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“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning“  – Winston Churchill

I had to apologise this week for or absence over the past few weeks.  Unfortunately having to work for a living really interferes with all the fun stuff I want to do.  I’ve been working so hard that I haven’t had time to do anything even vaguely techie, no software, no hardware, nary a new App has graced my iPhone.  Gareth has had some luck on the hardware side, but we won’t go into that. And App-wise he has succumbed to my recommendation of RSS feed reader, Reeder is a great app, fully endorsed by both of us.

Then it was on to the stories, starting with what else…

iPad international launch May 28th – At last, the rest of the world can enjoy the latest ‘magical and revolutionary’ device from Cupertino. Well nine other countries anyway, the rest of the world can wait, because at last I can get one. If I wanted to, but at these prices I don’t know if I do. I know it’s not called rip-off Britain’ for nothing, and we always have to pay a premium for the latest and greatest from Apple, but come on.  It’ll have to be a pretty damn ‘magical and revolutionary’ to get me to part with that much extra.

HP buys Palm – HP are going to ‘double down’ on webOS, that bit of Palm they paid $1.2bn for. Which most people take to mean it’s going to turn up on more devices, then just a few average phones, most likely the slate that Steve Ballmer held up a few months ago, no Windows 7 there then. That made me laugh almost as much as Bono’s Elevation Partners losing $92m on the deal, so much for piracy costing you millions, hey Bono, you’ll have to dodge a lot more taxes to make that up.

WWDC sells out in 8 days – All the moaning about the lack of focus on Mac OS X hasn’t done a thing to dampen developers enthusiasm for WWDC. It sold out three weeks faster then last year, easily demonstrating that iPhone OS is proving a real draw. Don’t get me wrong, I want Apple to push on with Snow Leopard, and beyond, as much as the next fanboy, but I also know that Infinite Loop is about more then that these days. But as we’re both iPhone users, it’s a win/win for us.

MS Kin, what price ‘normalphone’ – MicroSoft are trying to invent a new niche with these new ‘normalphones’ (well they’re not dumbphones and they’re not smartphones what would you call them). But unfortunately Verizon, the chosen network supplier, hasn’t read the memo and are insisting on a smartphone tariff on these devices. Yeah they sync with all the usual social network suspects, but not a lot else, there aren’t going to be lots of apps for these things, what they come with is what you get. So why charge so much for the phone and service when superior devices, Android and iPhone, are not much further out of reach. Oh well, at least, according to MS, they’re good for sexting.

Cupidtino – If you’re a lonely Mac fanboy there’s a new service available to hook up with a Mac fangirl. You both appreciate good design, easy of use and a well thought out user experience. So that must mean you’re compatible on so many other levels, yeah right. Apart from making tech support simpler, I can’t see it making that much of a difference. But who am I, socially challenged nerd that I am, to say that it’s wrong.

The end of floppies? – Nearly twelve years after the release of the ‘magical and revolutionary’ original iMac G3, Sony have finally caught up. They have announced that they’re finally stopping production of the floppy disk. I have to ask at this point, when was the last time you used a floppy disk, because I haven’t for years. Who are these mysterious consumers of floppies, have they not heard of thumb-drives or email? I wonder if Stringer will save enough money from this to release something decent.