That's based on the assumption that they are in this for the money. Replace the word "customers" with "targets", and think about it again. :)

Iceland banned beef spiced with salt & pepper? Because that's the content of the meat. That's how they advertise it, and that's what it is. There's no way they could have gotten away with sneaking in extra preservatives and crap in it for this long, specially with these ridiculous and meaningless "experiments" popping up.

Just because a company has released some games doesn't necessarily mean they released *all* the games they've worked on.

But taking a huge lot of peoples money and then run hurts alot more (in reputation) than just taking some publishers', so chances are this game will see the light of day in some form. :)

Sounds like "theory" to me. What's with science and ambiguous words? :)

The why is blindingly obvious to me.... Because with the trend of phones being 5"+, a watch is a HUGE lot handier to manage than having to pull out the phone unlock it, read some sms or email which likely doesn't require an immediate response anyway, or hang up a call from someone you don't have time to talk to at the moment. Add to that some other on-a-glance features, like... *the time*, a stopwatch, countdown timer etc, and hey presto, a whole package of quite useful stuff which may come in handy.

The problem isn't that they got sued. If they hadn't played the patent card things would never have gone out of proportion like this. They should have just sued and said "this phone looks too much like ours" and be done with it. Instead they said "this phone looks like ours" AND included the alleged "theft" of all kinds of things they lie about having invented. The only reason they played the patent card is because if they win, it will put the *entire* smartphone industry years behind because it would mean all their baloney patents would be validated. What better way than to hide it within a obvious case. I'm almost ready to put on a tin foil hat and consider this whole thing a made up plot by Samsung and Apple. Apple builds the smartphones, Samsung builds the components. All competition are ridiculously gimped by idiotic, and because of this obvious "simple case", now legally valid patents. Seems like a good deal for both Apple *and* Samsung in the end, right?

Seriously, if someone tells me that I have to go through a whipping session to get a job, I'd decline. The same goes here.

I can't remember who said it, but this brings to mind something I heard on TV (some standup or maybe QI?) some time ago about how the wheel in itself is a less impressive idea than the idea of putting more of them together and using them for transport. Perhaps it's just a question of nobody finding the right format for a "readable" kind of hypertext literature rather than it just being crap? Also, I ask myself if interactive storybooks wouldn't fit under the banner of "hypertext literature" even though it's not technically text, it still is clickable images.

Sure, it has bugs, I'm not trying to say anything else. But for most people it's still workable. "Completely bugged" implies useless, and that doesn't really apply.

Because millions of people buy a phone that doesn't work?

Sounds plausible enough too. Guess we can safely write off that "odd" remark. :P

I would assume they want a public test with less than 30 million users for now. :)

Yes, I read your post, and I did understand the point you were trying to make. But evven if you won't generate a "sale" now, there's nothing saying that you'll never do. They're counting potential revenue, not guaranteed revenue. It's a budget-calculation. They're not doing anything that most people wouldn't do when filing their tax return.

Then you're not part of their target audience (for now anyway). There is no moral obligation on companies to make everything they do available to the entire world, that's not the way it works. They don't have to sell their product to every possible person who might be interested (in fact, that could potentially end up being illegal). Consume what is available to you if you want to be morally right. You can opt to pirate it and watch it anyway, but you ARE consuming something of commercial value if you do. You know it, they know it, I know it, *everyone* knows it. You can choose to disregard the fact, but there's no way that will ever be the morally right thing to do (unless someone comes up with a unique piece of media that will cure cancer or something like that).

Nah, all we need to figure out is how to harness the power of dark energy. There should be more than enough energy in empty space to keep us going until our atoms get torn apart by the expansion of the universe.