So Apple announces the iPad — http://www.apple.com/ipad/ — I suggest you look at the video (not the keynote). I mean, seriously, I’ve been thinking for the last 10 years that the computers of the future will be exactly what that is, a super-thin touch screen that is big enough to be useful (i.e. not the iPhone) and light enough to not be troublesome when you’re out and about.

So um, what new revolutionary stuff has Microsoft been doing recently? Is it just me, or have they been awfully quiet, lately?

With my previous praise for the iPhone, I must of course balance it with some flak. You know me, I’m big on the balance stuff. After all, I did play a Seeker*.

Anyway, the iPhone does not love linux. I knew this though. And this isn’t so much me complaining that the iPhone doesn’t love linux, as it is me marvelling at the grotesqueness of it all.

Look at what I am forced to do, in order to install “apps” from the Apple store onto my iPhone — and no, this is not about jailbreaking the phone, although you might think it is considering all the steps:

1. I have to get Windows or Mac OS. Yep. I read about iTunes in Wine (Windows emulation in linux) and heard it was “garbage”. I do this. I put Windows back on my lap top. For my iPhone. Because it is my master.

2. I have to install iTunes. I do this. Whilst asking myself “why must I…?” I do this. Obediently.

3. I have to confirm my Apple Account, FROM INTERNET EXPLORER. Hang on a minute here.
- I get an email to my gmail address,
- with a confirmation link,
- and clicking it in Firefox
- gives me the Apple “download iTunes for free!!!11111oneneone” page …
- and then when I open iTunes
- I get the “you have not validated your account — please check your email and follow the confirmation link” …
- so finally after many laps of chasing my own ass,
- I try the confirmation link in IE
- and voilá. Beau-fucking-tit-ful. Welcome to Apple Computing. We come in peace from the 1990’s. We mean you no harm.

Thus, finally, I can get on with installing apps on my iPhone. Great hardware, by the way, pity about its maker.

*) Only a select few understand that one and it has nothing to do with Harry Potter.