They still don't make sense. The battery life and touch screen have been improved, the OS is arguable, but the hardware is no less bulky. A tablet really isn't any more portable than a laptop. If you want to bring it anywhere, you need to carry it in the same sort of bag you'd use for a laptop.

More importantly, tablets still don't fill a role other than "electronic toy". Unless you're using it to simulate a board game or a clipboard, literally everything a tablet does can be done instead with a smartphone and/or a laptop, equally well or better, for the same price or less.

The reason tablets failed before was that they weren't being marketed by Apple. But even Apple can't keep this going indefinitely.

Absolutely... and that form factor will be "fits into a pocket". Unless there's a serious change in pants design, those devices won't be tablets.

The way I see it, the only value of scrobbling is to get better personalized streams. I don't see the point of uploading all that data just so you can review it later on a web page.

Agreed, but a list of recommendations isn't very useful on its own. I've been using Last.fm for years specifically because it uses my music tastes to introduce me to new music by playing it. If I just want a web page that says "since you like Band X, you should try Band Y", I can post on a forum and get answers from actual humans.

And I thought the opposite. Why would you give Last.fm all that information about your listening habits if they weren't going to give you recommendations in return?

After I saw this announcement, I turned off scrobbling. If they're done giving me free streams, I'm done giving them free data.

You say that as if they actually tried advertising and their users complained. But they didn't, they went straight from "free" to "subscription required".

The problem might be that they can't figure out how to put ads in their mobile apps. If their programmers are really that talentless, that could also explain why there are so many complaints about the Android app being unstable.

Indeed. Those buttons seem to have disappeared from the whole site.

Yes, please do! I've got no problem with the conclusion that most desktop users prefer what they get from Windows (compatibility with familiar software and nearly all new hardware, a decent UI, paid support from a well-known company and free support from all their geek friends) rather than what they'd get from Linux (open source, security, lots of rough edges) or OS X (ultra-smooth UI, conspicuous consumption).

Well, that's the inference you're making from my comment, but honestly I have no idea how you got that out of what I wrote. Perhaps you meant to direct this paragraph to the GP instead?

The GP posed a choice between an Android-style arrangement (install whatever you want, at your own peril) and an iPhone-style arrangement (less flexibility = less ability to screw it up), with the implication that the latter is preferable, and I pointed to market share as evidence that most people seem to prefer the former. I think those people are smart and are choosing right.

That's one carrier. Samsung (for instance) sells a version of the Galaxy S for all four major US carriers, and even though the AT&T version is crippled, that didn't stop them from making un-crippled versions for the other three. Microsoft and their partners could do the same if that were really the concern.

That doesn't make any sense, because those carriers all have Android phones already. Where were the concerns about side-loading when they added those?

Scenario #1 is basically Android. Scenario #2 is basically iPhone. If you want to know which scenario most people want, check out the latest market share reports.

Android just overtook iPhone in U.S. market share. That's how.