Of course you're allowed an opinion. In fact I normally concur with most of the opinions expressed here, and I certainly always value them, those are the reasons it's the only board I have kept as a regular online place to visit all these years.

Is the problem that I'm so firm in my beliefs about the Pre? Because I don't think I've tried to make a point that others aren't allowed to think differently. A lot of what I've expressed in these last messages is about what's going on in the press, not necessarily what's been mentioned by others here.

Anyway, I did have some additional points to add to the lest message so I'll add them here. It's become somewhat fashionable lately to dig on Apple so every time anything is released it's turning into some type of sensational headline as "an iPhone killer" or a "Macbook killer" or... You get the picture. Online, I find this really common in blogs that are accused by others of being Apple-biased. In the traditional press it's usually when they pick up a story that originated online, but it's there all the time since they're more corporate in mentality anyway.

All these "killer" products are simply variations on a theme and more often than not, very uninspired ones. Meizu M8 anyone? We've seen one giant leap in innovation in the past few years and it was the initial introduction of the iPhone. Period.

It bugs me to see people continually rip on a couple of Apple or iPhone faults while ignoring much more serious issues with their products. As an example, there's so much more that can be addressed or fixed with the iPhone before even considering spending any time on Cut and Paste. Don't even get me started on the massive amount of problems in Leopard and Apple's apparent inability (or unwillingness) to correct the vast number of small issues that plague daily use of the OS.

Nope, it's more important to rip on them instead (and try to sensationalize the issue) for wise ideas like non-removable battery in the latest 17" MacBook Pro. There's an insignificant amount of people that ever swap out the battery in their notebooks. Or even their phones for that matter. It's generally a non-issue.

Sometimes they get called out rightfully so, like their initial stance on iPhone development. It's acceptable they didn't have an SDK ready, but they should have just said that - that one was coming within a year. Plam comes along with a slightly souped-up variation on the web-as-an-application and I'm not seeing any such complaints. It's a nice alternative for those who want to make some light-weight software, but it's not a long-term solution and completely not applicable to any software designed for heavy lifting (games, visualization, audio, speech, mapping, etc..)

So when I hear Ed Colligan flapping his lips, all I want to say is STFU, pull the trigger and let's go. Let's see who's left standing at the end of the day. Jobs may talk in a grand fashion, but he's first backed everything up with success. Though it also doesn't impress me very much when he goes off either.