Agreed... the idea of bringing the jobs back to the US at the expense of an iPhone costing 3 or 4 times as much.. that doesn't help america overall. Like Ron Paul says there.. it's a much more complicated issue than that and the real reason we don't have more jobs here are the unions having too much power, etc.

Has anyone verified the signature? Cause if not I've got an original iPhone 1 with a cracked screen with SJ's signature on the back... (well it WILL have it in just a minute.)

Guess I misunderstood then cause it sounded like you DON'T want new features. I want the new appletv to be 1080P, have an app store, game controllers... etc. If opened up to developers (like me) it could be better than the wii.

what?!

I worked at a place where we were well paid but were all freelance and didn't have health benefits. So the workers organized and tried to go union so we'd have benefits. They met with the local union rep, who made a lot of promises (like a politician), and most everyone signed union cards.

The union came in and met with management and negotiated. The shop went union only to find that every union contract with an employer can be different, and the union rep had short changed the workers giving them a worse overall deal than they had to begin with. So now hours were watched more closely and overtime wasn't approved as easily, and other promises were not kept (like a politician).

So the shop sued the union to get out of the contract, de-unionize, and tried to get it back the way it was before. It was a total mess.

Unions in the USA were important back in the 50's when workers had terrible dangerous conditions and factories were basically sweat shots and allowed child labor. But my experience with modern Unions has been nothing but bad. Now they represent a force that allows a mob like mentality, promotes laziness, and blocks non-union workers to get a fair chance at work. Today they prevent manufacturing to be kept in the US and instead create conditions where it's almost impossible not to just source from other countries.

I hope the apple employees don't unionize.

This isn't correct - who ever spoke on behalf of the San Jose Police was talking out of their ass without doing any research and without talking to lawmakers or a judge. I'd like to see it battled out in court. Pushing the button on the mic on the iPhone headset to activate siri can't be illegal while driving. You can do it without taking your eyes off the road. Can't be any more that it would be to use that same button to place or end a call - which IS legal and IS considered hands free. You can totally use Siri without having the phone in your hands. It can be in your pocket.

I had hoped that this would be Tim Cook's "one more thing."

I'm a 'real' developer and not just someone who got the beta to enjoy the new software early. You sound like one too.

My statement about beta7 not being ready is that the whole OS is freezing for a few seconds when I switch between apps. For example, if I get a text message and switch to that app and start typing. It's a brick for about 5 or 10 seconds during which time it's not even caching my touches. Then it wakes up and I can type. Same thing happens in other apps. If I get a notification that I have only 10% power left WHILE I'm on a call, the phone call freezes for a second until that notification is cleared out. During that 10 to 20 seconds the phone call is totally dead and we can't hear each other. Then it resumes.

I think that's a major issue, although it could just be something up with MY phone, and not the OS.

iCloud and iTunes match also seem to be not ready, although they could release iOS 5 before iTunes Match goes live.

I'm just saying that the lack of a GM yet is a very clear indication that no new devices will be available tomorrow. And my guess is that beta8 will be released tomorrow and the GM will be like a week later. But you could be right, especially if that freezing thing is just my phone and not an os thing.

would make a great "one more thing..."

I use facetime a LOT. ... and I would use it even more if it worked over the phone network, which it will soon enough. Certainly next year's LTE phone will.

And on how long we'll be using this. I suspect that there will be places this will shine and others not so much. But this technology WILL evolve to be a major input / processing device for computers and handheld devices. It has to be a baby before it can be an adult. 5 or 10 years from now when you're using it all the time, or next year when you're using facetime all the time, think back and remember these days when it wasn't so common.

Like how common it is to even have "the internet in your pocket" on a handheld device. Do you remember what phones were before the first iPhone came out?