Mod parent up. Software people need to understand this: users cannot be asked to do "deep reasearch" and "understand permissions", they do not have the time, and they paid good money for their device that should simply work.

And we can say they are "noobs" or "stoopid" all we want, and do not deserve nice things, but the reality is that examining permissions is right now really user-unfriendly, and actually not possible: I can easily make a program that requires map access and being able to send a data message for the fun little location game I am selling, and there is no way even the smartest permissions-examiner now knows I have made a remotely-activated stalking device.

Users will vote with their wallets to get phones where they can simply get their stuff done and get some fun out of them without having the feeling every step could be quicksand. So as phone ecosystem manufacturer you have the choice of don't let crap happen on the phone, or watch your consumer pay your competitor for a phone where crap can't happen. And to make crap not happen, you will have to only allow safe programs on the phone. And as parent shows, this means a closed store.

Um, no, it actually is outright hostile to people with same sex attractions. The methods that Exodus proposes to handle the negative feelings surrounding same sex attractions are methods that are scientifically proven to leave the psyche of the person worse off, sometimes suicidally so. That is incredibly hostile to Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals, and that you do not recognize selling repression, shame, guilt, peer-pressure and thus depression and possibly death as hostile really should tell you something.

If you want to help GLBTs who have a problem to lead well adjusted happy productive lives, the science on this is pretty clear: give them acceptance, love, support, and help instill a feeling of self-confidence and being whole and being fine with these fundamental and immutable romantic feelings.

Exodus is the homo-hating equivalent of treating cancer patients with homeopathy instead of chemotherapy. The way they hurt vulnerable people is downright dangerous, and in my opinion, evil.

If you are going to censor your store from evil and destructive or bigoted apps, this one fully qualifies.

Open API. In the spirit of FOSS: roll your own Symbian client. And J2ME for Series 40 with GPSes.

Strike that last part: I am a Legal Permanent Resident, and the last time I came in they wanted my picture and fingerprints too.

Android actually indeed, from the ground up, allows applications to advertise to the system that they are willing and able to handle and display certain forms of data, or publish that they will allow the user to do certain things. When an application makes a request to have a certain data-type handled (like "open this web page"), the OS selects which of the installed apps that can will get to handle the request.

But this need not create a lot of complexity. The failure you are describing is a usability failure of cruft upon cruft of setting and defaults that were not properly constrained by good UI guidelines of where they should be found and how they should be set. Right now setting the default browser on most desktop OSes is a snap: just run the browser and it will ask "Do you want me to be the default?" and we're done. I think that if the OS has a good system for managing these settings -- and WinMo does not because it never cared -- this need not be such a nightmare.

What it will be nighmare for, though, is tech support "Wait, you have what dialer installed? You browser is which?" Still, there is so much power in having a controlled and OS-blessed way to chain little programs together, each adding their own value, from different creative individuals. Very UNIXy.

Whoa there buddy. Close but no cigar.

XPCOM is by no means a re-implementation of MS COM. They share some basic ideas (and so does CORBA, if we're going that far), but "reimplementation" is not a word I would use.

Another thing to point out is that you can bridge almost any API into XPCOM. XPCOM and WebKit isn't an XOR, you could (probably) provide XPCOM interface to WebKit