From Apple:
“We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.”

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_PkLzwvyZdQ

Someone close to me recently went through the “Task List” (Microsoft’s term) for upgrading her operating system to Vista. Her computer is not a video game busting design machine, but it’s new enough to be respectable in a bar fight. The task list was three pages long (and included the purchase of hardware – e.g. new video card). I predict, given her frustration, that she purchases a Mac within the year.

But that’s not what I intended to write about – or not entirely. There are a few slow armies worth watching as frustration with Microsoft (both deserved and undeserved) mounts. Google just launched Google Aps, an incomplete but notable alternative to Microsoft Office and Mandriva Free 2007, an alternative to the whole operating system.