Seriously? People are still trying to argue this? You know, because Apple didn't already try to license the OS before...

Apple exists today because they aren't part of the race to the bottom. They sell hardware, and make a nice penny off it. They make good software to justify charging for their expensive hardware and this process serves them and their userbase just swimmingly. Please continue paying half the price, and having the discount software experience as well (why the hell would you switch if you didn't think the option was better than what you have currently? This is how capitalism works - you get what you pay for)

Apple has no reason to license their OS, and as an Apple user I hope they don't. I don't mind paying more for their product and I don't want the quality to drop because some people simultaneously complain they can't use the allegedly "better" option because they don't think it is worth paying more for. It's worth more to me and many others. If it isn't to you, stick to paying for the cheap computers and stop whining already.

This is not to say I'm not for Apple lowering prices, of course I would be, but I don't consider what they ask now to be an unreasonable difference between other manufacturers because to me I'm truly getting something better and it is far and away worth the $

They all wrap WebKit, there are SDK terms against writing apps that incorporate new language interpreters (I think)... which is why there is no Flash, Java, or Javascript.

What others also don't seem to understand, is that a lot of people don't want the "depth and complexity" in portable gaming to begin with. Honestly, thats what my PS3 is for. Although I will admit both the PSP and DS have many very high quality games, full console AAA quality - I simply have no desire to bend my neck over a portable screen for an extended period of time. Short bursts are why the iPhone games excite me.

Additionally, you complain about quality and depth now, but if you don't remember - the DS was a wasteland when it came out in terms of actually having good games. Look at it now. Devs learn and evolve to push the platform and see what works and doesn't. I don't see why the iPhone is somehow doomed to be different and ONLY offer trivial games for now. Existing game types might not control the same, but that just means we'll get new game types that are well suited to the input like Nintendo traditionally forces developers to learn with their new platforms and control schemes.

Not to be pessimistic, but I just don't get the whole netbook fad. I can basically say everything you did about a larger netbook to regular netbooks compared to say an iPhone or Android or Blackberry. These are pocket sized, often have highly optimized apps for a given task (such as a bus schedule) and only require carrying around one device that chances are I'd have in my pocket anyway.

I'm guessing I'm not the only one who thinks this way either... http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/01/the-iphone-and-ipod-touch-apples-netbook.ars

"Seriously, what's the point?" :)

I mean, sure you could say "what if I have to code bla bla bla on the go..." well, to that I'd say I'd just rather have my real 15" laptop if I have to do serious work. Sure, maybe heavy usage on an iPhone will diminish the battery much faster but phone batteries will surely advance to the point this no longer is much advantage in light of access to a regular recharge.

I see netbooks sticking around, and like their somewhat successful effort at bringing Linux mainstream, but as smartphones advance I can't see them being much more than a niche market. Although I'm not an analyst, my iPhone already does more than enough tricks for my on-the-go computing needs.

Last time I checked, IE is long dead on the Mac, non-existent on Linux, and Chrome isn't available for either yet so I'm not sure how you expect them to benchmark OS X and Linux too.

While I had that issue when my 360 RROD'd in 2007 (a little less than a year after owning it) - they have now simplified the process and you can do it through the console without calling anyone from what I've seen on my friends boxes (since I have liquidated all my 360 gear in favor of a PS3 due to reliability)

As for when we move full to digital... I don't see myself ever giving that up. Sure, I'll go for Valve games on Steam because they are not the type I'd ever sell - and I'll even bite when they have those $5 deals... but by and large there is no way in hell I'm going to not get a disc for my now $60 game. The ability to resell my property is not something I'm willing to give up, even though I largely don't anyway.

In my experience, the Dock is one of the things I miss the most when using Windows. The taskbar just isn't as good at managing a lot of different things at a time. You can't determine anything about it without stopping and reading (unless by some stroke of luck the windows aren't rearranging themselves quite frequently), everything is tiny, its trying to do so much with so little.

Its just a mess compared to window management in OS X. The Dock quickly shows what is running or what you probably want to launch with gigantic, recognizable out of the corner of your eye graphics. The document-centric UI model of the Mac and Expose + App Hiding is just so much faster for me than trying to do things with the Windows Taskbar and the god-awful alt-tab solution (even that is better on the Mac...)

Ripping off the Dock is probably the single most exciting thing about W7 so far, although all around it I see MS adding their usual bloat. Windows waste so much space with their gigantic borders, transparencies that don't really help usability, tiny text with gigantic graphics that don't match - I wish MS would learn from the earlier OS X mistakes too.

I'm not going to get into your theory, but as a web developer, anything that gets people to move from IE6 is a good thing to me. Like MobileMe, if Gmail is going to be the next huge webapp that helps move the web to a baseline of IE7, I'm all for it. We need the big companies and apps to push the change otherwise it will never happen.

Um.. I'm just going to have to disagree with you on that. You cannot bitch and moan because OS X doesn't behave like Windows or KDE (which are arguably very similar in terms of their needless complexity when it comes to UI paradigms).

Seriously, a + is difficult and somehow unintuitive? How about File -> New, or Command + N?

Or if you'd just prefer a large unwieldy button that ads to the problem regarding consistency and too much shit on the screen with KDE and Windows...

You just can't use a Mac and expect it to be Windows. You'll be frustrated if you can't get over this part. When I got my first Mac in 2004, I used it at the same time as my PC and had similar issues overcoming things I'd expect to behave like Windows. I decided I'd stop using Windows to try to get over the baggage in expectations I'd have, and now 4 years later I go insane having to deal with some of the idiotic UI issues that plague Windows. Just compare System Preferences to Control Panel...