Sir Patrick Stewart—Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek TNG, and Charles Xavier of X-Men movies—loves his iPhone. iPhone savior video:

I just handed someone my beautiful iPhone, which is never out of my hand, and that I do everything with, and has become an extension of who I am.

But he doesn’t like Twitter.

Get a free Mother’s Day portrait when you sign up for Windows Live, whatever that is. It’s here, here, there, and over there. From Fake Steve:

Microsoft now has contracted a serious case of Ray Ozzie Disease, aka Featuritis Creepionis Complicationibus. And this is only the least of their problems.

Sorry. Please accept my apology. I couldn’t help myself.

Craig Hunter sums up the ongoing cat and mouse game between Palm and Apple over iTunes sync. In effect, Palm doesn’t need iTunes to sync to the Pre:

They can sync the Pre to a customer’s iTunes music library with a public, open, and documented approach that has been used by third-party developers and device makers for years. This capability was created by none other than Apple itself.

Why does Apple provide a way to access iTunes data?

Clearly they took this approach to give customers access to their music in a manner independent of iTunes and Apple, now and in the future, since a well written XML file is almost like a self contained fossil record… Apple is keenly aware of the issues surrounding online music sales, both from the standpoint of protecting the intellectual property of musicians and record labels, and the rights of customers.

If the means to sync to iTunes data already exists, and is sanctioned by Apple, do other companies or applications use it?

Clearly, other companies know how to sync painlessly with iTunes music (see RIM’s Blackberry Media Sync for example), so why doesn’t Palm develop a syncing solution for their own hardware?

Then why does Palm play this silly cat and mouse game with Apple’s iTunes connectivity, at the expense of their customers?

Perhaps Palm doesn’t have the resources to develop their own sync app. Or maybe they want some publicity. Or maybe they just want to push Apple’s buttons. Who really knows. But I seriously question the strategy and brains of any company that ties critical product capabilities to the unsupported use of their competitor’s software. I mean, really? Can it get any more ridiculous? Can you possibly send a more mixed, less confidence-inspiring, “we’re a bunch of hacks who can’t provide our own sync software for our products” message to customers?

Some executives falsely believe that any publicity is good publicity. It is not. Palm is desperate and vengeful. That’s not a good combination.

Free Software Foundation’s ‘5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G.’ A lengthy, uninformed, unbalanced, and self-righteous treatise on why a profit motivation is bad for consumers, and why open source software is better for the world than anything the obviously corrupt and evil Steve Jobs and Apple and Company will do for you.

Apple, through its marketing and visual design techniques, is manufacturing an illusion that merely buying an Apple makes you part of an alternative community. But the technology they use is explicitly chosen to divide people into separate digital cells, and to position Apple as sole warden. When your business depends on people paying for the privilege of being locked up, the prison better look and feel luxurious, and the bars better not be too visible.

John Gruber’s take: “They’re accusing Apple of concocting the whole thing as some sort of profit-making scheme.”

Shame on Apple. Not.

When open source comes up with software as cool as Apple’s, for free, I’ll pay more attention. For now, it’s not much of a contest.

What should Apple do to improve the iPhone, and add to the iPad? Dan Frommer pushes his top 15 list in Silicon Alley Insider:

The most common request was for background processing so that third-party apps could run in the background, while other apps are running in the foreground. The idea is that this will make apps more useful, ranging from Internet radio apps that can keep streaming, to messaging apps that can keep receiving messages while you’re doing other stuff.

A common request, yes, but mostly from geeks and pundits, not average users. My favorites: a unified Mail inbox, and push notifications on the lock screen.