If there’s one point nobody who reads this blog never misses, and that’s exactly what you wrote. It’s kind of like saying ice cream is cold, or Steve Ballmer shouldn’t be leading Microsoft.

A higher resolution display is not necessarily a higher quality display, and you may not like it or need it. At 1920×1440, even on a 17-in screen, the text becomes so tiny that you’d have to be under 20 years old to be able to see clearly!

I recently bought a similar HP notebook PC instead of a MacBook because of its nice metallic look and much cheaper price. I do not need all the “hand-holding” offered by Apple’s software. Specifically, my HP Pavilion dv5 notebook PC offers me much higher value than a MacBook or MacBook Pro. To make my PC safe, I simply download and install Avast anti-virus and ZoneAlarm. They are both free and extremely capable.

That’s where Apple does not take that same responsibility as the only one we can turn to for hardware that runs OSX.

Case in point: the lack of matte, anti-glare screens for the iMac and MacBooks (except the 17″ MBP). Regardless of Apple’s marketing hype — that everyone loves glossy screens — there is a substantial portion of people that love and/or need matte screens. The arguments for and against are valid — which means it is not a clear-cut division that everyone loves gloss. But Apple refuses to supply matte screens even as a paid-option.

To register your protest against the loss of matte screens, there is a website dedicated solely to this topic:

http://macmatte.wordpress.com

For me, I’m just glad they stopped doing what they did in the 90s, which was differentiate by making their cheaper machines slow as molasses, even though they COULD run faster. Now THAT was irritating.

We are not talking about adding everything and the kitchen sink here so stop the hyperbole. We are simply talking about a very common port that 95% of laptops offer that would give the Macbook a great deal more usefulness. If you think Apple’s decision to leave off an express card slot has anything more to do about than pure greed and hoping to sway users to buy the Macbook Pro you are delusional.

This is NOT a flaw in Apple’s strategy. It’s an expression of what Apple has figured out and almost no one else has: Features can only be viewed in the context of user experience. Outside of that framework they are just adding complexity and difficulty that most people will NOT want.

That’s why Apple can be so successful with fewer features, that people enjoy using — vs. the everything and the kitchen sink in a device that is so hard to use most people never use the features.

Have you even HEARD of Steve Jobs? This is the same guy that put Torx screws on the original Macintosh to keep the users’ little fingers out. He also banned any expansion slot of any kind, including the “diagnostic” port that the engineers tried to sneak in. The philosophy is that a machine should ship with what it needs to operate, not with some wishful thinking about “future expansion.” The only Apple computers that have an expansion slot of any kind have the word “Pro” in them; even my $2000 iMac lacks one (and frankly I don’t miss it).

I will consider the mythical iTablet to be a complete failure if it includes “a decent amount of ports.” It should have a dock connector (à la the iPod), a headphone jack, and MAYBE a USB. Maybe. I’ve always been drawn to Motion tablets but they just felt too much like folded-over laptops instead of slates, mostly because of the ludicrous arrangement of ports that circumnavigate those devices, adding bulk and heft.

Expandability is for people that aren’t satisfied with what they have.