To be fair, "At all levels, this is a notch above anything we’ve ever done,” isn't exactly an easy metric to work with. I read it several times, and still can't guess what he meant. What are the levels? What is a relevant comparison? There's no way to fail with such ambitious - I mean ambiguous - goals.

It's kind of like saying "this door hinge, on all levels, is a notch above anything I own." Is it the best door hinge, and why? Is it the best item on my door? In my room? My house? The best thing I use every day? Does it look nice, add function, swing silently? No, it's simply "a notch above anything."

I didn't forget, I just have enough faith in the human race to understand blatant, thick sarcasm without the need for a tag.

Did anyone actually read the whole comment??? All these lazy downvoters didn't get to the goods stuff after the scarcasm.

Yeah, but Android will surely take over the tablet market any second now. I mean, it's the new Windows. Industry standard. Apple will lose eventually. They literally have to lose, just like they did in the 80's and 90's. Because they have to, that's why. Obviously.

Back in the real world...iPad = iPod on steroids. The only one worth knowing about. Band-Aid. Google search. Kleenex.

Game. Set. Match. Dividend.

I wrote basically the same comment 2 days ago on a 9to5 article and ended up getting downvoted. What a difference a keynote makes to change perception in the fan base.

Here's how you make it fit:

Android developers tried AS HARD AS THEY COULD to copy the original iPhone OS as quickly as possible. They wanted to match every feature, while remaining hardware agnostic. From the standpoint of a feature punch-list , they were largely successful. As far as user experience, Google wasn't even close. Fortunately for Android, Google nurtures the permanent beta mentality, not concerned about immediate profits or even product excellence. Fortunately for Android, phone OEMs had no other option to combat the iPhone (way to drop the ball MSFT). Fortunately for Android, Apple didn't have nearly enough production to offer the iPhone to all carriers - they still aren't even close nearly five years later. So here we are in 2012. Android has largely caught up with ICS. The not evil folks in Mountain View are throwing huge resources at Android, and are even differentiating from iOS through Google services. But that doesn't change the fact that fundamentally, Android is a reverse engineered product. The passage of time doesn't reverse this basic fact.

There is nothing inherently wrong or illegal about reverse engineering, but Schmidt and Co. have complete disregard for intellectual property. It is one of the central tenets of Google; all information is public and should be searchable. The company is appalled that Twitter didn't renew the contract or that Facebook never wanted to share the proprietary user data that is the company's life blood. They can't understand why book publishers would bristle at the notion of OCR scanning and machine translating every written page, ever, so that Google can monetize the search. They choose to fight privacy suits in Europe regarding Streetview images, rather than simply settle out of court. They defend, to this day, the use of Java as Android's foundation, having modded the code only in an effort to avoid a license.

All of this would be fair game, except that the company has a holier than thou slogan of "Don't be evil." There is a self righteousness in all actions, even as they seek to migrate profits from content creators to Google, whose basic function is only to find the stuff others create. At least Apple has the cojones to be transparent about their corporate objectives. They make and sell very profitable hardware and don't apologize for it. They don't get on a soapbox and talk about civil liberties and human rights while acting exactly the same as every other company on the planet whenever it suits them.

Maybe it won't be aluminum any more? If could be that the industrial design effort is going into a beautiful case instead of a scratch prone exterior. It would encourage loyal Apple customers to replace the case during the life cycle of the iPad and create more revenue for Apple, all while stealing share from 3rd party case manufacturers.

For the record, I wouldn't like this idea one bit as a customer (different story as a stockholder). Just a "what if" scenario, nothing more.

I've got to side with keyblade321 on this one. It would be pedantic if "iPhone 5" was a 50/50 possibility, but there's almost ZERO chance the thing will be called iPhone 5. Just call it the next iPhone. We will still all know what they are talking about, and the staff at 9to5 won't have 1000 articles with the (obviously) wrong product name.

The iPhone 4 got its name because it was the fourth generation hardware, NOT because the number 4 somehow necessarily follows 3GS. The 3G and 3GS monikers referred to the network connection, not the hardware generation. Apple has not done itself favors with its changing naming convention, but at least each name has made sense. iPhone 5 wouldn't make sense, and thus won't be the name. Personally, I'd rather see Apple use model years than model names. Then there's no confusion. They only really make one iPhone, but people still struggle to remember the name, instead falling back to calling it "the new one."

And before you say it doesn't matter, just look at the Galaxy brand that Samsung has built. At present, there are at least five tablets bearing the Galaxy name, with overlapping price points and varying subsidies depending on mode of purchase. I was in an AT&T store last week, and witnessed an unfortunate incident where a 65-ish year old woman came to purchase a Galaxy smartphone. The clerk was disappointed that she couldn't identify which Galaxy she wanted, but she'd only been told by her daughter than the Galaxy is the way to go. After 20 minutes, she left frustrated and confused, afraid to make the wrong purchase and unable to contact her daughter for clarification. On the floor was an old Galaxy S, a Galaxy S2, a Galaxy S2 Skyrocket, and a Galaxy Note 5.1. AT&T lost out on the chance to upgrade a flip phone customer to an expensive new contract because of terrible product branding.

The iPod Touch is $200 BECAUSE the iPhone is $650. If Apple weren't getting fat on the phone, it would be forced to make much more on the pod. As it is, Apple views iPod Touch as the equivalent of a free sample from a dealer - he knows once you get a taste you'll come back for way more.

Really? A laptop requires the same miniaturization as a phone? So my new Thinkpad 420S (a compact laptop, but no MBA) at 102 cubic inches is exactly the same in your mind as my new 4S at less than 4 cubic inches? It is roughly 28 times the volume of my phone, and it does not contain GPS, cellular antenna, accelerometers, gyroscope, an 8 mp lens and sensor, or a heavy glass display.

Give me a break.