Jonathan Ive on The Key to Apple's Success - BusinessWeek: Neat article about a recent talk from Jonathan Ive. Here's the best quote:

For Apple, he outlined, the end game isn't commercial success. "Apple's goal isn't to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products," he explained.

I would say that nicely sums up the secret of Apple's success over the last decade. This also explains why Apple is willing to leave money on the table (but not producing a midrange desktop, for example) -- because they're only interested in making products that they themselves care about.

Palm Pre Review - Macworld: Best Pre review I've read yet. Things I learned -- the power button is the only way to sleep / wake the Pre, and it's hard to hit when the keyboard is out. In addition, you have to be careful with L-shaped headphone cords when the keyboard is extended. Still, aside from some quirks with the hardware, the Pre and webOS do seem to be pretty solid.

The Crack Cocaine of Auction Sites: Swoopo.com is the most efficient, addictive way to separate people from their money. | The Big Money: Ug, this sounds terrible. I wonder how long this company can go before the government steps in?

iPhone 3GS? Not Enough to Justify the Cost (and AT&T Sucks) | Smarterware:

With every successive iteration of the iPhone (both on the hardware side and software side), Apple has been knocking down the reasons that people cite for not owning one. Looking over this list, it seems like the most common reasons for not going with an iPhone 3GS are cost (high monthly contract) and AT&T. So, if Apple is serious about the iPhone (and there is plenty of reason to believe that they are), then it seems like those are the two areas that the 4th generation iPhone will focus on.

Just imagine if Apple released an improved iPhone next year, that was capable of working on all 4 major providers in the US (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint). Then you could pick the iPhone, and choose your carrier. Since it would be the same exact phone on every carrier, the only way that they could differentiate themselves would be on price or network quality. I would love it if the carriers were locked in a struggle of providing higher quality for a lower price.