Turtle Tattoo Designs

When the hell is Apple going to seed leopard to us select developers? Also an update of the WWDC videos would be nice. It sucks when you get hospitalized and can't recover in TIME to go to WWDC.

The least Apple could do is treat developers who are excited and PAY for select accounts (myself included) with a little respect and post some of the leopard stuff. geeze.

If you are an Apple developer unable to leave your country or travel to the united states and physically attend the conference in San Francisco you are pretty much screwed.

It annoys me that I pay for this treatment, yet Microsoft is more than happy to release all kinds of pre beta stuff to me just for signing up as a developer.

Apple TAKE CARE of your paying developers. Geeze.

The "Three Phase Cycle"

1) Rumors circulate about a "new" size of iPad, or iPhone (for example).

2) Fan-boys immediately become emotional and negative, spewing hate, denial, and opinions on why it's a really bad Idea.

3) Rumors turn to reality, Uncle Steve blesses it. Suddenly like a miracle, the fan-boys do an about face, sucking up to Uncle Steve and heaping praise on the "Brilliant Idea Invented By Apple".

What a Hilarious, Goofy Kind of Entertainment the Fan-Boys provide... :)

Two new models, a "high end" and a smaller "low end" model???

Already exists. They are called the 8gb iPhone 3GS for $99, and the 32gb iPhone 4 for $299.

Close, but not so much.

Two models, that are so close to each other in form factor, functionality, and usefulness, that it's not the same as high end, low end.

The rumor if true will bring momentum back to Apple, something they could use about now. Oh sure, the current product is selling quite well, but under very well manipulated and fabricated "facts".

Apple is the master of marketing, hype, manipulation and getting what they want (read "Apple Tax"). They are also smart enough to know that they must freshen up the iPhone beyond the "wow" factor which wears off quickly.

I really want .mac, but it's just not compelling enough.

I keep my bookmarks sync'd between my Mac at home and my PC at work in Firefox with Foxmarks. Free extension.

I use gmail and yahoo for webmail. 2+gb of storage each. I'm debating which to stick with for calendar. I can use gmail and sync ical to it right now. However someone is already starting a service (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/spanningsync/browse_thread/thread/33374a59c38cbe15)which will let you completely sync Google cal and ical by being able to make changes to both (effectively duplicating what .mac gives you)

I could convert another gmail account into storage space with a plug in. Right now I use mediamax (http://www.mediamax.com/) for 25gb of FREE storage.

Flickr offers ways to publish right from iphoto for a very easy and free way to share photos online.

So for me to cough up the dough, .mac needs more, much more.

All of the above are compeltely valid points. However, there are two large weaknesses to this idea.

First, you're assuming that .mac users want to use Firefox as their browser. Many of us believe strongly that Safari is a better browser. I don't use plugins or extensions - I want my browser clean, slick, and simple. I like my fonts to appear the way they're intended. I was my interface consistent with the rest of my Apps.

Second, and more importantly, look at what you've done in each point. You've addressed each of .mac's features using a separate third party. Sure, you can duplicate any number of the features elsewhere. The reason .mac is useful is because it's all in one place. For many users, the idea of having to to Google for their Mail, Flickr for their photos, MediaMax for their storage, and all the while depend on third-party plugins to make it go round... it all just sounds like a headache. Sure, if you know what you're doing it works fine. But $8.25 a month really isn't that much for the simplicity and ease-of-use that .mac offers the average user.

Sure, we'd all love to see .mac get better. And I'm sure in time it will, but let's stop hating on it so much. For the day-to-day user, .mac is a great tool, simple and easy to use, and really isn't all that expensive in the scheme of things. It's two latte's a month... big deal.

Unless reporting someone to the FBI counts as "aiding and abetting" I don't agree.
I didn't realize assisting in procuring abortion for child prostitutes counted as reporting to the FBI

mea culpa
Have the idiots said why exactly they want to kill Planned Parenthood? Is it because they claim most of Planned Parenthood's budget goes towards abortion, (which is not true)? I was watching Bill Mahr last night and the conservative on his panel said that originally the Tea Bagger movement claimed to be about money, budget issues, taxes. But the PP show down over the federal budget shows that they also have a social agenda.

If they are truly worried about paying for welfare, you'd think they'd be thrilled if the low income families were popping out less babies by means of contraception...
People are a nation's greatest asset. Planned Parenthood should not be funded by the government, all incoming money goes into one pot and then distributed thus some money goes towards abortions.