Apple is evil. Google is good. That’s because iOS is closed and a walled garden, but Android is open. Presumably that’s why Google is delaying distribution of Honeycomb’s source code (Bloomberg).

Google argues Honeycomb isn’t ready to be altered by outside programmers; depressingly Andy Rubin, vice-president for engineering at Google, is quoted as saying:

We didn’t want to think about what it would take for the same software to run on phones. It would have required a lot of additional resources and extended our schedule beyond what we thought was reasonable. So we took a shortcut.

We have no idea if it will even work on phones.

So it might be open at some point in the future, presumably when it least affects Google’s own business (such as, say, when it’s no longer useful to RIM) and currently doesn’t work on phones; additionally, half the carriers will ignore Honeycomb anyway, to ‘encourage’ customers to buy new devices rather than upgrade old ones.

Open.

Oh my. The Guardian’s posted a video speedtest of the iPad 2 and… oh my. “How bad can it be?” you might be wondering. It’s… bad. But funny. Go watch it.

SPOILER: It’s a lot faster… Look at that! A lot faster! It’s faster! Again, faster! Actually, a lot faster!

What’s less amusing is the review itself, which is original content that somehow reads like it’s been cribbed from every other iPad 2 review, normalised and then fired on to the internet. It’s more a round-up than a review. Also, you know you’ve got a bad review when the only new information it offers is the odd error. Gah.

As you might have noticed, this blog’s gone into one of its quieter patches, mostly because I’m currently drowning in iOS games for my Tap! magazine duties. The good is that I get to play and write about cracking* iOS games. The bad is that I don’t really have time to do anything else for a few days. However, this also gives me a nice excuse to mention the spiffy new website for the publication, www.tapmag.co.uk, which will carry reviews, posts from editor Christopher Phin (and maybe some of us other contributors if he gives us the magic key), and handy links so you can subscribe.

Anyway, back to Dungeon Raid and Liqua Pop.

* As in “Cracking cheese, Gromit!”, not dodgy app piracy.

Andy Ihnatko on the iPad 2:

Many of you were around for the transition from text to graphical user interfaces. Some of you were even around when the world shifted from mainframes to personal computers. Well, congratulations: you’ve lived to see your third revolution in computing.

Interesting that Apple’s been instrumental in all three of these revolutions:

• The Apple II was one of the first personal computers, boasting then-rare built-in features, such as colour graphics, sound and a keyboard.
• Mac OS popularised the graphical user interface, in a time when people were staring glumly at command lines.
• And now iOS has kickstarted a touchscreen revolution that every other major player in the industry is clamouring to join.

It’ll also be interesting to see what the fourth revolution will be—and whether Apple will be a part of it.

In the US, iPad prices remained put when the iPad 2 arrived, a smart move on Apple’s part, given that most of its competitors are, at best, price-matching with their closest equivalent products. In the UK, however, something more curious has happened: the iPad’s price is to drop with the iPad 2.

The entry level model (16 GB Wi-Fi) will cost £399, down 30 quid, and you get £20 and £40 savings on the 32 and 64 GB models, which are priced £479 and £559, respectively. As with the original iPad, 3G adds £100 to the pricing, which again means savings over the original model.

Despite rumours to the contrary, Apple has stated the iPad 2 will be released on March 25 in 25 countries, including the UK, Canada, Germany and France. One curious addition is Iceland, which lacks its on iTunes Store, so it’s unknown how people there are supposed to acquire apps and other content.