Kevin also said that Apple has restricted background-running applications because they don't want competition to iChat from third-party applications made using the SDK. The fact is that, if they wanted to ban any direct competition to their own applications, they will simply not approve them for publication and get done with it, without affecting any other developer.

The truth, however, is much simpler than that: Apple hasn't hidden the fact that they are setting this limit to guarantee a flawless user experience, so the core functions of the iPhone are never affected by applications stealing CPU cycles in the background. And that's the whole story, really. Installer.app applications will still be able to run in the background, like many do right now (like Apollo.)

But regarding the video conference, yes, he's probably right. It's logical to expect this from Apple. In fact, most probably the 3G iPhone will have videoconferencing with any other 3G-based video-conferencing cellphone out there, because they use the same h.264 encoding that iChat uses.

In other news, completely drunk sources report that Drew Curtis was heard saying that the next iPhone will be "really shiny." [Diggnation]

"We are making the XO available to U.S. and Canadian consumers as a financing scheme for the developing world, to trigger global demand and government closure," Negroponte told LAPTOP Magazine. He added, "I have, to some degree, underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a check written."