Most apps, if developers follow the proper guidelines, should be resolution-agnostic. But realistically there still would be many cases where that's an issue. I remember reading Samsung was reaching out to developers to fix some of those cases.

That's an artificial limitation imposed by Google on their partners, not a technical one. Anyone can buy an Android phone, put it in the "airplane mode" or otherwise turn off the radios, turn on wifi, enjoy.

I don't know which "beginning" you are referring to, but Android was released on the market to compete against what was at the time iPhone OS.

No, it was iPhone OS before it was iOS.

Also, with the advanced operating systems today, such as iOS and Android, it doesn't matter what their original release device or the intended device was. They are both equally flexible enough to be adjusted to and support multiple different resolutions, architectures, and other hardware.

What makes more sense is that Android started gaining traction at a much higher rate than Google initially anticipated. So, Android may be stepping into Chrome OS territory with tablets. However, Google still wants to give Chrome OS a legitimate shot. Maybe they think they can repeat what they did with Android. I think it's going to be hard.

Refund from who? Retailers will tell you they have posted signs everywhere they don't refund open box CDs/DVDs/software. Some even make you sign that statement when you make a purchase. Manufacturer (software author) will tell you they didn't perform any business transaction with you and don't owe you anything. If the post-sale single-sided "we'll take your firstborn son" click-through EULAs are legally binding contracts, you - the consumer - don't have many options besides not buying software (or any products containing software) which is known to have an EULA.

Moreover, after this ruling, if you buy such software, agree to the EULA (because otherwise it's a shiny coaster), and you find the product doesn't meet your needs or expectations, you can't even delete it from your device and give/sell it to your friend or neighbor because the court says the EULA has turned you into a "licensee," and the transaction formerly known as "sale" has been negated and overridden by such EULA.

In fact, let's go one step further - I'd like to see these types of licenses on books, periodicals, DVDs, etc. where you agree to the EULA when you tear it open; and as soon as you do that the first sale doctrine goes out the window. I'd also like to see how libraries will be "licensed" books at a different rate than the retail price because the library license would allow multiple viewings. In fact, you could even charge a nominal monthly licensing fee to the libraries.

If you go even one step further, you could sell cars with software EULAs; so that you can't sell your car because your car contains critical software to which you are just a "licensee" and since you can't transfer the car ownership without transferring the software you can't do it at all - or we'll take the standard 30% cut on approved sales, thank you! Come to think of it, most electronic products have some sort of software in them (TVs, DVD/Bluray players, microwave ovens, telephones, alarm clocks, air conditioners, etc., etc.). Wouldn't all manufacturers like to have a choke hold on second hand sales? Sure, just claim it in your software license!

That's why I said "arguably." In either case, the point is not which one is better; I used BB browser merely to draw a parallel in functionality.

The point is Apple still doesn't allow 3rd party real web browsers that would be comparable to the default iOS webkit browser. And Opera Mini is not an example of this.

Opera Mini is not a "normal" web browser. It renders mostly static web pages that are encoded in a custom format going through and translated and compressed by Opera's proxy servers. In functionality, it is similar to BlackBerry's standard (not the new webkit) web browser but arguably a bit "better."

It still doesn't sound like Apple would allow any real alternative web browsers through its app store.

No, it's not an exception because webkit browser was provided/preinstalled by Apple. It didn't have to go through the 3rd party app approval process. 3rd party web browsers (no, Opera mini is not a normal web browser) are still not allowed. Actually, you could say Opera Mini is an exception.

The reason "no download" rule is there is to prevent alternative ways of distributing apps, effectively bypassing iTunes app store. This was the original intent of those restrictions anyway. They just went overboard with them, now they backpedaled but that major restriction is still in place.

Or, more likely, they'll see this play out first. If Sony wins, or settles out of court for some pocket change, they'll start doing the exact same thing - "hey, we didn't know we could get away with this."

So, if "vast majority" of Toyota owners no longer use cassette tape players, it would then be OK for Toyota to single-handedly rip them out when such cars are taken into scheduled maintenance? After all, it's a "non-issue" to most people, right?

The fact is - it was advertized and sold as a feature of PS3. Certain people bought it, in part, because it had that feature. It's unfair to remove it after sale. Just because you may not care, doesn't make it OK or legal to do. In fact, with that logic, they can remove other features like their Internet browser, or image gallery, or CD player, or disable USB ports just because they no longer see it as "cost effective" to keep it for you. How many of those features would they have to remove before you notice something is wrong?

This is absurd - saying that everyone is apparently dumb and they can't tell two distinct words apart; and all because some mega-jackpot company wants to have exclusive trade rights to a common word forever. Coca-Cola failed at defending "Cola" as a trademark, yet I don't see people panicking and running around in confusion because they can't tell Pepsi-Cola apart from Coca-Cola and countless other Colas out there. And, "Cola" was not even a common dictionary word at the time, unlike the "book".

So, please stop insulting everyone for the sake of this nonsense argument.

You are underestimating how many people sit down in the movie theater or in front of a TV, let their minds go blank, and just let the show take them on a ride. It's like a roller-coaster (but a mental one) - if you look at it from outside you may know what to expect, but most people are not in it to analyze or evaluate it, they are just enjoying the ride. So, no, I bet most people didn't think of Pocahontas while they were watching Avatar and they let their minds fully absorb whatever suspense the show gave them.

It looks like it will have the GPS. If you look at their teaser site, one of the pictures they flash through there shows the navigation screen. And they also advertize "navigation" as one of its features with moving/focusing words towards the end of the video.

That's right. In fact, Steve Jobs has scheduled a press conference later today demonstrating that, contrary to NASA's claim, this has nothing to do with Apple specifically. He will show pictures of moons from other planets that experience the same "shrinkage" if you look at them in a certain way. Sources familiar with the situation say the moons in the demo will resemble other fruits including different berries. YouTube videos will follow the press conference.

The phrase "net neutrality" has a moderately good chance to become a political term, much like "global warming". Since FCC has been effectively shut out by the courts, at the end it may come down to 2 possible outcomes:

1. Congress passes a law that regulates ISPs to serve "legal" content in a reasonable way; "political" and "charitable" content may also get a special treatment; they'll probably also mandate some sort of snooping, logging, filtering (or banning), and reporting since RIAA and MPAA will probably "help" draft the bill.

2. ISPs are not regulated in any significant way - they have special deals with high-bandwidth high profile providers; this is likely to negatively affect competition since the upstart "small guy" with great ideas, in addition to his bandwidth and hosting, now has to pay ISPs nationwide (maybe worldwide) to deliver his content and fight against the established "big guys" who may, in turn, try to coerce those same ISPs to keep the little guys from competing.

Hmm... which one to support...

How can you call this "security" even if you trust every word they say? E.g. in order to prevent this new USB exploit, if they simply claim they "can't fix" the software bug would it be OK for them to disable the USB ports in the next firmware update altogether? Too bad you used them to charge controllers, copy pictures from camera, etc.?

Security should refer to the product and the features you have. If you throw away the product and/or remove its core features it's not security of that product, because it's not the same product: what if they disable the Internet browser in the name of "security," then image gallery, then media functionality, how about the bluray player too? How much of the features would they have to remove before you say - hey, I'm not going to call it "makes sense from a security standpoint" anymore because it doesn't do what it claimed it would when I bought it?

Irrelevant because you didn't address anything I said.

Apple's HTML standards compliance has no bearing on whether it does, or in the future will, expose full OS APIs to web/HTML "apps" via its browser, and have both features and speed comparable to locally compiled apps.

HTML5 "apps" != Compiled apps; there's nothing in the HTML standard saying you must support 3D acceleration, multi-touch, gyroscope, front-facing (or any) camera, accelerometer, or compile your javascript to native binaries. And there's certainly no standard way, HTML or otherwise, of doing any of the above (and many others), no matter how often anyone tries to say otherwise. The closest thing to this was Palm's WebOS, but even in that case they had to provide "PDK" (their native development kit) to take full advantage of the device.

Flash, on the other hand, could expose any available API to Flash apps, and compete more closely to local apps; while at the same time attempting to abstract those APIs cross-platform - e.g. across iOS, Symbian, WP7, and Android devices.

And, adding insults don't really help your point either, just makes it look unintelligent.