"Off site" just means in physically different locations, so that some kind of local calamity wouldn't take out both, right? It seems like having it backed up on the PC satisfies that requirement to some extent, since the iPad and the PC are likely to be in different locations a lot of the time. It's not as good as a proper off-site backup, but it's better than nothing.

Sure it's better than nothing but it's not a good backup plan. The reasoning was that Apple is holding back OTA updates because this one niche thing isn't covered perfectly (although Carbonite and others do a good job of hands-off online backup). I'm saying that if you're protecting something which isn't very good in the first place, and holding back a lot of good features because of it, that's a bad reason to do so.

It's much better than no backup. An offsite backup offers only little additional security. (Not that it's not worth it. But the difference between no backup and backup is vast, the difference between backup and offsite backup is small. It's like the difference between a $50 dinner and a $100 dinner — noticable but rather irrelevant compared to a combo meal from McDonald's.)

While reading this, I kept thinking that search results are ads too, at least as the author defines them. Google still managed to create a valuable proposition for advertisers, so why couldn't Twitter?

I'd say that efficient data servers are one of google's core competencies. Google does not benefit from having that commoditized.

Well look who is commoditizing it, and it isn't Google.

I just don't like the phrasing. "We did a thing that Google does not substantially benefit from" == "We attacked Google" ?

Maybe the problem is that Nitro requires that an app have special permission to mark pages as executable. Apple may be comfortable giving this permission to Safari (or any if their apps, for that matter) but not comfortable giving it to third party apps. Along the same lines, it could be that apps saved to the home screen don't get Nitro because there is a special exemption low in the system for Safari, and they haven't yet worked out how to roll it out to the thin apps that are created when you save something to the home screen.

As someone who pulls this system apart constantly: this comment is dead on accurate.

Along the same lines, how would this affect an email client that connects to a paid email service? Would be accessing content purchased outside the device?

If Apple really does go so far as to claim that then someone needs to challenge them on it legally, this is going too far. Or maybe we need a $.99 boycot or something, not buying apps.

Speaking of paid email services, there's no way to subscribe to Mobile Me with an in-app purchase. If Apple cared about fairly enforcing the rules, they'd yank iDisk and Find My iPhone until in-app subscription to Mobile Me was added.

A small quibble: the Find My iPhone service is free for all iPhone4 (maybe all?) owners. That is a good point though, although the rule doesn't come into effect until June.

My favorite quote like this is from Ed Colligan, who was at the time the CEO of Palm. When asked in late 2006 about the prospect of Apple entering the mobile phone market: "We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in."

To be fair (and tease a bit), one can argue that Apple didn't make a decent /phone/ until this verizon deal :-P

As the site made clear, these are useful for developers that want a quick way to test that their site works in multiple older versions of IE.

Ie9 allows you to switch the display mode between IE7, IE8, IE9. However, it does not allow IE6.

Also, I'm not yet certain how accurate the older modes are. I did write some code with a known IE7 bug that worked fine in 8 & 9... and which I switched IE9 to IE7 mode the bug occurred as I had expected it to. (Press F12 in IE9 to see the option to select display mode). Apologies if this sounds kind of rambly, as I just woke up...

Downloading these either way so that I can do some additional testing.

For the most part the compatibility modes work, but there are inconsistencies - such as bugs that appear in IE7, but not in IE8 in compatibility mode. Its a headache, and one that's somewhat remedied by just using the actual browsers.

Does Microsoft Expression Web SuperPreview (Microsoft's official tool for this purpose, which comes with the various rendering engines plugged into a meta-browser) have these same deficiencies?

Thanks for the info. That's what I was hoping to find out by having these. They now live happily within my suite of various development/testing tools.

He said "I'm not as stoked about it for myself", so I would wager that he does not like to be told what he can do and what he can like.

The same argument could be made about the iMac. It's possible that Apple would say roughly the same thing they would about the iMac: That their goal is to create one device that does everything, without having discrete components that people have to manage, or cables that they have to deal with. It's Apple's style.

His comment didn't say they have Macs, he said they have Apple products. The dominance of the iPod makes it more probable that everyone he knows has at least one Apple product. Also, you assume that market share is evenly distributed in all demographics. I think the preceding discussion was about Apple's market share among tech enthusiasts, which I have never seen solid numbers on, but which seems, anecdotally, to be higher.

What does "own iPod" have to do with "is gamer"?

Loose correlation, (probably) not causation. It's obviously anecdotal, but thinking about the tech habits of people I know, it seems plausible to me.