prefer the Blade to it - although that is probably because I put stock Android on the Blade. I do miss the Samsung's big bright screen, but not much else about it.)

So it's not even as simple as there being cheap Android devices pulling te overall quality down - because you can make solid android phones at a low price - there are some sucky manufacturers out there.

No, the RIAA expect you to confess to your crimes and pay damages. What did you think they were going to do?

If you want to get 100% legal, it's simple enough. Figure out what content you can prove you have a license for; delete everything else.

Hello, is that Mitch Bainwol, CEO of the RIAA?

Hi Mitch, how's it hanging? Anyhoo, listen, I've come up with another of my brilliant business ideas. You're gonna love this one.

So, the first thing you do, you take the number one music retailer in the world. You know, the ones with enough cash in the bank to buy the whole of the recording industry. The one with a CEO who once killed a man with a spoon because the poor schmuck suggested an extra button on the iPhone. That's it - those guys. Yeah, so step one: you piss them off. Subpoena them and sue all their customers. Ruin their business. Make them real mad.

Then, for step two.... Mitch? Mitch? Are you there?

I doubt Apple has a problem with this because...er... they have explicitly said in the past that they see iOS devices as having two application frameworks available.
There's the native apps in the curated App Store, and there's HTML 5 apps accessed thru Safari. This is their answer to "I want to make an uncurated iPhone app" - make a web app.

Most dev's don't got the web app route, because it's easier to make money with a native App, but some do - often where they can't get something into the store, like Google Voice or all the porn stuff. I use two on my iPad all the time - Gmail (you get both Archive and Delete buttons, whereas in the Native mail you have to choose one of the other) and chalk from 37 signals.

My surprise at this news is more that Facebook haven't thought of this before. Their revenue is adverts and embedded games, neither of which you get with the Facebook native client on iOS. Making a web version that they can embed apps into is the obvious thing to do.

Yes, because having ideas like "lets try and get our customers sent to prison" is exactly how Steve Jobs built Apple into a $50 billion company.

Current understanding - which could be completely wrong as Apple haven't said exactly what happens - is that the copy in the Cloud will go away, but not any copy on one of your devices.

So, you won't be able to re-download it from the cloud any more, but assuming you've pulled a copy from the Cloud into iTunes before your sub expires, you could always get it from there.

Lies!

The original Android was a clone of Blackberry.

It was only after the iPhone came out that it became a clone of iOS....

Well, can you blame them? Poor old Steve, sitting hunched over the phone for hour after hour, waiting, praying, hoping that somersault will call...

"But Steve!" says Jonny. "The only sensible way to do notifications is to show a list of notifications!"
"But Steve!" says Scott. "We have to bring it up with a gesture, there's nowhere else to add a universal UI element!"

"To hell with you all!" snarled Steve. "somersault will think of a way to do it where we won't be accused of copying Android! He must think of a way!"

But in the end the call never came....

No, I'm saying that "slim and beautiful" and "easy to access internal parts" are contradictory design goals. The slimmer and more beautiful it gets, the harder it is to get at the insides, and vice versa.

There are two ways to deal with this design problem:

1) Compromise, resulting in something that excels at neither
2) Make two machines, one optimized in one direction, the other in the other.

Apple have chosen option 2, because their philosophy is not to compromise. Other manufacturers have decided 1) is the way to go. Neither party is being unreasonable. Neither is wrong. You are free to choose whichever you want. If you want a machine that a child can open, buy one, from Apple or someone else.

Let's use the hackneyed old car metaphor. "Fast and sleek" and "able to pull a caravan" are incompatible design goals. You can compromise, or make one of each. Porsche went for option 2. They make a fast and sleek car, and they make a car that can pull a caravan. You are free to choose, or to find a manufacturer who makes a car that compromises.

Because it's very, very hard to open - a consequence of it's size and appearance - so in order to dissuade people from opening it badly and breaking it, Apple have declared the disk non-user-serviceable..

If for some reason you need a Mac whose innards can be fiddled with, Apple are very happy to sell it to you a Mac Pro that is incredibly easy to open and swap out drives.

Well, iPad sales are terrifying everyone else because they don't have anything comparable. Strategies they've tried so far:

1) "In six months we'll have a product that's as good as anything Apple is selling...er...now" (Everyone)
2) "Hey, an iPad's just a big iPhone, right? So if we make a big Android phone..." (Samsung)
3) "I don't care that it's not finished, put the bloody thing in the stores right now" (Moto, RIM, and now Google it seems)
4) "We'll put it out when we're damn well ready to! " (HP)

None of these is working too well for them, they get no comfort from Apple's supply chain problems, and so their panic is increasing. Even though I'm an Apple Fanboi, I'm kinda hoping something works for them soon because I'm scared of what they might try next.

"... because I don't know what a force field is. That's because I have never watched Star Trek. That's because I am not a geek. Please sleep with me."

Samsung is a vast conglomerate of many businesses in many sectors. The people who make the phones so not share a cafeteria with the people who make the processors, and more importantly the people who make the phones don't always buy their processors from Samsung.