We've "burned" an image into several iPad2 LCD screen quite effectively. It's not horribly noticeable while the tablet is in use, but display a uniform dark/black image and it's clear that there is permanent damage. We've since started using a screensaver for that application to prevent the issue from worsening, but the damage was permanent.

It may not be the same mechanism, but the end-user result is the same.

Better, more inclusive- probably. Perfect- no. And if you're going to come up with a single statement that defines business pracitces for all time, you'd better be sure that it is perfect and without any loopholes.

That would surely just lead to a world where software companies can't compete with hardware companies, since one side has protection and the other does not. (hypothetical: Hardware-heavy companies including Apple and Samsung would have patents which could be used software-heavy companies such as Microsoft or Google. But if Microsoft wanted to enter the tablet market, they would have nothing to protect them from the hardware patents.)

Absolutely, but where do you drawn the line? A lot of the complaints about Apple here stem from the fact that Apple deliberately use a minimalist design, which can be hard to avoid without adding user-unfriendly gimmicks to the product for the pure reason of dodging patents. Should something similar to the FRAND concept exist here, identifying "essential" patents and preventing abuse?

Not a smaller cut. No cut whatsoever.

A small number of quality apps is enough to suit most users, most of the time. The difference is the lack of all those niche apps which are only needed by a few people, only some of the time. Need a security-camera app to check on your business when the alarm goes off at 3am, for whatever el-cheapo camera brand you thought was a good idea at the time? This is where a more mature app library can be noticeable.

It's the whole 1990s Windows vs Mac thing over again, but this time in reverse. If you're in love with the minority platform, the lack of apps probably won't make you change. But for someone who cares less about the platform, it's hard to give up access to those niche apps for questionable benefit.

Brighter than the sun. I wish you could turn them down without ruining the contrast.

Works fine for me and mine. I'm not saying that your experience is invalid, but it certainly isn't true for everybody.

The worst iOS update in my experience was 4.0, which turned my iPhone3G from a slightly outdated phone into an unusably sluggish phone with no real way to go back to the old performance. The OS itself was fine (and was a great improvement when used on the iPad, iPhone4, etc.) but it should never have been released as iPhone3G compatible.

Yam.

I also thought that at first, but on a second glance.. skew per clock cycle is increasing exponentially. Which is probably what they care about here?

There are two problems with this:

* Developing the first part of the game is often the bulk of the cost. Let's say that it's 70% of the work, as compared to doing a monolithic game. Since you're expecting to sell it at $2-$5 rather than $50+, you're causing a pretty hefty loss of income with quite a small loss of expense. You'd better be sure to sell lots of episodes.

* "Sequels" don't sell well. You'd need to be very well loved to bring income that compares to a monolithic game. If you're that well loved, you would have made this money by selling at the higher price anyway.

Not saying it can't ever work, but this model adds a lot of risk in a business that's already overly risky.

Agreed- however in the (distant) past we've had to do exactly this because of bugs in the driver state caching. I've also seen Cg hitting state changes fairly hard on some platforms- there was an optimisation to prevent this but it used to cause memory leaks. It can be difficult to know exactly what's going on under the hood there and you can't really blame the application developers for this without knowing the specific circumstances.