So you have no answer to the direct question I asked?, so you just pull the "you are just brainwashed"-argument? OK, thanks for playing.

So, is your argument basically that if we (meaning the West) doesn't actively oppose every single massacre out there, or actively oppose every single dictator there is, we should not do so at all? Either we do everything everywhere, or we do nothing at all?

What would you do if West did nothing in Libya, and it resulted in massacre of thousands?

That might matter to the handful of Linux-users out there who want to use iPods, rest of the world does not care one bit. And your comment has nothing to do whether Apple has "failed" or not. If you look at hard data, Apple has anything but failed. Their lack of Linux-support doesn't seem to be hurting them one bit.

That would result in crappier software. iTunes is really designed for OS X, and it works fine over there. Windows-users are complaining, because it doesn't work as well on Windows. Doing a proper cross-platform app would result in jack-of-all-trades app which would be mediocre on all platforms, as opposed to current situation, where the app is good on one platform, and mediocre on another. Just about all cross-platform apps look weird and alien and they do not seem to fit in with the OS and UI that surrounds them.

Because Windows and OS X cater to about 99.9% of their potential customers, and it's not worth the effort to support Linux.

All of them. Sales of Macs slowed down a bit, but they still outgrew the PC-market. Sales of Macs increased, while sales of PC's decreased when compared to the previous year.

Sales of Macs have increased faster than sales of PC's for several years in a row. That means that Apple's market-share is increasing.

...Whiners keep on pointing out the Mac vs. PC-situation as a failure of Apple, and they keep on talking about how Android is going to do the same with iPhone. Well, if we looked at the computer-business, we would see that Macs have something like 5-10% market-share, but they out-earn just about everyone else. HP is the company with biggest market-share in the PC-business, and Apple out-earns them in the computer-business. Reason being that HP sells lots of dirt-cheap computers at razor-thin margins, while Apple really competes only in the $1000+ market, where profits are fatter.

And it should be noted that Macs are outgrowing the PC-market, so not only are they laughing all the way to the bank, they are actually gaining market-share. Add to that the high customer-satisfaction-ratings.

If that is a "failure", I wonder what a "success" looks like....

iPhone has something like 15-20% market-share, and out-earns everyone else. So how exactly are they "doomed"? because Android is outshipping them? And that's a "failure" because.....? Why is it that people expect Apple to gain iPod-like market-domininace, if they get something less, it means they have failed? Do people think that there can only be one "success" in the market, while everyone else are "failures"? That either you utterly dominiate the market, or you are a failure? iPhones are selling like crazy, and Apple is earning big bucks from their phone-business. I'm honestly at a loss at trying to see the "failure" here....

Which is why Apple's sales came crashing down during the financial crisis, while the sellers of cheap PC's saw their sales soar. No, that's not the way it happened....

People who replace batteries in their phones are few and far between. And the lack of replaceable battery will hardly be the downfall of iPhone.

I think the OP was referring to profits. Apple is way more profitable than Android-sellers combined.

...this "either/or" mentality. That if Android succeeds, everyone else has failed.

Let's look at computers. Microsoft and OEM's that use Windows have about 90% market-share, while Apple and OS X has a bit under 10%. Does that mean that Apple has "failed"? Not really. They seem to be having highly succesful computer-business, happy users, and lots of profits. Apple earns more money on their computers than HP, the market-leader, does with theirs. yet for some reason some people say that Apple should be like HP and Dell, since licensing OS from someone else is "the way this business works". Even though it seems that the OEM's are not earning that much, while Intel and Microsoft are the companies that reap the profits.

If we look at phones, we can see that Apple is earning lots of money there as well. More than Nokia is earning, even though Apple is a lot smaller. It seems that people are expecting Apple to gain iPod-like dominance in the phone-business, and if/when Android overtakes iOS, people decide that iOS has "failed", since history did not repeat itself. Well, Symbian dwarfs both iOS and Android, yet no-one is calling iOS or Android failures because of that fact. And gaining iPod-like share in a mature market like phones is quite hard, if not impossible. When Nokia was at it's biggest, it had something like 60-70% share of the market. But that was a market that wasn't all that mature yet. and they managed that for only few years.

What if Android gets 50% share in few years? Great! Android is a good OS, and we need more good phones. does that mean that everyone else has failed? I don't think so. It seems that people have this strange idea that there must be a clear winner and a clear loser(s). We got that in computers, when Microsoft ended up dominating the market. So we MUST have something similar elsewhere as well, right? I don't think so. And even in computers the "niche player" is earning quite nice profits. Even though they have single-digits market-share does not seem to be hurting them. You do not need to be big, biggest or dominating in order to have a good business.

The point seemed to be that building nuclear weapons is a black art that few master. Reality is that the knowledge is widespread.

No, you can't make nukes in a cave. But those cave-dwelling islamists could pay someone with proper facilities to do it for them. Those islamists often have quite a bit of money.

My point is that knowledge on how to build nukes is widespread. It's not arcane black art or something like that.

Manhattan Project was a huge undertaking because no-one had done it before. They were breaking new ground and researching things that were not researched before.

Today, things are different. The technology and knowledge required to build a nuclear weapon is literally 70 years old. Just about every modern country could build them if they have the prerequisite fuel for it.

Hell, it was discovered few years ago that SWEDEN had plans for nuclear weapons in the seventies! Their plan was that in case of war against USSR, they could nuke the Red Army while it was still in Finland fighting against Finnish Army (without telling the Finns about it, of course). They had the required knowledge to build the bomb, they lacked the fuel. The plans were eventually scrapped because they were considered stupid.

I'm in Finland, and even here I have a choice of healthcare. I can go and use public healthcare-services if I want, or I can go and use private healthcare-services. So what exactly am I missing out on, when compared to USA?

Such as? Hey, didn't Prez Bush tell doctors that stem-cell research and treatments are not allowed?

You obviously don't know anything about Finland or Finns. And like I said elsewhere, there is no correlation between freedom and amount of guns. Americans have three times as much guns as Finns do. So, is US Government less corrupt than Finnish government? Are Finns less free than Americans? Yemen has the second biggest number of guns in the world, is Yemen more free and less corrupt than Finland? Or Germany? Let's quote Wikipedia:

"The government and its security forces, often considered to suffer from rampant corruption, have been responsible for torture, inhumane treatment and extrajudicial executions. There are arbitrary arrests of citizens, especially in the south, as well as arbitrary searches of homes. Prolonged pretrial detention is a serious problem, and judicial corruption, inefficiency, and executive interference undermine due process. Freedom of speech, the press and religion are all restricted.[67]"

We don't have that kind of problems in Finland, even though we have less guns. Neither does Germany. How does Yemen fit in with your idea that "more guns == more freedom"?

Uh-huh.

No, I don't. Because idea that I need guns in order to "oppose the government" is ludicrous. For starters, I can do that in the ballot-box. And second: guns I would have would do me jack shit in "opposing the government". It might give me a delusion of grandeur, but in reality it would do nothing.

Like someone else already said: just admit that the point of owning guns is that it's nice to shoot at things. there's nothing wrong with that. Trying to make it in to a political statement about "freedom" or something of the sort is dumb at best. Those "freedom-loving" gun-owners are just as much "sheeple" as rest of us are. They might talk about "opposing the government", but they are too busy watching NASCAR to actually do anything.

There is no "cut" if the app is free.

And Apple does not get a cut if you give it away for free in the App Store, so what's your point?