Pre-emptive multitasking only governs the CPU resources; the iPhone only has 256 MiB of RAM. I think that in their implementation the App archives its data such that it can be quickly re-opened. An app not rewritten to support that would work as they currently do, where the App has to boot up each time it's opened. That isn't terrible, and other companies would probably let the market sort it out, but Apple wants a seamless experience.

Pro: Better memory management.

Con: Not automatic.

I'm pretty sure that they found that the display was half of the weight. If the battery were the entirety of the opposite side, then an 8-hour battery would only cut down the weight by 10%, which is a slight improvement, but not enough in my opinion.

The wittiest insult.

I did not say that the iPhone hardware did not change, but that done correctly upping the screen resolution should be transparent for most current apps.

Apps that are not games should require almost no modification. They are mostly comprised of built-in widgets which, if Apple did things right, would scale correctly to the higher resolution and not need to be modified. It is true that you can cram more stuff onto the display with a higher resolution, but you don't want to. The alleged resolution is almost the size of the original iMac, but you wouldn't want to cram a desktop UI onto a phone. I would hazard that the most important aspect of designing a UI is the physical size. Games probably would require tweaking, because they rely on original graphics which would need to be updated to the higher resolution.

I brought in aspect ratios and screen size because those require much more work on the UI (although in many cases the change can be easy) and don't lend themselves to automatic translation. Any app that was written for the original iPhone will still work on current versions, and most likely future versions better than they did on the original. An app written for a long aspect ratio doesn't necessarily translate well to a different one which is stubbier. An app written for a 2.8" screen will look stretched on a 3.7" screen and one written for a 3.7" screen could be unreadable on a 2.8" screen. Actually porting the app to the separate screens could be very easy, but it's not something that could be done automatically very easily.

All of this hinges on whether Apple does a good job on the transition though. If they do pixel doubling like they did on the iPad then being resolution aware would be a must. Done correctly though, multiple resolutions can be done transparently. A good example is the handling of the GPS (which you stated was a compatibility issue). The Core Location framework uses the GPS if available, but can fall back onto approximation by Cell Towers and WiFi hotspots.

Assuming that the screen is the same physical size, would there be any reason to resize the GUI for existing apps? Your fingers haven't changed size.

It's much harder to translate a GUI between different aspect ratios than to just up the resolution. If Apple increased the resolution on the built in widgets, then existing applications would look the same as they do on current hardware but sharper.

Honestly, what changes would you make to the layout if the resolution was higher? Even though we can put books onto microfiche, we still print them onto paper. An increased resolution can make it easier to distinguish between widgets, but with hardware as small as a phone no radical changes to the layout are really necessary. The only major problem for current apps will be custom icons and widgets that haven't been scaled up to the higher resolution.

The problem with different Android devices are the different aspect ratios like 3:4 or 3:5 and different physical screen sizes like 2.8", 3.2" and 3.7". The iPhone will most likely always be 2:3 and 3.5"

I agree, paying for regular small things doesn't fit into the insurance model.

However, I think that it would be handy in terms of prevention. It would be like investing in the health of the person. Perhaps if I called it a subsidy rather than insurance, it would make more sense. It would raise the price of insurance by the amount you suggest, but only if the vaccine had no effects. If encouraging everybody to take the flu vaccine lowered the incidence of serious complications, then the total cost for health insurance might go down.

A similar example would be a policy that my car insurance company had. If new drivers took a class or kept a log while driving then their rates would go down. In that case they were lowering costs by trying to make people better drivers. In the case of health insurance, encouraging people to live more healthy or get vaccinated (for example) would lower the chance of serious complications.

Overhead is a problem though, and I don't know how much of a hassle it is. I'm young and thus haven't had to deal with health insurance at all. I would think that if a provider guaranteed that everyone they covered could get a vaccine, and had an efficient method for the vaccine distributer to check that it was covered (e.g. a credit card sort of deal) then I think that overhead could be minimal. I have no experience in this regard though, so overhead could mandate that small expenses shouldn't be paid for.

Summary: I was taking more about health care by subsidy rather than insurance.

I disagree on the point that common things shouldn't be covered under insurance.

The reason is that if prevention cost money then people are more likely to take risks. For example, getting a cold isn't life threatening for most people and thus they are unlikely to get vaccinated. However if more of the population were to get vaccinated then the total incidence of colds would go down and help the people who are threatened by colds. If it's free to get a shot, then more people will consider getting a shot.

Granted it's more persuasive prevention than insurance, but lumping them together could bring down the total cost of healthcare

One option you missed is requiring insurance providers to offer the same plan at the same price to everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions. Obviously it isn't the best solution, but that combined with the requirement to buy insurance (and subsidies if those who don't qualify for Medicaid are found to not be able to afford a decent plan) should provide insurance for all people.

Upside: maintains a market which many people think is necessary. Personally I would rather have a single-payer system like Medicare (I'm somewhat of an idealist) which could have much lower overhead (Medicare I've heard does a good job, though there's always the possibility of people screwing it up) than a market system. However, people are much more willing to undergo small change and at least on Slashdot the majority are suspicious of the government.

Note: Medicare is single-payer in that all seniors are covered by it. There are other options, but they're bought in addition to Medicare.

The manufactures aren't trying to destroy Android, but the negligence is sure to stunt its growth. As long as Android is free and provides a good tech demo companies will continue to use it to sell the newest version of their phone.

Without a more cohesive foundation it will probably stagnate though. The same thing happened with Linux; 'the year of the linux desktop'. Linux has survived not because of market viability but because technical people liked it. It still doesn't have more than a couple percent of marketshare (in the consumer market.) Android has an advantage in that smartphones are more integrated platforms than desktops, and people expect less expandability, but each smartphone will be a part of the manufacturers brand, rather than the Android brand. On a fragmented market it's much more difficult to deliver expanded functionality in the form of applications to consumers. It will be more like the crappy java games that you'd see on old phones than the market for desktop software.

It's a new concept for phone companies though, and they'll probably start updating the OS once they get used to it. If they don't though, Android will probably see a limited success.

The perennial issue that always crops up when gender issues are discussed is the fact that men and women are different.

Yes, what you're saying is entirely true. The problem however is that the discussion is always left at that and never explored further. The difference may be due to inherent differences, but using that as the default answer is just as disingenuous as saying 'God did it' and leaving it at that. A historical example could be the wide gap in participation in sports, which has changed along with societal attitudes.

A similar statement to yours could be made as such: It's almost like whites and blacks are well, different!

Never underestimate cultural values, as humans are social creatures.

I don't think your examples are quite accurate. For emacs + console + PDF you want to see all of them at the same time, rather than hidden behind tabs. I think a more apt metaphor would be frames where the sides of applications stick together: that would be much more handy. Groups of app already have tabs—they're called workspaces.

Tabs work well in browsers because you don't need interoperability between webpages that often. Somebody will find a use for attaching apps together, but that feature isn't the revolutionary bit; tabs for every application for free is.

I agree with you, having used macs while growing up (System 7) so bear with me when I say that

OS 9 totally let you tab windows (look in the bottom right)

(Not quite the same thing I know, but that cosmetic similarity would be enough for some people to claim ownership.)

Letting the number of workspaces dynamically expand and contract would probably lead me to frustration. Currently I have 2 desktops that are static (web browsing and music) and 2 that are dynamic (for any two projects I'm working on at the moment). Whenever I want to look something up or change my music I know which space they're in, kind of like muscle memory. To use the desktop metaphor, I have a spacial picture of where things should go (i.e. soda is always in the same place.) Adding additional workspaces is just enough work that it isn't easy enough to accidentally do, and not hard enough to be adverse to doing. Frankly, I'm never working on more than two things at one time though. However, what would probably be the best would be the ability to save workspaces and then load them up again, much like OmniWeb and Opera allow you to do with browsing sessions.

On an evolutionary timescale the opposite seems to be happening though. I can't remember exact numbers , but the difference in size based on gender have been decreasing since about the time of Australopithecus (I think from males being 50% larger to around 10 or 20% larger than females, I read the article a while back). While the size differential can be very noticeable in some culture groups, the genetic change for humans as a whole is probably less concrete. For example, dogs have a wide variation in body size, but if you interbreed them then after a few generations you'll get a mongrel with a fairly average body size and shape.