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First up, Apple, which this week managed the impossible task of delighting both the Mac and Microsoft faithful by releasing Leopard onto the market, then watching its forums fill up with disgruntled customers complaining of the dreaded Blue Screen of Death.

"Oh...this is just priceless!!" says MDSmith 71 obligingly getting the ball rolling.

"After years of every Mac user saying how wonderful they are and how stable they are and how much better than PCs, they get a Blue Screen of Death after an OS upgrade"

Quite, but just as we prepared ourselves for a full-blown forum riot, something peculiar happened. Consensus.

"I'm still sitting on the sidelines with Leopard. My gut feeling is that there is goodness in it somewhere, but Apple have done its level-best to bugger up my user experience," ruminates HeatherKay, before uttering the unspeakable.

"See? We're not all fawning fanboys and girls, hanging on every utterance of St Jobs of Cupertino."

Time for a sit down I think. But the forum wasn't done yet.

"Has it been the year of wrecking your new OS?" Wonders pcernie. "I have to say from what I've read of both Vista and Leopard (I'm resisting calling it Leonard, but dunno how long I can hold out), neither has anything that especially stands out."

Harmony on the boards, but could it last? Not with earlybomblight around to restore our beloved discord. "How ironic that the first blue screen of death I've seen in years should be on a Mac. Am I laughing? You bet."

No cash for iPhones

However, Apple would soon deliver us something else to argue about when it announced that it would be making the iPhone the gift money really couldn't buy, by refusing cash for the handsets, a decision that left the majority of our readers with furrowed brows and well scratched heads.

"All the card information will tell them is who bought it, so unless they look at the electronic serial number of the phone and match it to the credit card (enemy of the state anyone?) then it's really not much more than a curiously un-customer friendly approach from Apple," ponders hjlupton.

Potentially, but it's still going to sell a bucket-load, or so our resident fortune teller Churchcat predicts. "This WILL sell. One percent of the phone market is a given. At this point Apple don't want everyone to buy one."

"Then we will have the iPhone 2 - this may aim to push the bounds

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to say 5% of the market. Five years from now Apple Telecom will be its own division of Apple selling phones for the masses."

And feeding the poor and establishing a small country and invading Microsoftland, undoubtedly. And we couldn't leave this thread alone without reposting gavomatic57's assertions that the iPhone "locks you into iTunes as well, which is probably fine if you're a Mac user but iTunes and Quicktime on Windows is a scabby dog."

Ofcom hammered

Which brings us to Ofcom, the UK watchdog that distinctly didn't like the sound of the EU's proposals for a pan-European telecoms regulator - a fact its chief executive Ed Richards pointed out to the Financial Times in no uncertain times.

However, as Microsoft recently found out to its cost, the EU enjoys a scrap, and it wasn't going to going to accept any cheek from Ofcom.

"Go EU!" Cries an overly excitable qpw3141. "Ofcom needs (well, disbanding, really) a massive great kick up the backside."

Surely somebody will argue? Mr_Flynn? "Please, please, please, please, please, please, please let's get a regulator with teeth, initiative and proper objectivity and not the current bunch of oxygen thieves who are there at present."

Perhaps not, so what does all this mean? Amnesia10, over to you. "It is rare that the forums get a unanimous response." Indeed it is. "In this case we all would prefer the EU to replace Ofcom. It is a clear sign that Ofcom is not doing its jobs properly."

We couldn't possibly comment... except we already have. Oh well.

Low-cost laptops

And finally, the introduction of the glorious Eee PC and emergence of Classmate and OLPC machines means that the age of the low-cost laptop is truly upon us, a fact Microsoft seems to have taken note of as it goes around gazumping Linux deals.

This week its tactics earned it an ear bashing from employees of Linux distributor, Mandriva, who asked Steve Ballmer to "take a look in the mirror".

"That is not going to do any good because, like all Nosferatu, Ballmer does not cast a reflection," warns Stonespear.

Greemble wasn't having any of it though. "More competitive - isn't that what everybody keeps saying they want in the operating system market? Presumably only if it's competition against Microsoft, then... Sorry chaps, but if you really want competition, then be prepared to get the full weight of whatever advantage the other guys will throw into a competitive market."

And on that rare note of common sense we'll say goodbye. See you all next week.