Some choice quotes on Cult of Mac from RIM CEO Jim Balsille:

For those of us who live outside of Apple’s distortion field, we know that 7” tablets will actually be a big portion of the market

That must be why the iPad’s been beaten into fifth place by 7-inch tablets. (No, wait.) And it’s also why everyone loves using 7-inch tablets, rather than thinking them a cramped mess and rubbish form-factor that’s got more in common with a big smartphone than a tablet. (No, wait.)

and we know that Adobe Flash support actually matters to customers who want a real web experience

Fair enough. I don’t know how I’d do without Flash for my “real web experience”. It’s not as though Flash brings my Mac to a grinding halt every damn time it’s used, forcing me to use a Flash-blocker on all browsers these days, leaving poor old me with websites using rubbish technologies like HTML, CSS and JavaScript. (No, wait.)

Do you need a set of proprietary tools to bring existing assets on to a device, or can you use known tools that you use for creating websites?

Yes, because if there’s one thing the iPad does, it’s block websites. Man, if only there was a really good browser engine on the device, which not only gave you a decent browsing experience, but also provided the means for standalone HTML5 (etc.) web apps. (No, wait.)

Cult of Mac reports:

RIM released a video of its unreleased PlayBook tablet appearing to show faster web browsing capabilities. However, Balsillie refused to answer just when its tablet would go on sale.

Gosh! That’s showing them. You’re sure to smash the iPad to pieces, RIM, by not yet having your ‘better’ competing device in the market, perhaps instead releasing it when the iPad 2 arrives in April, which will of course be faster than the iPad 1.

…

…

(NO, WAIT.)

Android fans keep arguing that seven inches is all you need, and Apple’s ten-inch iPad is overkill, ignoring the very obvious fact that Apple must have created hundreds of prototypes before deciding on the iPad’s form factor. (Clearly, the fact even Google admits Android’s not suited for ten-inch screens is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT.)

Gizmodo just reviewed the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Aside from the box-quote strap—“A Pocketable Train Wreck”—Matt Buchanan nails what the problems are with all these seven-inch iPad wannabes:

If you take iPhone apps and simply scale them up for the iPad, most of them don’t feel right. If you take Android apps and scale them up for the Tab, the majority of them—Twitter, Facebook, Angry Birds—work perfectly. That’s because the Galaxy Tab is small enough that apps simply blown up a little bit still fundamentally work. Which means, conversely, that there’s almost no added benefit to using the Tab over a phone.

And while the iPad’s keyboard—especially in landscape—enables seasoned users to type at speed, things change dramatically as you move from a 4:3 ten-inch display to a widescreen seven-inch display:

In portrait, it’s like tapping on a massive, nerdy phone. In landscape, it’s just dumb. You still have to thumb type, only you’re stretching out further, and text entry swallows up the entire screen. […] In other words, you get the worst of a phone’s input problems—amplified.

Along with calling some of the default apps “Chinatown knockoffs of Cupertino software”, Buchanan suggests the Tab is:

[…] like a compromise’s evil twin, merging the worst of a tablet and the worst of a phone. It has all of the input problems of a tablet, with almost none of the consumption benefits.

On first seeing the slew of seven-inch tablets, I wondered if this would be the case, and, unsurprisingly, it is. Sadly for the hardware guys, this isn’t easily fixable either—most of the issues are simply down to the form factor being wrong for most use-scenarios and input types.

Here’s hoping someone sees the light and starts challenging Apple next year with a full-size tablet, because only that will drive Apple to improving the iPad with any urgency.

Bloomberg reports Apple has 95% of the tablet market. This is because the iPad is the only viable unit available, unless you’re crazy and/or deluded. Hopefully, this will change next year.

However, I’ll bet regardless of the situation in 2011, three things will happen:

1. Apple’s marketshare will fall. This is inevitable, because competitors will exist, and at least some will be ‘good enough’. I’ll be amazed if Apple ends 2011 with more than 75% of the market.
2. Apple’s profits will remains dramatically higher than everyone else in the industry, despite its lower marketshare. This is due to Apple making profitable kit, but also because the market itself will grow. Therefore, Apple will have a smaller slice of a much larger pie.
3. Every analyst earning megabucks writing buying advice and industry commentary will note the first of these points and utterly ignore everything in the second one. Apple’s falling share of the market will yet again be seen as proof that Apple is doomed.

Microsoft on Mac Office’s draconian product activation (which makes the product literally unusable if you don’t activate it within 15 days):

Microsoft Product Activation tries to reduce counterfeit software, and to make sure that Microsoft customers receive the software quality that they expect.

(Source: Macworld.)

Compare this with Apple’s iWork, which as of iWork ’09 even ditched licence codes entirely. With iWork, you just install the app and it works. However, having used iWork ’09 and Office 2008 extensively, I can say the former definitely has more ‘quality’ than the latter; so unless Office 2011 is an absolutely massive improvement to go along with its stupid new activation, Microsoft’s taking shit.

Additionally, how long will it be before Office 2011 is cracked? Once again, those who’ve legally bought a product will be saddled with a worse user experience than those who torrent the thing. So, well done, Microsoft, for joining the boneheaded brigade. And extra points for turning the two-computer install from Office 2008 into a single-computer install for 2011, forcing those who have a back-up machine or use a desktop at home and a laptop at work to buy an extra licence. Stay classy, Redmond guys.

Back in 2008, Apple talked about availability of the iPhone 3G worldwide, and offered the following map:

(Pic credit: Iceland Review.)

For reasons unknown, Apple decided Iceland (and Greenland, for that matter) didn’t exist. My wife just discovered the same attitude prevails in iOS. Back in the heady days of iOS 3.x, Icelandic characters were readily available from the English keyboard: ð under D, þ under T and ý under Y. Now, they’re gone, forcing users to switch keyboard language to access them.

Fair enough, you might think, but think about it: Apple removed support from the standard English keyboard for no real reason; the characters were also useful to anyone needing to write about Old English/Anglo-Saxon; and the keyboard still retains a bunch of characters from other European languages that aren’t used in English.

So what’s the story here? Did Steve Jobs visit Iceland in 2007 and have someone recommend him hákarl and brennivín, without telling him what it was like, therefore sending the Apple CEO into a rage that he’s never recovered from? Or, more likely, has Apple just decided on a whim to remove support for something that people find useful, just because it can?