They sure are putting lots of eggs in the Google+ basket.

I don't think this would change if google+ was ripped out. its a navigation change, not google+ integration.

I'm not sure you get it... Google+ is [the future of] Google.

That's what s/he said.

So much for the flame war you predicted, everyone just agrees.

Exactly this, I think most would agree that Apple attempts to either do it right or not at all.

I disagree. They tried exactly that with .Mac and MobileMe and failed. The problem is that the proprietary approach that worked so well in case of hardware and software isn't compatible with the web.

I don't know much about iCloud, but I really hope they had learned the lesson and made it more open by providing APIs, allowing data migration, and supporting tools for other platforms. However, this might be just my wishful thinking.

When they launched MobileMe there were no iPads or iPad Touches.

It's a different ballgame now I think.

Eh, I don't think _how_ they're getting the word out is as important as the word _is_ out, and that instance at WWDC is a bit scary.

What a badass.

Working as a web developer in the education sector, this gives me a great deal cautious hope for the future. About 90% of our visitors use IE because they are students in the classroom.

I thought it was pretty obvious he was referring to 2 sound-minded adults making a voluntary exchange.

I had precisely the same discussion yesterday with a new client. She didn't understand how our web application did not have a larger list of system requirements. She started repeating the situation in a louder, slower manner to help me understand.

I couldn't imagine a better competition. I am utterly elated, as a junior developer, to have Stack Overflow as a resource as well as to see it knocking at Expert Exchanges' door.

Don't doubt it, they are losing a significant portion of revenue-generating space on a commercial website in order to pay tribute to a fallen friend.

How about all the publicity they got from it for free? I'm sure visits to apple.com got a big bump today thanks to that. Apple.com is on the frontpage of every social sites right now (reddit, digg, hn etc).

To do noble and good things while following your business' charter: this is appropriate and an attractive goal for us businesspeople, if you ask me.

Even with added traffic, the conversion rate (visitors/buyers) given the tribute and no products on the front page has to be extremely low. Low enough that I tend to believe they are losing money for the sake of this.

Apple is a company that has billions in cash. Any amount of money lost because of this won't do anything to their bottom line, something like 0.01% maybe less. The amount of free publicity and props they got from that action however are worth millions, I mean, just read what people are saying on this thread, they're all praising apple. How much do you think that's worth as publicity?

0.01% of billions is a lot of money.