Apple proved with the iPhone's comprehensive and extremely clever communications UI and with their interactive pixels technology that they are simply the leader in UIs and product design. Many manufacturers and Linux developers are nipping at their heels though, and the question is how many more tricks Apple has up their sleeves.

Once again the Defective by Design have sprung into action to denounce another product from Apple, and once again nobody really cares. Defective by Design is a marketing campaign sponsored by the Free Software Foundation. While the FSF does plenty of good work, DBD is increasingly out of touch with the majority of users.

Apple's iPhone marketing has been a smash success at home, but it is running into stumbling blocks in Europe, where the touch-screen handset and music player is making its debut this month. At issue are national laws that bar companies from "tying" products so that consumers have to buy one to get the other.

With the impending launch of the Apple iPad, the Cupertino-based company's shunning of Adobe Flash technology has been brought to the forefront of technological discussions.

"The FSF, in it’s timeless crusade to make the world a more free place by spreading the use of free software, has issued a challenge to Apple. It does not agree with the Apple store selling restricted iPhone apps. Apple’s OSX operating system is chalk full of GNU’s free software, so they have their hand very much stuck in the fly paper.

That was the heated topic of discussion late Friday between Apple’s iPhone marketing czar Greg Joswiak, Fred von Lohmann, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s copyright genius, Copyright Office officials including registrar Marybeth Peters, the record labels, movie studios and software industry.

The iPhone hype hides a basic problem with the product – Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) inside the iPhone means that it wont be under your control. Apple has built this “smart” phone to dumb you down.

Apple has always been very protective over their proprietary software. The company doesn't want anything but iTunes to control an iPod - and for good reason, too.

The Mono developers have announced a limited beta and September release of MonoTouch, an edition of Mono for the Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch devices. The open source .NET implementation has had some hurdles to overcome to be able to work within Apple's technical and legal requirements.