Well, to me it comes to this, Apple wants to simply be a pocket catalog not a hardware platform. But I am willing to bet that unless Apple specifically moves from the illusion people are buy hardware and just renting/leasing the device since they still try and bully users as well as developers into submission to Apple's will, they are going to pretty much break the company in the long term. As the market sees more devices as well as more mature alternative OS's, think WebOS and all the experience the old PalmOS developers have and they developed WebOS as well as most of the current apps, add in Android 3+ then Windows 7's new tablet version coming out on the Asus 121. But roll those together with the added freedom and for all it's nanny-ism's built into Apple's business model will wear thin and result in Apple staying at the 7%-10% market share just like their computers.
To me Apple's policies remind me of the
"Quahog Beautiful Peoples Club" [video -
http://video.adultswim.com/family-gu...ples-club.html -- oh it's Flash so iPad users need not apply] wanting only the people narcissists think are narcissistic. I am not knocking wanting an iPod/Touch or other Apple computer, they are nice enough, but if you really objectively look at how Apple runs it's show, they are pretty oppressive, stifling and authoritarian about telling people how they are allowed to use the device they paid money for. And that's fine as long as people are willing to accept the rest of the world is not OK with that sort of control. It genuinely smells of Fahrenheit 451. Apple is today's standard bearer of the "Not made here" company, right up there with Sony, IBM and ???
And I LIKED owning the 4th Gen 32gb Touch as well as really loved the 2nd gen Nano. but am very happy to have sold my Touch while I could for a profit. Just ran into too many roadblocks with content. The real frustration was the whole Audible 2-account limit with iTunes.
Anyway, my point was all Apple wants the iOS platform-family of devices to be is a delivery system for the iTunes store. And Apple needs to stop being a passive-aggressive androgynous metrosexual and state that as a fact. At least then it would be something people could at least respect. And this includes the iPhone. The only reason they made the thing a phone was to get the Cellco's on-board in order to keep the price artificially high.