This is a security issue. Non-techies don't care about "browser choice". They do care about their phone not getting hacked. Just because IE6 was terrible doesn't automatically mean that a restricted browser platform is bad...it just means IE6 was bad and insecure. If you want fast JIT, WebGL, etc. then expect security restrictions.

Vendors are trying to avoid the mistakes of the past (IE6) by providing secure, restricted platforms for running web code. If they didn't and became infested with exploits, techies would be shitting all over them for THAT.

Choose one: a secure platform with a fast built-in browser that executes JIT and accesses hardware drivers but with third-party restrictions, or an insecure platform with lots of browser choice but increased opportunity for malicious exploits.

I agree Facebook was way overpriced, but I wouldn't dismiss it as a "social chit chat and picture website". It has replaced email and even the web for many people. Its value is in advertising, and Zuckerberg's goal is to replace Google as the internet's #1 advertiser. One of Facebook's problems is that mobile advertising doesn't perform as well as web advertising (which itself is on a downward trend), which is why they lowered their revenue forecast.

Another move of the goalpost. You started out by saying Apple provided hosting services for non-paid developers, and that was wrong. Now you're talking about how you can't use the APIs if you aren't approved through the store, which is incidental to the fact that you still need a paid developer membership to use the APIs in the first place, complete with signed entitlements.

You're so out of it that you don't even realize that bringing up the app store refutes your earlier argument--which you've suddenly abandoned--about users paying for iCloud's sync services through the purchase of extra disk space, because being on the app store means that not only do you have to be a paid developer, but Apple gets a cut of any purchase price. Hey, it's almost as if that money goes toward the services the app is using.

In your quest for a foothold, you've decided you're going to latch on the app store, an argument you weren't even making before. Nothing you're saying refutes the fact that one must be a paid developer to use the iCloud APIs. Whether or not the developer actually uses them is irrelevant.

That puppetmaster reveal is coming any moment now!

You're bad at this. Next.

No, because it really is irrelevant. In your attempt to scrape any last shred of a point out of your refuted argument about Apple providing iCloud services for free apps, it's the only thing you could find to stubbornly stand behind to make yourself feel right about something.

The part of iCloud we were discussing was the developer APIs, which require a paid developer membership to use. You said Apple was paying for hosting fees for apps not in the paid developer program, remember? Thought you might need a little reminder after all your goalpost-moving.

You keep going on about the fees not changing as if that somehow proves something. Apple only provides iCloud API access to paying developers; that really should be the end of the argument, but, well, you're you.

iCloud storage is free. The only purchase on the part of users is the extra storage beyond the free 5GB. iCloud is more than file storage and doesn't require any fees from users, which you keep ignoring because you don't actually have an argument at this point. You're floundering along looking for a foothold and will probably pull out some puppetmaster/trolling schtick at any moment once you realize there's no other way out.

Next.

iCloud integration is more than disk storage. The expanded disk space is irrelevant to the argument and is a separate product from the sync APIs.

It isn't irrelevant--you claimed it, and it was wrong. You're focused on user disk storage when it's only relevant to the iCloud APIs as a location for persistent stores (and even then, a highly restricted one). But iCloud is more than just an online disk drive, a point you keep ignoring.

This tangent about user backups is irrelevant. You originally said that Apple pays hosting expenses for apps from which they derive no income, but that's not true because only paid developers can integrate with iCloud. There's more to app iCloud integration than simply storing files; it's an active syncing service that pushes out to all configured devices.

And if you ship an app that doesn't use the space, someone else's will.

Another go-nowhere project from Microsoft's social research group Fuse Labs, following in the footsteps of Live Labs, a previous group that disbanded in 2010. Anyone remember Pivot? Deepfish? Listas? Photosynth? And about 10 other discontinued products.

We all know this will be swept under the rug and forgotten faster than you can say "Google Wave", but it's amusing seeing Betteridge's Law of Headlines at play in the coverage, such as this gem from Fox News: "Is this the next Facebook? Microsoft unveils so.cl social network" The best part is that the article spends its first six paragraphs definitely answering its own headline with a no. Mainstream tech coverage is barely above tabloids.

There's a bunch of raw imagery up from Cassini at the CICLOPS imaging lab site here.

iCloud's introduction date is irrelevant. Apple has a revenue stream coming from members of the developer program, and paying members are the only ones who can take advantage of Apple's online services. For instance, they're also the only ones who can use push notifications. Put two and two together.

The statement about storage allotment doesn't make sense, because if a developer doesn't use iCloud in their app because they didn't pay for the developer program, then obviously the storage will instead be used by some other app that did pay.