Yeah. Interns should just make coffee and run errands. How dare they give them the experience of porting an OS from one platform to another. Its outrageous!

This is just Apple keeping its options open. If Intel fails to deliver its promised low power CPUs Apple needs to know what effort would be needed to switch processor families. If it was a real strategy to move to ARM then it would have been more than a 12 week Intern project. What would be suicide for Apple would be to stuck in the PPC debacle again, ensuring OS portability is a good way to avoid that.

The apps will go where the market is. If there is a big enough market they would eat the porting costs, especially as Apple would want to make it as easy as possible. In theory, for applications that only use standard APIs, it should be as simple as checking a box in XCode and rebuilding the project.

How is this different to buying the version of Battlefield 3 that included a voucher for the first DLC for free?

I guess that was multiplayer DLC but even so the concept isn't a new one.

You sir should be a politician. You see that the results don't match your expectation so it must be the fault of the people responding.

I very rarely stream my entertainment. I buy music I want to listen to, old fashioned I know, and use my PVR for the shows I want to watch. The only exception to this are occasional dips into the BBC iPlayer when I forget to record something, or picking up NFL games that aren't broadcast in the UK. So 0-20% is a good fit for me.

Don't let my anecdotal evidence influence your pre-judgements though :)

Some of Germany's export economy is fostered by the issues with the Euro currency. The impact of the doubts on the Southern European economies (Greece/Portugal/Spain/Italy) weakens the Euro. This allows Germany's powerful economy to benefit from advantageous exchange rates when exporting. If the Euro crisis eases, or some of the weaker economies leave altogether, Germany's export advantage will dry up and their economy may run into issues of their own.

iOS didn't succeed because it had a cult following. It succeeded because it delivered a unified experience that the user could understand and one that was far superior to the smartphones of the time. Apple has then iterated on this with each release. They've held back on features that they haven't deemed ready.

The problem for companies following has been that they've had to release something with at least as many features as the current version of iOS. That makes it harder to get everything right.

We rely on a select few to carry out a number of things in society. There are a select few doctors, barristers, engineers, dentists, etc. Its the way that our society works. IMO we have too many people in IT today that are doing it because its a job rather than because they understand it. This leads to many of the issues we see in IT.

If they are going to teach anything in schools make it problem solving, which already exists as part of some mathematics curriculums but has fallen into disuse because its tricky. Improve computer literacy in a general sense. Almost all homes have networks these days, explain how that works, etc. These can be done in the abstract but with practical application. Its the abstract that the children need to learn at this age because that base knowledge will be useful regardless of vendor etc.

So if one college says that you need to have book A for a course and the equivalent course at a different college says that you have to have book B that still means that you'll keep book A? I reckon that you'd have to sell it back to the bookstore and go buy book B.

The lock-in is unfortunate. There has to be something for the publisher here though as the income per unit is going to drop. In an ideal world there would be a standard format, but we are little way off that at the moment. At times you have to be realistic, strive for the utimate but go with the possible. This is a massive change in the way textbooks will be sold and used. Apple are leading the way (again) but others will catch up. To be honest I'm disappointed, I would have thought that this would have been delivered via HTML a long time ago. The fact that we are still using proprietary electronic formats means that we've got some way to go.

All of the many complaints about the 30% that Apple take for selling through their store are indignation based on ignorance of retail practices, this includes Pete Townsend. The publisher love that Apple only charge 30% because its far less than a normal retail channel. The publishers get more per sale electronically than they would selling physical books.

To answer your second point did you watch the announcement or are you just letting your predjudice define your opinions. One of the most interesting parts of the announcement was that these books would be updated, for free, meaning that you would always have the latest version. I'm still getting updates to app purchases I made on my iPhone 3 years ago. There is no reason why this wouldn't be the case for textbooks.

On your final point, rather than getting all high and mighty about it, just think about it. Why do you sell back your expensive textbooks? Partly because they are expensive. If they are cheap enough that you don't have to sell them back wouldn't it make sense to keep the book? I guess it depends on your view of education and knowledge. I view it as a life skill, something that you add to from year to year.

In general your post, and its rating, are why I've stopped look at Slashdot as a place to influence my opinion. It is filled with small minded opinion based on the status quo. I thought as geeks we were supposed to embrace change and look to the future. As with a lot in the world it seems that this happens less and less as the years go by.

Does newer mean better? Just because something is older doesn't mean that its of less import, or value, than something that's new. This might be the case in IT, but outside it's definitely not.

I don't like the idea of a shorter copyright. What if I write a book and it takes me 10 years to find a publisher that will distribute it to the masses? Does that mean that I've used up my copyright?

Copyright is a matter for the copyright holder. It should be up to them what they do with their rights. That said the rights shouldn't be transferable. If I write a book it should be up to me how I make that available. If people don't think that its worth what I want to charge for it they won't buy it. I then get to review that and change my approach, perhaps deciding to make it freely available over the internet. The key thing is that it should be my choice. That's one of the things about the Internet. Give control back to the people. Not to enable people to distribute exact copies of my work without my consent. I know that this view won't be popular on slashdot, but once people get past the 'I want free stuffs' its the only way that creativity can be sustained.