I replied on their site with this exact post and guess what? It's moderated and they nuked my post. FAKE for sure.

Please source this ridiculous claim. What % of people from countries with single payer systems come here for treatment and why? I've never read any credible source that has facts around this claim.

Very few people on this site are the target demographic for the iPad, so for them, he's right. Fugly/hard to use UI is an acceptable tradeoff. OTOH, for the tens of millions that don't want a laptop or something that they have to experiment with to make work easily, there's the iPad. If you're looking for non-partisan discussions of the iPad, you have the wrong site...

Not really - I started on a CS degree in 1984 - granted, it was run out of the Mathematics and Computer Science Department - it was at a smaller school. I had many choices for a real CS degree from several other larger schools. Perhaps they were part of an engineering or mathematics department, but just because there was no specific "Computer Science" department doesn't mean it wasn't it's own field.

So, they were the Beta to our VHS?

Congratulations - it's this thinking that's kept Linux on the server all these years.

As Apple drops previews for tracks that charge. They won against NBC by pulling their entire video collection - what makes the music industry think they won't pull previews? It's only gonna hurt their sales. These guys are apparently living in some other reality.

Oh, since yesterday then...

Cool! I have tons of 8 year old BeOS apps that I need to run. Oh, wait...

The problem is, when you make comments like:

You're contradicting your later statement that you're being objective. You're not - you're using generalizations and spurious arguments to make your case. The phrase "under their spell" is inflamatory language, implying that there's something inherently evil going on. If Apple were shipping total crap that didn't work, then perhaps you could view what they're doing as evil. However, the quality of Apple products and services is at least as good as anyone else in the industry, so they are no more evil than, say, HTC/Google. And your cop-out on citing specific references just further reinforces that you're making generalizations without any specific proof. In fact, none of the articles I read based on googling your phrase had much to say at all about quality vs marketing.

1. 1) Apple has expanded it's installed base significantly first with the iPod then the iPhone (and, during that time, the Mac as well), so your argument that they survive on the "loyal and fanatical fan base" is, well, utterly wrong. Just look at the Republican Party for an example of what relying solely on your base gets you.
2. 2) Please cite all of these so-called "experts all over the globe." Such exaggerated statements have little basis in fact.

Since you started with the sweeping hyperbole, I'll add mine: the vast majority of users of Apple products don't give a rats ass about any perceived ego boost that using said product gives them. They use them because they work - consistently, reliably and without getting in the way of what they want to do. That's always been what Apple does well and, for the most part, their competition fail to do well.

you say "most secure OS" twice doesn't make it so, although I can see how repeating that mantra might make YOU believe it!

LOL - if #1 is a real caveat then Windows isn't going anywhere either. Outlook is so broken, particularly where group calendaring is concerned, that it's hard to believe that large organizations put up with it!