The BBC reports that 24 large phone operators are ganging up to give Apple a smack. The Wholesale Applications Community is aiming to offer its own take on the App Store, presumably because they want a tasty slice of profits pie.

On reading the BBC’s article, it’s hard to tell whether this is a profits grab or a genuine stab for the future of apps. The article talks about building and selling apps “irrespective of device or technology”, which could mean advanced open web apps or web apps dumbed down to work in any old system. Likewise for the quote about overcoming market fragmentation by creating a single “open platform that delivers applications to all mobile phone users”.

Long-term, web apps are a good bet. As JavaScript and HTML evolves, browser-based environments will be able to do more and more. At the present time, though, to truly support “all mobile phone users,” you’ve no choice but to drag devices down to the lowest common denominator—and when consortiums of this sort are born, compromise usually forces hands, to the point that exciting and visionary aims are ditched in favour of short-term market-share and profits. Here’s hoping that’s not the case here.

Following Warner Music’s announcement that it is to stop licensing its songs to free online music streaming services, stating that such things are “clearly not positive for the industry”, the record label is to also stop releasing music digitally and on CD. From tomorrow, all new Warner output will be exclusively on vinyl, with the average album costing around $50 (£32).

“Digital music and CDs are too easy to pirate,” said a Warner spokesperson. “Filthy f——ing pirate scum copying Warner albums results less income for our executives… uh, I mean artists, and so we’ve taken this step to ensure we… uh, I mean our artists get more income and can continue making wonderful music.” On the decision to go vinyl, the spokesperson remarked that “no modern PC has a vinyl slot” and that the company would soon release the iVinylPod, a device enabling you to play your Warner albums on the go. “The iVinylPod is slightly larger than the average mobile music player,” confirmed the spokesperson, adding: “But we think the music-buying public will happily forego a little convenience when they know record label executives are making money hand over fist. Uh, I mean when they know artists are getting more income from their wonderful music.”

Warner refused to comment on leaked information that its vinyl albums will also be removed from sale this summer, replaced by iWarner. According to documentation now circling the internet, the iWarner service removes media from the equation entirely. Instead, your selected artist comes to your house and plays their latest album live in your front room. To remove the threat of piracy, Warner detonates a small electromagnetic pulse bomb to destroy all recording equipment in your neighbourhood, and the suggested price per album of $1 million is, according to marketing blurb, countered by the “wonderful immersive experience that only iWarner can bring”.

Answer: unrealistic expectations followed by inevitable disappointment.

In the meantime, feel free to re-read How to update your online store, the Apple way.

Over the past 24 hours, lots of publications have reported on a stupid Vodafone employee posting an inappropriate and homophobic message to the company’s Twitter feed.

Perhaps surprisingly, the media didn’t erupt in a frenzy of “social networking is evil” rants, although, inevitably, a number of individuals are claiming they’ll cancel their Vodafone accounts, due to the incident.

Personally, I think such people are idiots. Yes, the comment posted was unsavoury, but I tend to think you find out a lot about a company by how it deals with problems such as this. Vodafone could so easily have established a PR smokescreen, or it could have lied and claimed its feed was hacked. Instead, it told the truth. It said one of its staff (now suspended) had posted the message, and it replied and publicly apologised on Twitter to everyone asking about what had happened.

I don’t have any day-to-day dealings with Vodafone, and so I cannot comment on the quality and standards of the company in general. However, in the manner in which this incident was dealt with, I don’t really see how anyone could have asked for anything more, perhaps bar Vodafone management taking a little more interest in exactly who has access to the (usually very helpful) Twitter feed.

It’s getting to be that a day doesn’t go by without an incredibly stupid article regarding Apple’s iPad. Today’s piece of stunning ineptitude comes from a publication that should know better: FT.com. Jonathan Zittrain writes in A fight over freedom at Apple’s core (did you see what he did there?) the following doozy:

Users no longer own or control the apps they run – they merely rent them minute by minute.

This is, of course, entirely accurate, unless you’re some kind of anal control freak who demands that accuracy be equated with ‘the truth’ and ‘facts’.

Zittrain also sets off the blah-blah-blah alarm regarding Apple being evil and closed, citing the wonderful ‘open’ nature of Android. Anybody can do anything with Google, apparently, because it’s not remotely evil and its devices are open, smell of roses and are made of unicorn tears. Really. And if you believe that, or that in the long run Google’s supposedly ‘open’ stance will be any better for developers and end users than Apple’s ‘closed’ one, I have a bridge to sell you.