[millerm]

I am not sure why there has to be a "war". McDonalds may be the largest burger 'restaurant' but that doesn't mean they are the best. I have a feeling anyone can make a better burger (or tofu burger) than McDonalds.

Sure, the "war" helps drive innovation. But, sometimes it's just innovation for innovation sake and not really providing value. Such as HDMI output on smartphones. I'm guessing less than 0.01% of people care about that one.

Anyway, I like my iPad/iPhone/OS X experience. I'm happy and that is all that matters to me in the end when I buy something. I had played with some Samsung products using Android (since I was going to port some of my iOS applications over) and I was completely disappointed. I passed that development onto someone else. :-)

Anyway, to each his/her own! I'm pretty sure more people buy Honda cars than BMW or Tesla and that doesn't mean BMW or Tesla are losing the car wars.

[Spittie]

I own a Nexus 7 (2012), which sadly doesn't have HDMI output, otherwise I would happily use it.

I could use it to easily watch movies/shows on my TV, without having to resort to a computer (not everyone has an HTPC behind their TV, and a tablet is way easier to move than a laptop/desktop).

I could just fire up an emulator (emulations on mobile devices is great those days, you can emulate pretty much every console older than the psx), connect a wireless/Bluetooth controller to it, and use it as a nice, portable "retro"-console.

Returning on your article, I totally agree with your last point. Because chocolate ice cream sell better, it doesn't mean that vanilla ice cream is losing the "ice cream war".

[koffiezet]

On an iPad you don't need HDMI, you have airplay. Sure you need an extra $99 device, but no fiddling with cables, fixed cabling for my TV setup. That's FAR superior to any HDMI connection on any tablet. I do have a 30pin -> HDMI convertor for my iPad2, but ended up never using it because of the cable mess. And with Apple's weird pricing, an AppleTV wasn't that much more expensive than the HDMI connector for the iPad...

Btw - there are also emulators for iOS which work with BlueTooth controllers (see http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e762/ )

[pedalpete]

Oh how I wish there were more (vocal) Apple users like you. I find the 'war' mentality is usually very strong in the fanboi type, not to say that the anti-Apple specifically pro-open-source group aren't almost as vocal.

The most important thing isn't to belong to a group of users, but to use what you like best. Why should I care what anybody else uses if it suits their needs. Why do so many people think they know what is best for other people to use?

I've used this stance many times when (my brother in particular) gives me a hard-time for having a Windows Phone, or using Ubuntu on my dev machine, etc. etc. But the mocking keeps coming.

[jack-r-abbit]

I've never used the HDMI on my phone but I have on my tablet. I love being able to load an SD card with movies via my computer, insert the SD card into my tablet and go. Works great on planes and anywhere else that streaming is not possible. And if I am in a location where I can watch something on a larger screen, I can use the HDMI output instead. IMO, it is unfortunate that Apple never embraced the idea of alternative I/O.

But I agree that this doesn't have to be a war with only one winner. In my house, we've both Android and iOS devices. And everybody sees pros/cons of their devices of choice.

[AsymetricCom]

HDMI is a great feature, to bad there are many anti-features that are required to be there by regulation as a dependency. It would be a real shame if the telecom players lost any power over their customers, if cell phones became a useful replacement for a desktop.

Maybe we can find a way to retain power over users and let them be productive, while capturing their value. it will be a win-win (we win, and win again).