always mostly downwards

Had today's top story occurred a year ago then I'd possibly have read it on my N95 (released in March 2007, with 3G, video recording and GPS from day one) using the replacement display unit I'd recently installed, possibly running on the easily-swapped extra internal battery I'd bought after a couple of years' ownership and possibly being cached on the interchangeable micro-SD memory card.

It's easy and obvious to say that the smartphone and tablet market would be different today without Jobs/Apple but arrogant and wrong to say it would be worse. It's a very closed way to think to suggest that only one person is capable of having ideas worth having, or only one company is capable of exploiting such ideas. It goes against a lot of the soundbites and quotes being quoted today.

It is perhaps fitting that Stephen Fry, one of the chief proponents of Appledom today issued a piece clearly demonstrating some of the chief reasons why I feel fortunate not to have bought into the system (for reasons other than not being able to afford to buy the systems). Heaps of insult-words expressed against detractors is hardly an elegant way of eulogising someone. Being able to recall and apply an Oscar Wilde quote does not automatically render an arguer infallible or their arguments valid. It is possible to not be taken in by the products whilst also recognising that they sold like sliced bread. Television audience viewing figures measure the viewing figures of audiences of television programmes - merit or worth or quality are not indicated by popularity. Some style and some substance can be credited with some of the success but there's a lot more to it, with marketing, peer pressure and loyalty all playing their parts.

I get very sick very quickly when someone tries to start up a Canon v Nikon debate, as if they're the only two choices, as if one has to be better than the other in all ways, as if a particular choice imparts carte blanche to be smug or twatty. I was swithering between two cameras when I bought my first DSLR and chose the one which was easiest to hold/use out of the two I could afford, which were pretty even on features. I can recognise that the same easier-to-use-ness could be what makes someone choose an iPod over an MP3 player manufactured by Creative. Now that I have a Nikon DSLR and a few compatible lenses (and don't have any professional concerns concerning them) I would be extremely unlikely (mostly for financial reasons but also just out of hassle-avoidance) to switch (or indeed acquire something else using an alternative lens system to run alongside) even if someone released the Most Amazing Lens in the World but only for the Four Thirds or EF-S mounts. Cameras, lens mounts, lenses and accessories are not perfectly analogous to computer paradigms, operating systems, software and accessories but some of the same processes associated with ownership are visibly operating. A tilt/shift lens would be marvellous but is so far out of my immediate price range that there's little point worrying that Nikon don't do one. Similarly, if I'd gone for the 400D, I might theoretically futilely rue not being able to get a 135mm f/2 DC to fit.

Dissociating the early death of a fellow human being from a terrible disease from the change in CEO of a global computing device company for a moment, the future will be very interesting to watch when it happens. One the one hand there's this huge and still-growing user base, some of whom are lifelong users. On one of the other hands, the charismatic figurehead is absent. One another hand again, there's this software/hardware provision amalgam. On yet another, there are alternatives which sales figures deem to be of comparable popularity and which also have other fingers in other related pies.