Very good post at Computerworld from Mike Elgan about Apple, though I'd venture that a lot of you already know this:

Tech watchers love the horse race aspect of technology industry competition. Apple competes with Microsoft. Apple competes with Google. Apple competes with companies like HP. But Apple doesn't see it that way.

Industry titans like Microsoft, Google and HP instinctively "fill out" their product lines to dominate huge areas of technology. Microsoft, for example, wants Microsoft software running on wristwatches, supercomputers and everything in between. Google wants to offer every conceivable service that can be squeezed through an internet connection. HP's massive product line runs the gamut from consumer digital cameras sold at Best Buy to entire data centers filled with enterprise systems.

Apple doesn't want to dominate like this. It has no interest in this kind of imperialist expansion. Apple is interested only in surgical strikes into this business or that product category, where they can solve design problems others have failed to solve.

Woops.  It looks like Apple might have made those new iMacs a little too fast! 

According to Macworld's tests, the Core i7 iMac beat the Octo-core Mac Pro 2.2GHz in a number of Speedmark 6 tests and overall it was 1.5% faster than the fastest base model computer Apple sells.  Sure, you can update that Mac Pro Beast to 2.93GHz Octo, but that is $2600 more, $500 more than the entire Core i7 iMac!  Even the Core i5 iMac did pretty well. Oh, and that iMac has the best display Apple has ever produced.

Bad news for those Android users who were hoping to get the same level of game access as exists on the iPhone.  It doesn't look like it is happening.  Gameloft and companies like them have started to scale back their Android investments, according to someone who should know, Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefor (Bolds are ours):

"We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like ... many others," Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefort said at an investor conference. Rochefort said the company has cut back on investment mostly due to weaknesses of Android's application store. "It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue," Rochefort said. Games for iPhone generated 13 percent of Gameloft's revenue in the last quarter. "We are selling 400 times more games on iPhone than on Android," Rochefort said.

400 to one isn't a good ratio for Android no matter how big a lead the iPhone has had. via MR

Sony plans to launch its own music, movies and gaming service, based on its existing PlayStation Network (PSN), which already has 33 million users.

The new store, which enhances Sony’s competitiveness with Apple’s iTunes service and associated digital media products, is also expected to sell eBooks and mobile apps. The store may be called Sony Online Service (SOS?), but the company isn’t yet prepared to commit to a name or launch date.

In addition to selling digital content, the store will allow consumers to use their online accounts to save, upload and share digital content. “Sony will have a one-to-one relationship with customers to offer subscription services, cloud storage of personal content, as well as unique entertainment,” said Howard Stringer, chairman, CEO and president at an investor meeting in Tokyo.

The company plans to have consumers register for the service the moment they pull a TV or music player out of the box, Sony’s Kazuo Hirai told BusinessWeek.