It may come as a surprise to many, but you could see it coming a mile away. Governments love control (as do copyright holders). So it only stands to reason that the internet could survive as a free wild-west type place for so long.

What John Gruber is saying makes sense, but I’m just not sure about the hardware economics. I would think that Apple would keep the Apple TV (plug in box, as it is right now) around for a few years. This would overlap with the actual television screen that Apple would brand and sell. To begin with it would cannabalize the sales of the larger TV. At the same time, it would allow the platform to grow and accumulate a number of exclusive channels.

After 3 or so years (just a guess), Apple would pull the plug in box and the television screen would be able to sell on content alone.

Some people compiled a list of the top ten countries to start a business in. Although I disagree with some of their conclusions, they do make one interesting point. (Belarus is a totalitarian state, and not a very nice one at that. It should not be in the top ten.)

That point? The United States isn’t even on the list.

That is worrisome.

The WSJ has an article about Ron Paul’s idea for spending cuts [subscription needed]: One Trillion Dollars. With a ‘T’. Clearly, Ron Paul isn’t going to be winning any presidential election any time soon. So let’s look at this proposal not based on politics or anything like that. Instead, let’s look at this as a policy issue which needs to be discussed.

Let’s start with this basic point:

The fact that we can cut 1/60th of the World Economy from the Federal Budget, and have an ostensibly negligible impact speaks volumes about our spending levels. What does it say? That we have such an incredibly bloated and obscenely expensive government, that serious reform is needed. Very, very serious reform.

Let’s all agree on that point and work forward from here. I have a feeling we all agree on a lot more than we think.

Early last week, immediately after the iPhone 4S release, I wrote this post. In it, I wrote about what I thought the next, next iPhone should have (we’re looking at the iPhone 5, 4G, whatever). Most of the things I wrote I stand by. I think a curved glass screen would be great if they stuck with the high resolution at the same time. Also, they are obviously going to do 4G eventually – they aren’t going to be on 3G forever. I don’t know when, but I would love it if it was the next phone. I’m not saying it will be, or that I’m predicting it will be, just that I would like it. Most of the things I listed are natural evolutions of the current products. HD on the iPad? Eventually. Faster processors? Duh. More RAM? Of course. All of that makes perfect sense.

One thing that I wrote about in that post was what the public reaction to the iPhone was going to be, and this is where I messed up. In a brief moment, I wrote something that an analyst would write. A prediction of how the public would react to a phone that not only hadn’t been released, but which I had never even held. Sure, I’ve been using iOS 5 for months, but that doesn’t mean I should be predicting public reaction to an as-of-yet-unreleased phone, and certainly not what Apple’s quarterly results will look like.

After writing this, I thought about what I’d written for a little while. Then I decided that what I wrote wasn’t correct. Instead of deleting or editing the post, I decided that I was going to write a follow-up post about it. Why? Because in thinking about it, I had what every analyst, blogger, and technology enthusiast should have before writing or even talking about Apple, their culture, and their products. I had what I’m going to call the Apple Epiphany.

I came to the realization that Steve Jobs created a new culture at Apple. It isn’t just a company, whose sole purpose is to create and accrue wealth for employees and shareholders. Steve Jobs turned Apple into a new way of thinking on a corporate level. In addition, he changed the purpose of Apple from being about profits to about products. The people Steve answered to stopped being shareholders, and instead became the users.

Through this lens, the entire perspective changes. When Apple releases an iPhone, for example, the iPhone 4S, it isn’t to make money. Of course, that is a side-effect. What the new phone truly does is create a better experience for the user. The new iPhone isn’t about profits, but is instead about products. So when Apple decides to not put 4G in a phone, or not to make it a tear-drop shape, or do any number of things, it is because of one reason: it will not improve the user experience.

This is not an insignificant point. In fact, Apple may be sacrificing some advertising muscle to maintain an excellent user experience. From a photographic viewpoint a tear-dropped shaped phone would look nice. Apple could do one of their arrays of phones and display the new form factor. It would look very nice and impress people with how it looks. When they go to the Apple Store and pick up the phone, they will feel something off, of course. They might still buy the phone, and in fact probably would, but it wouldn’t be perfect. That’s what Apple is all about.

Do not sacrifice the user experience for anything. I’m not talking about what Steve Jobs is about, because Apple is bigger than Steve. Steve had his own life philosophy that spanned a number of fields of study. But when it comes to Apple, all of their decisions and all of their ‘stumbles’ and ‘mistakes’ can be attributed to a singular type of reasoning: Do not sacrifice the user experience for anything.

It just so happens that along the way they became the most valuable company in the world.

Hello all of you new visitors!

Couple of things that I’ve learned after having been linked to by John Gruber.

1. A lot of people visit the website.

2. See above.

Sorry that the site is in such shambles. I haven’t finished it yet. It will look much, much better when it is done. Also, I *knew* I should have saved that headline until after I finished!

Anyway, enjoy the sight.

And follow me on Twitter.

The furor over the iPhone 4S and its lack of a larger screen grows louder with every passing day. Not by actual consumers, who don’t really care about such things, but by the smartest among all of us, the Pundits and the Analysts.

This time around, the screen didn’t grow. I entirely agree with John Gruber’s point about screens. Also, I agree with the sentiment among people who actually take time to understand Apple that they could have had a bigger screen from the beginning, but they instead chose (from a  design perspective) to go with a 3.5″ screen. If they didn’t make it bigger to begin with, then they won’t do it now, just to say they have a larger screen. They might do it eventually for other reasons, but they certainly won’t do it because the consumer ‘demands’ it.

Of course, technology pundits don’t pay attention to these kinds of things. They see a competitor to Apple, and how they have made an improvement, and they now want Apple to do the same. Apple then doesn’t. Everyone cries, nay, weeps at the thought of it all. In fact, when gadgets reviewers (supposedly unbiased) review a new Apple gadget, they take points off if the screen isn’t larger. Who says a larger screen is better? Doesn’t matter. Android has it, and so Apple needs to do it to stay competitive.

Now let’s think of a similar story. Let’s reach far back into our memories, delving down into Apple’s history. Let’s look at the keyboard. I recall when people – nay, consumers - were upset with the lack of a physical keyboard on the iPhone. It was said that without a physical keyboard, the iPhone couldn’t remain competitive. In fact, the downfall of Apple was assured if they didn’t put in a physical keyboard. Let’s ignore the fact that Apple is now the most valuable company on the planet, and let’s ignore the fact that Apple purposefully chose not to put a physical keyboard on there for a reason, and let’s immediately jump the gun and say that Apple will have a repeat of the mid-1990′s because of iPhone deformities.

So, what have we learned here? That Apple decided not to put 3G in the first model, and they had record sales. Then they decided not to put a physical keyboard on the phone, and they had record sales. Then they decided to not make a removable battery, and they had record sales. Then they decided to keep the screen size the same, and they had record sales. In fact, a good strategy for Apple would be to do the opposite of their competitors, and they will have record sales.

That might just be what they’re doing over in Cupertino.

Wouldn’t it be great if the government treated all people equally? Regardless of race, sex, religion or wealth, every person was treated equally. Equality after all, is something to be pursued. I believe that (and I’m not fact-checking this, but it sounds right) all of the movements that have any lasting impact on society have been in favor of equality. (Don’t forget this guy!)

Let’s think this through though. If we are all equal, we all have to pay equal taxes. I don’t mean “the rich have to pay their fair share!” or “let’s tax those poor people into oblivion!” or anything like that. Those may seem like really, really good ideas. In fact, for knee-jerk reactions, those are some of the best. In the long term, however, they really aren’t sustainable. So let’s go with a tax that is moderate. Not 30% and up, and not the 2 or 3 percent that people would really like. Something like 9 or 10 percent income tax, and that’s the same of everyone. We will call it the leveled tax.

If we are all equal, we won’t be guaranteed to succeed. Let’s met aphorize this quickly. You are in a football game. 4th quarter, the score is 45-14. Team A (winning team) is tired, but they are going to win, clearly. Team B is equally tired, and demoralized. All of the sudden, Team C shows up, tag teams Team B out and then proceeds to crush Team A in the last quarter. Fair? No. Same with government bailouts. Regardless of who you are, you aren’t allowed to be bailed out. If you fail, you fail. If we’re all being equal, then let’s truly be equal.

Now, my favorite part. The thing no one really considers. If we are all equal, then we should all get the same amount of welfare out of the system. You might be thinking, “hey, he wants to make poor people starve and shoot the homeless people in the streets! You can’t get rid of welfare!” You would be right (about the ‘can’t get rid of welfare thing, not the shooting people in the streets. This isn’t Canada! We don’t do that in America!). My suggestion is that instead of having welfare only for poor people, and for people who are having a hard time, that we also have government checks sent to retirees. But you can’t take out more money than you put into the system. That’d be fair. So Warren Buffett gets out of the system exactly what he put into it. I’m not a scale, but that seems fair in my book.

Why do I bring this up? Because beyond all of the idiocy that is the 99% movement, and all of the really stupid people they are associating themselves with, I hate the name. It drives me crazy. Sure, it is catchy, and sure, it is good branding. Beyond that, however, it is divisive. It is reminiscent of class warfare. It is not good to demonize the most successful people. It just is a bad idea. But if we were all treated fairly, equally and without bias, we could get rid of the Tea Party movement, and the 99%-ers, and all of the other protest movements going on. Then we could be the 100%. Something to consider is that you are the 100%. 100% of the population pays 100% of the taxes. 100% of the population eats up 100% of welfare. 100% of the population is 100% of the population.

A guy can dream.

I’ve decided to start writing with Ommwriter. It is phenomenal. I mean, it is truly amazing. The basic premise of the application is that it brings you into the zone of writing. It combines aesthetically pleasing background images, turns off notifications on your computer, makes the app fullscreen, turns on some pleasing and melodic music and has a cool typewriter-esque feature.

Altogether, you might think that the application is more distracting than not. However, I have used it for a few posts and a few longer form emails (and the occasional letter), and I have to say that it is staying basic. That’s not to say that there aren’t features (or feature-lacking) that I have some gripes about, because it isn’t perfect. However, it really does do the job of bringing you into the zone of writing. Cuts away all of the distractions that a computer provides, and creates a nice channel between you (the writer) and the screen (the writee?).

My primary gripe is spell check. I am pretty good at spelling and grammar, but I commit the rare mistake of the typo. On my Mac (running Lion), there is autocorrect on everything. It is great, because I always mess up the spelling of weird and wierd. I don’t know why, but that is the way it goes. So for most applications on my computer, it changes the spelling around. Which is awesome. Because I can’t tell you the number of times I have sent an email or tweet and realized I spelled weird wrong (really, I can’t, because I don’t count those kinds of things. Who does that? Freak (317 times)). Does Ommwriter do that? No. Not only does it not have autocorrect enabled (a rather unobtrusive feature), but it has no spell check capabilities.

I understand the rationale behind this move better than most. Having a squiggly line underneath words is distracting. Irritating, even. However, I think I have come up with a nice balance. Have the application be as-is now. No spell check, no squiggly lines (maybe autocorrect, because that really wouldn’t hurt anyone). Then, have a button on the screen which fades away like the rest, and, when the writer is done writing, he or she can click the button and nicely presented spellcheck goes through and shows the errors and fixes them.

Other than that minor gripe, the application really is superb. Kudos to the team. The only other suggestion I have is related to the typewriter-esque feature. In case you are unaware, this feature makes a little clicky noise every time you press a key. Every time that is, expect for when you hit the backspace key. It really is lacking to have the backspace key be an empty noise. Hurts the experience, in my opinion. One additional thing, full Mac OS Lion support. The fullscreen is lacking.

That’s it though! Those few things are really minor, and really are not deal breakers. Sure, no spell check means that it can’t be my full time writing application, but it can be my 70% writing application!