I’m not sure a religious construct will hold up under strict scrutiny, but this is still an interesting comparison of cloud ideologies:

In a sense, these three companies’ cloud services do represent three different concepts of God. Google is an Old Testament, theist-style cloud all the way: He through whom all blessings and punishments come, who must be praised and supplicated; without the Cloud, you are nothing and have nothing. iCloud represents more of a Deist ideal. The Cloud exists, but its presence is more to be felt than seen; if it does its job right, iCloud will instill great doubt that it even exists, or that it takes any notice of us at all. Amazon is a form of agnosticism. You don’t know if you really believe in it or not, but you do know that on the third weekend of every month this pointy building near the center of town throws a really great bake sale.

Via oreillyradar:

From Reuters:

“We don’t want to lose our direct relationship with our subscribers. It’s at the core of our business model,” Rob Grimshaw told Reuters in an interview on Monday. He said he was hopeful of a positive outcome to negotiations with Apple, but added: “If it turns out that one or another channel doesn’t mix with the way we want to do business, there’s a large number of other channels available to us.”

No chest thumping. No talk of iPad “salvation.” Just a level-headed perspective of the current opportunities and how they may or may not benefit the Finaicial Times. This is how all publishers — news, books, film, etc. — should approach digital channels. Does it work for us or does it not?

Via oreillyradar:

Nice analysis.

It is a brilliant countermove. Apple is basically saying, “Let the subscriber decide,” knowing full well they will choose iTunes. After all, it’s simply easier for consumers to subscribe to digital publications from one place.

On a related note: This latest brouhaha over pricing and data and subscribers is a reminder that publishers should diversify beyond the App Store (or app store). The App Store needs to be one distribution channel among many.

Amen. This is why I can never be a prying reporter. There are bigger things at play:

They will rationalize the prying story by saying that Apple is a public company and investors need—nay, deserve—this information.

Well, bullshit.

The truth is, there is no real news value to any of this stuff. The only real value to any of these stories is that they generate page views. And the guys who are doing it, whether they write for a blog or for The New York Times, know the truth of what they’re doing, and they do it anyway. If you really want to learn about cancer and liver transplants, you can go to the library. If you’re an investor and really can’t live with the uncertainty that today’s announcement brings to Apple stock, well, sell your shares and thank Steve Jobs for the ridiculous profits you’ve made. If you decide to hang on to your shares, that’s fine too—but don’t go around claiming that your handful of shares gives you the right to pry into the private life of a sick man.

Wu did not indicate, however, how iPhone or iPad applications would run on a TV set, as those that rely on the touchscreen interface require users to interact with the images on screen. But games that rely on the accelerometer in Apple’s mobile devices would likely be suited for the allegedly forthcoming set top box.

I can think of one way this could work: let those tens of millions of iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads double as game controllers.

Take this post with a grain of salt, what with the anonymous and undefined “source” (it’s not even a “source with inside knowledge” or a “Google source” … just “our source”). But if this is legit, the Google/Verizon tablet is going open a very interesting chapter.

Let’s say this thing sells for $199, which seems reasonable since that’s the most common smartphone price point (with an associated contract, of course). That’s a compelling price for a snazzy tablet, particularly when it’s matched up with the $499 iPad or the $629 iPad 3G. And if this story is correct — if HTC is the manufacturer — I expect good things on the design front. The Nexus One, which was also made by HTC, didn’t disrupted the carrier blockade. But there’s no denying it’s a beautiful device.

With Android on the rise (160k activations per day?!) and the Chrome web app store on the way, I’m guessing Google will soon make sweeping changes to the Android Market. This piece from CNET hints at an early first step:

The new mechanism runs in real-time, with a server receiving requests to verify that an app was legitimately purchased through the Android Market.

Getting developers to trust the marketplace is vital. Say what you will about Apple’s policies. It runs a well-tended shop.

I’m saving this passage to justify my inevitable purchase of an Apple tablet:

Imagine that the “media pad” includes a screen two to four times the size of the iPhone’s 3.5-inch (2″ x 3″) screen, Wi-Fi connectivity, the ability to run software from the App Store and a full web browser. The usefulness of a device like that would instantly trump that of any e-book reader, even if the battery life is poor and the screen less readable than an e-ink screen. That’s because a simple, easy-to-use tablet would be able to do anything the e-book reader could (display the text of books using an app like Stanza, which Amazon recently acquired) plus it would have access to 40,000 apps and billions of web pages. Its screen would be able to display color, and it would undoubtedly let you access e-mail, IM and other apps that people want.

Via Joe Wikert’s Twitter stream.

All these rags-to-riches stories are nice, but the true genius of the App Store is the platform. Apple is taking a 30% fee for lightning in a bottle success. Unreal (in a good way).