yeah, they just "stumbled" into being the most profitable company in the world. it's their manufacturing capabilities and their supply chain logistics that make this happen. there's absolutely no luck involved in this.

Maybe so, but looking at things empirically, they went to Verizon first with the iPhone and asked that they were to be given control of their network structure to accommodate the design of the iPhone, both from a hardware and a voicemail perspective. Verizon tells them to pound sand so Apple goes to AT&T and they give them the control they needed to deliver the data and visual voicemail requirements.

So there's the first reinvention...of the network. I think that qualifies as mobile technology.

Then there's the device design itself. To the best of my recollection, there weren't any mass consumer devices that were based on capacitive touch technology on the scale that the iPhone introduced. As a result, the handset makers all jumped on the bandwagon making their own capacitive touch hardware to "compete" with Apple (ref: all the "iPhone killers" articles)

This doesn't take into account the App Store model, the drive to remove Flash and the support of HTML5 on mobile devices or the third party ecosystem of plugs, cables, chargers, cradles, speakers and other accessories that most definitely are considered part of mobile technology.

Considering that Apple has done this once already, I'd place money on them to do it again if they have to...with that said, Apple isn't the type of company to roll over and let this kind of thing happen to them. Remember, they're the pitbull bred for the ultimate fight. They are Microsoft's original enemy and no other company has done battle or suffered as much as Apple has when it comes to patent/innovation fights.

What everyone seems to forget is that Apple is in the spot they're in precisely for these reasons and they're determined never to let that happen again.

As a Crohn's patient for the past 21 years, your appraisal of the situation is just plain wrong. Crohn's Disease is very hard to diagnose and when I first started manifesting symptoms, it took over 6 months to discover the disease. There is nothing straight-forward about the diagnosis since the symptoms, on the surface, appear to be any number of maladies.

This girl is lucky to have caught it on her own, I know others who have gone for years without getting a correct diagnosis.

As far as it being "common," 2 million affected puts it above some diseases but it's far from common.

You forgot something when comparing the systems.

Dell runs Windows or Linux.
Mac runs OS X, Windows and Linux...all native. No need for VMs.

Keep your TV tuner, I'll stick with my Mac.

"It's good to be the King"