As far as future market competition, its target of 5Gbps puts USB 3.0 ahead of current eSATA (3Gbps), which is really the only other device protocol under active development that might challenge it as a peripheral interconnect. Although an IEEE 1394c protocol has been developed and published as of June 8 2007, no company has announced an intent to produce a product or chipset that utilizes the standard. FireWire remains supported in certain sectors, but I’d personally be surprised if the combination of USB 3.0 and eSATA doesn’t push FireWire out of the market completely.

What a browser needs is a network, but Jobs pitched it as the network needing the browser. It’s silly if you think about it: if it weren’t for Safari, the only thing you’d be able to do on the iPod Touch with Wi-Fi is watch YouTube and buy songs from iTunes. Plus, presenting the inclusion of Safari as a sort of “boy, isn’t it cool that we did this” feature draws attention away from the exclusion of Mail. There’s been a lot less bitching about the Touch not including Mail than I expected—I think that’s at least partly attributable to the way Jobs presented the inclusion of Safari.