Handheld Learning - learning with mobile and ubiquitous technologies

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2500 

A tiny sub-notebook on its way from Apple Inc. is expected to re-establish the Mac maker as a leader in the field of compact computing while drawing parallels to the legendary PowerBook 2400 along the way.

I hope so.

I would really like a small Apple laptop for travelling purposes.

I agree, an Apple UMPC would be very nice.

Another news item/rumour

http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/10281/53/

Indeed, disappointing to say the least 

My initial comments here

Both common suggestions (although this thread is about flash memory) and no doubt Adobe are keen to get Flash (player software) onto the iPhone however I wonder whether Flash itself is heading for early retirement?

Adobe started to overmilk the cow when it tampered with its business model of charging a fair price (over £500 for Flash Pro or £1300 for the whole enchilada - per licence) for the authoring tools so that the author could create an application to run on all supported devices. In the good old days of Mac / PC this helped developers wanting to support both platforms (particularly in niche markets, like education). Now Adobe have been charging some device manufacturers for the benefit of including their player technology on their handsets and even then we have a veritable Ben & Jerry's of Flash flavours leading to incompatibilities and headaches for developers. End-users (especially in education) keen to get costs down would be shocked to realise how much of the device cost goes to the system software vendors when they buy a PC or mobile device and these extras add up.

Next generation devices such as the iPhone and proposed operating environments such as Android may create sufficient stability and volume in the sector to do away with Flash altogether as we start seeing well developed web apps that don't rely on a single companies proprietary strangle hold on the market. There's already some great web 2.0 apps that are pure (free and open-source) AJAX without a hint of Flash and the success of the iPhone (without Flash) will drive this forward.

Adding 3G to the iPhone will no doubt come in the next generation device but having it now would have sucked the battery in everyday use - I've yet to be blown away by any 3G or HSDPA device in terms of speed or battery life. The iPhone usually gets around 400Kbps on Edge which is better than some people's rural broadband!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Apple fanboy or apologist but I think we need some balance in the argument and I believe that we need to think beyond Flash (the player software).