Was that the idea, really? Read it again. We all apparently need to distinguish between what "THE" idea is, and what we think things she be in our own heads. Click the link after "Apple signed an agreement", and then read this part:

"Which is the agreed common interface? On the basis of the Micro-USB interface, the companies have agreed to develop a common specification in order to allow for full compatibility of chargers and mobile phones. These specifications have been translated in European standards. N.B.: The agreement allows for the use of an adaptor.

Sure... its "baby" steps, but there have been an ENORMOUS amount of proprietary charges out there. I've also gotten angry that even the ones that are USB compatible seem to modulate something about what they're doing so that the cable doesn't work with anything other than the charger that ships with the device (re: HP Touchpad, etc). Sometimes its a voltage limitation, but that's where standards help. Got a cable? Great... use any charger. That... is THE idea. Don't hault innovation by putting a constraint on how big, what shape, and how many pins the adapter should have. But, let's get everyone on board first with how you get power to the cable or adapter.

Fractions of the price? It will be very, very awesome to see that. Competitors have had many, many months now. Are you going to wield carrier subsidized prices as evidence of this "fraction of the cost", or am I to believe from your comments that other manufacturers will actually offer comparable WiFi Android tablets? Also, will consumers need to hack Android Market onto these tablets, or will there be some other type of store available for app distribution? And what about Google's Chrome strategy? Questions, questions. Still. It would be awesome to see a sub-$500 capacitive multitouch tablet device with WiFi, running Android (or something really nice, other than iOS). Rational people have to admit Apple has really stumped them though.

The techie community is a little "weird" on the notion of "OPEN". I'd have to read this news more closely, but on first blush, my first thoughts would turn to things like Numbers and Pages. But, ironically, when you look closely, BOTH Numbers and Pages are XML based bundles of media and not proprietary binaries like Adobe's FLA format, the specification for which it does not share. I imagine the MAIN concern, would be being STUCK using a certain piece of software because the file formats cannot be exchanged or read from. Ironically, Apple chose to use an "open" format like AAC, but then applied DRM on top of it to satisfy content holders. Same with its use of MP4 and ePub for sold content. Apple would just as soon NOT protect these formats, but the publishers require that they do. It's pretty clear Apple doesn't care about "lock-in". It simply happens. In the case of consumers, they care about people being able to download good, compelling content... which requires they offer DRM. In the case of developers, they want to create the least complicated environment for developing new technologies... so, people need to use their computers. They tried to put their solutions (like iTunes & Safari) on Windows, with mixed results (many Windows users dismiss these efforts). Allowing ANY old dev environment to create software for managed environments like iOS would be very messy. Much like Android's admirable, but generally haphazard and undependable results in the marketplace.

Before you runaway with your assumptions... let's review. Sticking with THIS STORY, you're saying that you do not believe it is possible for someone to sell an app on the Internet, that allows you to view offline images of political satire Apple does not wish to carry.

I think you're absolutely wrong, and that if the cartoonist in this story wanted to sell essentially gallery app online and allow customers to download the app to their iPhone for full-screen offline usage... they certainly could.

Apple certainly created this scenario whereby they could make an uprecedented opportunity for developers turn into a liability and indictment on free-speech. As our media convergence happens, I expect to see iPhone OS on more device categories. Until I see XBox, PS3, Nintendo, and others opening up for all comers and content... I think things are decidedly imbalanced in terms of the degree of judgement being paraded around.

They'll certainly be OPEN to the criticisms, but I think those criticisms are without merit. Even as a corporation, Apple has every right to create the type of environment their customers expect. If customers want something more "open" they can switch to Android and download MiKandi. If MiKandi (or something else) really took off on the Android platform, Google would need to make a decision about it.

Exactly. Unfortunately, its "deplorable" that anyone thinks "their definition" of "perfectly acceptable" should overrule everyone else (especially the ones who bare responsibility for what they sell). It's clear Apple is less interested in "blocking" or "surpressing" Flore, and more interested in not arbitrarily enforcing the same clause in their developers agreement.

Your vague and open concept of censorship is very dangerous and ridiculous.

Here's my question. .. You open a medium sized family store, where your customers can buy a generous array of merchandise that you find to by morally edifying and provide significant value. You move about 30-40 items a day, and your store does over $5,000 in revenue every week. One day, someone comes to you asking you to carry their Porn magazine. They insist that they have an audience in your community, and show you their sales figures. You decline. Next week, they bring a number of protesters by your store to picket you for censoring them.

Who's free speech is being violated? Should EVERY store be forced to carry EVERY product anyone offers? Does the delivery mechanism matter (physical vs. digital)? If I was a neo-nazi, and advocated racism, should I be able to ensure my work is placed in Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Shaws super market?

The store who wants to choose what they stock for customers, or the company selling adult magazines that feels you should stop blocking their product?

If Apple put a filter into Safari that prevented you from creating homepage buttons that link to adult material or controversial websites... and then blocked you from accessing certain urls, and actively analyzed your photo library and prevented you from viewing images it determined were obscene... THAT would be censorship. Without a doubt.

Choosing to only carry certain types of material in the App Store is editorial discretion.

Customers can actively lobby for Apple to provide this material in their stores, arguing that they are underestimating demand and overestimating the negative effect of carrying such products to their brand. But, that's about it. Arguing censorship is a red herring for forcing companies to abandon their brand equity in favor of some naive notion of "free society" that has never been true.

@soppssa A lot of your commentary is riddled with inaccuracies, or else it would be interesting perspective. I mean, to just take one example... are you not aware of "free ware" in the App Store? Didn't Apple just introduce the iAd platform to help "keep free apps free"? There's a lot else I could comment on, but seriously? The less accurate your comments are, the more irrelevant they are over time when the facts bear out.

You, unfortunately, are the one warping history... so much you took my laundry list of innovative iPad features and somehow came up with "one feature". How bizarre.

iPad - 0.5", 1.5lbs. 9.7-inch screen (diagonally), 7.5" x 9.5" in dimension. LED backlit, multitouch capacitive display with IPS technology and oleophobic coating. Wireless 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, built-in speaker & microphone, accelerometer /w screen-lock button, ambient light sensor, and digital compass. 10 hour battery life. Fully multi-touch-capable OS. If you find a device that matches or beats all of those specs for $499 or less... trust me, everyone will say "iPad what?"

"When the HP slate comes out--" Seriously, do you hear yourself? I'm looking forward to it to, but don't make any predictions, buddy. No specs. No price. No FCC. No hands-on. No pre-orders. I'm sorry, but when you join us in the real world, come join us for Adult Swim, the water is real nice this time of day.

I think HP is great (as I said in my previous post). Just because you hate one company so much, doesn't mean you need to have a psychotic break. For what it is, iPad is in a highly desireable class by itself. Months from now, that many not be the case... but, unfortunately, they said that about the iPhone too, and it took years for competitors to really start introducing phones that began to function in the same class (Droid / Nexus One).

Apple's huge gamble is NOT about "missing features". It's about creating a new class of device, and whether people will really want it. Trust me. In order to hit $499, it will be difficult for competitors not to ship a crappy plastic craptacular craplet with a pressure-sensitive screen and stylus. If you've been watching the hard knock-off work pumping out of China its been fascinating. I'm not sure I've seen Chinese companies have such a hard time knocking off anything so much as they've had with the iPhone and now the iPad. Painful.

If you have a moment. Watch some of the iPad hands-on videos circulating out there. I'm personally anxious to see how much abuse Apple has made this capable of taking and still keep up with users. The #1 irritation with current netbooks is sluggishness. The iPad's zippiness has earned uniform praise. On the useability front, that's absolutely HUGE.

"unless you have some secret evidence that you will be able to perform any desktop-level/laptop-level computing activities on this that you can't perform on any smartphone, or any of the currently available Archos tablets"

Hm. Does editing and presenting Powerpoint Presentations count? How about a multitouch painting program like Brushes that allows you to use layers and exports to Photoshop format? All that was in the January presentation, homie. Is it that you don't think anyone will follow Apple's lead and design fully multitouch productivity applications for the iPad form-factor or that you think no one minds using desktop software on a multitouch slate device?

Regarding the "Compaq TC1100"? Hm. I think these are the two most important qualifiers from the post you were responding to... "like this". A 2-hour battery life device with no capacitive touchscreen OR multitouch capability, no IPS screen technology, and as bulky and desktop OS centric as it was? Yes. As great as HP is, and I hope their newly announced slate gets it right when they release it... they're not shipping anything LIKE the iPad now... or in the past. --And don't get me wrong... most of that responsibility lies with Microsoft and the OS, not with the worthy attempts of the hardware manufacturers. But, there have been shortcomings on both sides that have finally led to new innovations rolling out this year.

iPad - 0.5", 1.5lbs. 9.7-inch screen (diagonally), 7.5" x 9.5" in dimension. LED backlit, multitouch capacitive display with IPS technology and oleophobic coating. Wireless 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, built-in speaker & microphone, accellorometer /w screen-lock button, ambient light sensor, and digital compass. 10 hour battery life. Fully multi-touch-capable OS.

If you find a device that matches or beats all of those specs for $499 or less... trust me, everyone will say "iPad what?" You can even find a comparable device for a little more and turn a lot of heads. It doesn't even need to sync with iTunes, allow music, video, and ebook purchases over-the-air. As long as it can play a 720p to 1080p movie and YouTube HD without studdering, we'll do just fine.

Only... you really can't.

Honestly. If you can't point to a comparable device to the iPad, I'm not sure why you would even post a video. The whole point is that the iPad is incorporating a bunch of NEW technology that devices of this size and price have not offered before. How do we know this? Well, just look at the new HP Slate device. It is still a prototype... along with the other slate form-factor devices mentioned at CES. Lenovo just released a new IdeaPad that is the FIRST netbook to have a capacitive touch screen. It's called the IdeaPad S10-3t. Engadget just did a hands-on and said it was very "meh", and the processor was dissappointingly sluggish. Also, by lacking the IPS screen technology of the iPad, the viewing angles truly sucked.

That said, bring on companies who are doing "BETTER" work than Apple. Choice is absolutely awesome. But, Apple is intentionally targeting specific solutions, and its not one-size-fits-all. Let's hope others produce bigger cheaper buckets, but the reason why Apple stuff costs a lot is:

#1.) They use high quality components (cheaper solutions usually value price over craftsmanship) and

#2.) They really try not to chase after the cut throat PC market by differentiating themselves (often they present a great bargain, but competitors undercut them in weeks-months, and they never reprice until they hit a new product cycle).

You can't get something for nothing. There's always a trade-off, even if you don't see it.

Here's where you're experience is limited. Free thinking. The Mac was the FIRST of the two platforms to allow people to freely use two monitors and move windows back and forth between them... and to this very day, most of the creative software has significant limitations in Windows that aren't present in the Mac version for reasons that have everything to do with the way the software was originally programmed.

For instance. Photoshop. Let's go there. In Photoshop on my Mac, here's what I can do, that I can't do in Windows. I can stick one view of a photo or painting in one window (magnified), and create another real-time view of that same photo in another window de-magnified... so that as I work in the magnified view (taking up an entire monitor on fullscreen) I can see the demagnified view (fullscreen) in the next window. This also used to be true for Macromedia Director, but its true for Flash development by extension. Stick you "STAGE full screen on one monitor, and have your "score" in the other monitor. Windows is capable of this, but many software packages were written to use MDI and can't change now with so much built upon that foundation.

Wikipedia says this:
"The disadvantage of MDI usually cited is the lack of information about the currently opened windows: In order to view a list of windows open in MDI applications, the user typically has to select a specific menu ("window list" or something similar), if this option is available at all. With an SDI application, the window manager's task bar or task manager displays the currently opened windows. In recent years, applications have increasingly added "task-bars" and "tabs" to show the currently opened windows in an MDI application, which has made this criticism somewhat obsolete."

Unfortunately, the article writer completely ignores MDI's multiple monitor issues.

Ok, so... Mac's have an advantage most non-technical people tend to describe as "I feel more free with using my windows". Another Mac advantage, is that Apple has done a much better job standardizing its interface across the OS. Windows has been catching up to "Spotlight" in the last few years, but hitting a spacebar from the desktop and using "Quickview" to view any document type (as multiple developers submit readers into Apple's pluggable architecture) has been great. I can't say how many times I use the spacebar to "Quickview" items on my desktop. I've added more extensions to "Quickview" inside Zip files and others too. Also, on my Mac, I can hit a function key and have the selected text spoken to me. I can go to ANY Mac installation and set this feature up in seconds. I can also download an automated task that sends any read text to an iTunes audiobook. Which, is extremely great when I want to listen to something on the go that I have no time to read.

One huge feature present in the Mac OS, is the ability to send anything being printed out as a PDF. Whenever I'm remote, or I don't have a printer, or I'm just sending it to Staples for a blown-up version, I use this feature. Standard, fromany program. The "free" program I used to use on Windows was always a pain in the neck, and didn't work anywhere near as seemlessly as the Mac OS implementation that requires no third-party installation (with nag screens).

One of the things my wife's family can attest to, is that owning a Mac has created an explosion of creativity. Using GarageBand (free on every Mac), my young nephews have produced some extremely impressive music. At one point, one nephew wanted to put his music on YouTube with a slideshow, and I suggested he use iMovie (free on every Mac). I expected him to come back and ask me questions on how to use it, but in no time, he was just giving me the YouTube url to go to... and it looked very impressive. I'm also impressed with many other Leopard additions... for instance, the native "Preview" application has me scratching my head how making multiple-page PDFs could be so easy (and free, just dragging pdf pages into one document and arranging them).

Moreover, iPhoto on the Mac has really pressed me to think about being more creative. I took photos from my wedding, and put text to it (in iPhoto), and with one click, purchased a very inexpensive hard cover book version. I was taking a children's storybook writing course and showed the product to my teacher and he was deeply impressed that something like this could be produced so inexpensively ($25 I think for a 52 page hard cover bound book with full color and high quality print). When I finish my children's book, this will be the way I generate copies to send to publishers. The "Places" and "Faces" additions to iPhoto are simply icing on the cake for this great piece of software.

All the stuff I mentioned above... NATIVE. I don't have to install ANYTHING. The fact that Apple's MS Office equivalent is only $79 doesn't hurt either. If you're telling me Windows does all that out of the box. Great. But I think we all know it doesn't. You could go on and on with what Apple has done to help people using its OS, but I think that gives you a general idea.

I'm always looking to check out the state-of-the-art with Windows, but I started Mac, and then realized it was painfully out of day, back when it was OS 9. I jumped ship. I went from being a Windows 2000 fan, to a Windows XP guy... but like I do with Windows now... I kept an eye on the Mac. Once Apple had "fixed" things, and gotten their act together, I came back and got a lot of benefit. At my job, my boss was a PC guy. After a few years as a Windows shop, I convinced him to switch us all over to iMacs running VMware. He's said its been the single greatest decision he's ever made. Our productivity has shot WAY up. Security updates are quick and painless, networking is fairly seemless, and we're continually finding better ways to work. On the flip-side, we deal with lots of clients have are constantly in worlds of hurt on the PC platform. A lot of people make excuses for Windows when they should just keep an open mind about what constitutes "better". With Windows 7 (if you move the whole office over), maybe Microsoft has solved its problems. I can't say yet.

I think its very true that the iPhone was ONLY unique in that it was popular when it comes to issues like this. That's why I think the whole notion of suing them for source code is STUPID. Absolutely brain dead.

Moreover, I never understood the compulsion people had to SCREW-UP their firmware, and then cross their fingers that something they did wouldn't "brick" their phones if they tried a vanilla upgrade. Schiller even said at the time... hey, we can't test for conditions we don't support. If you go changing the software on the device, and when it gets upgraded... bad things happen... we're not responsible. In fact, if we see you've altered the device firmware, we can't even offer you support, and we'll likely blacklist your serial number if we see you in the store.

This type of crippling problem is only made more problematic due to the nature of baseband firmware, etc. Critics say Apple should go out of its way to install jailbreaks and unlocks, and do complete restores of the baseband firmware, etc. It's possible they do now, but when this first start? Come on. Mac users have had similar problems using "hacks" to the Mac OS and then trying to upgrade and having their computer go bonkers. We then have the easier option of booting on CD and reinstalling the OS. On the iPhone... not really that simple once you've started editing things you shouldn't be editing.

I will be amused to see how "rooting" on the Android and "jailbreaking" on the Palm Web OS will be like over time. It looks like Palm is so forlorn, they may not want to upset any apple carts by tightening their security (closing exploits) over time as Apple has done... or at least, don't have the resources to do much in that arena (they've seemingly even given up iTunes sync). At the end of the day, iPhone jailbreakers have managed to expose thousands of iPhone owners (not schooled in the ways of geekdom) to the platform's first Worm (focusing as many do on "features" and not security precautions). This is the same level of responsibility Android Market entrusts with its users by giving customers the option to vote yay or nay to "almost" any API request (as if the average consumer won't just brush past these notices).

Ultimately, I think people who color outside the lines for a platform like the iPhone will suffer for it, and it will be more about Murphy's Law or Karma, than something you can readily blame Apple for. I'm sure Apple has been sued for negligence on security far more often at this point... but those stories aren't as sexy. Actually, I guess they are... we just saw that "game stole my data" suit recently. Same thing Apple accused Google Voice of doing ironically.

I think anyone who sees Apple as having done ANYTHING untoward here, is more than a bit brainwashed. There was a time when what Palm did would be called a "hack"... except that its being perpetrated by a corporation that is in turn implicating millions of users into a relationship with Apple that Apple never intended to support. While one could argue that Apple did not have to explicitly close the "hole" Palm was slipping through (as described by DVD Jon), were I Apple, I certainly would have seen NO reason to leave it open. The tech support calls alone by users insisting Apple should be supporting them, polluting its support forums with glitch reports... its an added expense that they don't need.

For instance, there are a number of tools that interface with iTunes in ways Apple fully supports. Blackberry will be releasing one such tool for its users in September, and Amazon.com already has an Mp3 Store tool for Windows and Mac users that simply downloads music and adds it to iTunes in a supported method. For Palm to merely "pretend to be an iPod", is an unreasonable attempt by Palm to leverage Apple's platform, without actually having Apple's cooperation or support.

NO ONE is preventing Palm from releasing a syncing tool that works with iTunes. They're simply prioritizing their resources by spending their time and money elsewhere. Support Mac and PC media syncing? Nah, just pretend you're an iPod and tell our users to download iTunes. I can't count the number of times I've felt disenfranchised by Palm's choice not to make subsequent versions of Palm Desktop compatible with my current Palm device. If someone... like Sony, hacked their Cle firmware to allow it to support new desktop versions without Palm's consent, I'm sure they wouldn't be seen as "clever". They would be forcing Palm to support a larger hardware base.

It's a real trick to make anyone thing Palm is being "hurt" by being knocked off like the leech it was acting like.

Well, here's an interesting problem. On the dismissive side, one could say that anyone who agrees with most of Apple's decisions are naive, foolish, or sycophants. In many cases, this is entirely true. However that doesn't automatically mean that Apple's own arguments hold no water or hidden promise, even IF you disagree with that logic.

Personally, I tend to think differently about Apple's strategy than many of the loud folk on Slashdot. The way I see it, Apple created a platform, and its actively attempting to have it function in a way they see leads to a long-term success. What that has come to mean, is that they are introducing things MUCH slower than the digerati wants them to. Erica Sadun was the first to point out that it seemed Apple's API was coming along very well, long before they exposed it to developers. You can either say: a.) Apple NEVER intended to allow 3rd party native apps. b.) Apple has always intended to allow 3rd party native apps, but needed to commit to a staged release.

The first time I got a peek behind the curtain was at a local "iPhone Tech Talk" here in Massachusetts. Apple showed a big wall of suggestions on the iPhone's direction, and welcomed any other suggestions. On the projector slide was a large "cloud" of virtually everything people had been clamoring for. But, its all being worked on piece by piece.

Its interesting how they prioritized enterprise support, even though they still claimed iPhone to be a consumer product. All the incremental steps I've seen have shown a lot of consideration and internal struggle, and I think... and this is just my personal view, that its needed.

Should Apple simply open the doors to every unintended consequence and hope that the consumer experience isn't ruined? Right now, Apple has the highest satisfaction rating across all smartphones. I think that's their ultimate goal. If something doesn't pass muster, it simply doesn't make it in... no matter what the consequences.

We saw Apple's disasterous Mobile Me launch. This frightened them away from notifications until they "got it right". From what I see, Apple will eventually allow "background" processes. But, I suspect that it may be done after Apple has gotten developers into utilizing the notification system... so that people do not create a "background" app if they do not need to.

I think the same is true for native applications. I think its great that Apple worked (and IS working) on its web app experience. That web app support came before native support I think, was brilliant, and it really set an excellent trend in websites upgrading their mobile sites to acknowledge more powerful mobile devices.

My criticism of Apple comes MORE from the question of WHY they don't open Apple TV up to 3rd party apps, USB device support, and cloud notification. That needs to come soon, because its clear they've been working on this as well.

This image of Apple putting "business interests" before "customer interests", is frankly self-serving at best and quite ignorant at worst. If Apple's consumer rankings and customer experience were being affected by a missing feature, you can be sure this feature would be at the top of Apple's priority. Instead, the only "missing" features are the ones that are desired, but less important than others that eventually made the grade.

I'm torn on background processes. The iPhone has encouraged people to burn through battery power faster than any other cellphone out there, even while employing an improving energy conservation system. Anyone remember when their Macs needed to be restarted with the shift key to leave background extensions off, because the system had become unstable or it wasn't clear what was making the machine slow?

WinMo, Android, and Blackberry can KEEP their BG app implementations. If theirs impresses me... I'll switch. It really HASN'T so far (although Android's and Pre's come close)... so, I'm not sure why some people act like its the bees knees. I just want to hand the iPhone to my mom or my wife and not have to explain anything so esoteric.