Okay, so let's lay down some numbers for say, 375k 1 bedroom
"affordable" condo. That means that two people with limited income
have to cough (somehow) 75k for downpayment. Which is almost their
annual income. Nice. But it's not over. So they will have to finance
the rest which is 300k.
For 30 years on average interest rate, plus adding annual taxes and
insurance and modest $300/mnth HOA fees (and hoping they'll not grow)
and also hoping nothing major breaks -- so keeping this all in mind --
they are looking at good $2900-3100 PER MONTH. Over the course of 30
years the $$$ spent only on principal and interest will be about
680-700k (I am not even adding here HOA and taxes).
Does anybody think their condo will cost these money in 30 years? Nope.

So the question is -- is this really "affordable"?? Does it make sense
to buy? Not for me. California real estate market is just crazy. Dumb
crazy.

I am no expert, but so far, iphone's camera is THE best one I saw on
mobile devices. Very very nice.

Talk time:

3GS: Up to 5 hours on 3G, Up to 12 hours on 2G

4:      Up to 7 hours on 3G, Up to 14 hours on 2G

3GS: Up to 5 hours on 3G, Up to 9 hours on Wi-Fi

4:      Up to 6 hours on 3G, Up to 10 hours on Wi-Fi

Full article is here http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/04/five-reasons-iphone-v-android.html and I should say it does make interesting points, though, I am not 100% agree with everything there. But, like this block:

"...Apple is moving on to the 4.0 stage of its mobile platform, has consistently hit promised milestones, has done yeomen's work on evangelizing key technologies within the platform (and third-party developer creations - "There's an app for that"), and developed multiple ways for developers to monetize their products. No less, they have offered 100 percent distribution to 85 million iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads, and one-click monetization via same. Nested in every one of these devices is a giant vending machine that is bottomless and never closes. By contrast, Google has taught consumers to expect free, the Android Market is hobbled by poor discovery and clunky, inconsistent monetization workflows. Most damning, despite touted high-volume third-party applications, there are (seemingly) no breakout third-party developer successes, despite Android being around two-thirds as long as the iPhone platform."

Well said. And very clear what is the difference between Android and iPhone users. My personal experience shows the same. Blackberry and Android users don't *buy* applications. Well, incorrect. They *rarely buy*. Blackberry users don't have many at the first place, Android users try to get everything free. iPhone users pay. And usually they don't even questioning the price (some still do), but they just buy if *any* value is in the app.

Frankly speaking, after and while using Blackberry I was pretty annoyed with the fact (exactly the *fact*) that there is no multitasking. It's just our brain, used to the fact that it should be there, complains and grumbles.

Reality check? Well, I do use background apps on Blackberry. IM (beejive). Twitter. Uh-oh. That should be it. You?
The fact that you have N number of applications running in the background does not give you anything. They are just there. Slow sleeping or just doing nothing, keep their chunk of memory and loading your tiny CPU to keep them alive.

So what really happens when you SWITCH to application? (Which is in background). It "wakes up", shows off itself, same data, same status, everything the same.
Hold on - but isn't that exactly what iPhone allow all applications to implement?! You've got an event before shutdown, even after launch, you can save and load all the info about application status you ever would want; restore it properly, restore the UI (views) - here we go - your app will look like it never left the stage, was just hiding in "virtual ;-) background".
I was able to implement basics of it easily, within an hour, being a complete newbie to Objective-C and iPhone SDK. And it works. So, now, I assume, all those developers of all those apps which didn't do that, but instead think that "multitasking saves everybody" - just ignorant of existing functionality. Actually, I think that multitasking is a much more complex and painful thing to properly develop and debug -- than just simple state saving/loading.

There are exclusions always, certainly, in this case, too. Sometimes you may want to run background music app and you want to browse Web at the same time. That's true. Apple putted their foot down and decided it's only their iPod app has this priveledge.
Also, you may want to open Web page and while it is loading, switch to email, and then may be twitter, and then to Web page - which you expect to be loaded already. True. Valid case. Reality check? Does not work that well on Blackberries, neither on Androids. With all the multitasking. You are on *mobile* device, with only EDGE or 3G connection (usually), you have small chunk of memory and CPU isn't big. All that leads to the fact that page probably is not loaded, or half-loaded by the time you switched back. True multitasking? Yeah... NO.

So, this is just my personal take on this problem. Again, I was kind of dissapointed myself with the fact that "no multitasking" on those pretty iPhones and iPads, but by given a look from the different angle, and from the perspective of real use - I do not care that much, really. I have no doubt that once mobile devices catch up a little bit more with CPU speeds and energy use - magically Apple will bring multitasking on board. Till then.. I am fine without it. ;-)