Comment: in reply to christophr.co.uk

First things first, as most people seem to discuss this topic without noting this very important fact. No one, (yes absolutely no one) is making anyone make applications for the iOS. There is nothing saying if you are a developer that you HAVE to make software for the iPhone. Therefore it is wrong to criticise the way apple handles their devices/products. The bottom line of this is, if they want to take a cut of apps they can. If app developers dont like this. Then they can go and develop for another platform.
A second note to why I actually agree to the app store is the following, android is still a minor market in the global sense of things when it comes to apps, yes its catching up but its still not as large as iPhone. When a new game/app becomes popular the amount of people who download that app is crazy. Without an app store hosted by apple it would not be able to meet the demands of a mass market so efficiently.
At the moment it is still impossible to compare the android OS to iOS, it is such a child in this comparison. The apps available for the android platform are totally different. Games few and far between, the most popular android app probably being a calculator…. Therefore it is a bad comparison really to compare htc/android to iPhone. The devices are just nothing alike, the iPhone is more than just a phone running apps, its becoming so much more than that.
As for the future of computing it has a long long way to go. Who knows what the future will bring. There is again, no comparison between an iPad and OSX. OSX is by far far far more powerful. The iPad was not launched as a product to replace desktop computing, just an additional product, “unnecessary” unless you need/want one. If it does end up replacing desktop computing then so it will. Just as paper replaced wood and wood replaced rock in writing.
I do agree that apple is a closed platform and that they see a huge money opportunity with IOS, but quite honestly i’d rather the company make money than loose money, and as a resulting factor keep making revolutionary products.
There would be nothing stopping people using whatever products they want in the future. If windows XP is still your operating system of choice in 2050 then I imagine you will still be able to use windows XP.
Apple didnt ignore OSX, they announced new iTunes (yes i know for IOS) since then a new mac mini. Safari….and all the time continually update all of the mac software….