Michael Tsai spots an especially good contradiction in Steve Jobs’s dismissal of browser apps during his interview with Walt Mossberg last week, followed by his celebration of browser apps in the WWDC keynote on Monday.

Glad I’m not the only one who is in a cranky mood about Apple’s flimsy iPhone SDK spin.

To be clear: It’s (kinda-sorta) OK that iPhone 1.0 doesn’t come with an SDK. What’s annoying is jumping through hoops to try to convince an audience of experienced developers (OK, and press) that web applications are a suitable alternative to a real SDK.

Silence on the matter would have been preferable.

For more on exactly how I feel about this, read Paul Kafasis’s excellent analysis.

Everybody’s wondering whether the lack of confirmation from Apple regarding Flash support for the iPhone means that we won’t be seeing it (at least in the 1.0?).

If it’s true, to me this puts a fuzzy spin on Apple’s commercial claiming that the iPhone’s browser is “just the internet”…

To get an idea for how important Flash is to the internet, try removing the plugins (from /Library/Internet Plug-Ins), relaunch Safari, and see how many errors you get cruising the web.

I suppose the problem could be mitigated somewhat by simply ignoring the Flash content, as opposed to showing an error. But I think the iPhone still needs Flash. Even if it’s only “kinda-sorta” Flash support.

(Note: In case it’s not obvious, the image below is NOT a screen capture or picture from a real iPhone. It’s just my snarky prediction of what iPhone’s reaction to half of the web will be if it doesn’t support Flash.

Last night at the SF Mac Indie party, I met a lot of great people, and put the face to the name of many people I’ve come to know fairly well through the web and email.

I finally got a chance to meet Niall Kennedy, whose takes on technology I’ve learned are just as interesting in person as they are in his regular, detailed blog entries (and podcast!).

I learned from Niall that Marc Andreessen recently started blogging, offering his valuable opinions about the tech industry, informed no doubt by his important role in the early development of the web “experience.”

Among Marc’s earliest entries is one in which he identifies MarsEdit as one of the Killer Mac OS X Apps for 2007. Whoo! This makes me feel proud to be the new caretaker of this awesome application, and I’m sure Brent and Gus probably feel great about it, too. (I’ll have to ask them at Buzz’s party in an hour or so).

If MarsEdit is killer today in 2007 – I can’t wait to read how Marc and others regard it in 2008!

I’ve been curious lately, with the updates to the MacBook Pro lineup, whether I’d risk buying one again. The smaller MacBooks are looking more and more attractive to me, as I primarily use the portable for travel.

But I’m really afraid of a repeat of last year’s MacBook Pro Whine fiasco. I have been seeing a lot fewer complaints, and hearing more stories of “resolution” when the problems do crop up, but Apple has evidently still failed to address the core problem.

Sergey Tsalkov writes about his experience earlier this year which mirrors mine almost exactly from a year previous, except he decided to give up and get his money back, while I pressed on for months to reach a resolution.

Though I did end up mostly satisfied with my MacBook Pro, I can tell it’s a problem that’s been masked more than it’s been fixed. For instance mine still makes the nasty noise, it’s just a lot quieter (so much so that, I honestly am not bothered by it 99% of the time). But when I plug it into a sound system in a conference room, the tell-tale noise comes buzzing across the PA. Then my blood starts to boil again. My $2500 noisemaker becomes a lot less charming.

If Sergey’s experience is at all typical, then many MacBook and MacBook Pro owners are still experiencing this defect. A defect in a product whose public image exudes quality and perfectionism. If on the other hand his experience is no longer typical, then replacing it with a guaranteed top-quality product should have been automatic and quick.

All MacBook owners should have the same experience, otherwise the viral nature of marketing is lost. We all talk about the products we love, some of us more than others. These days I tell people that if they buy a MacBook or MacBook pro, it will probably be a fine product. I hate having to qualify my recommendations like this. It’s a qualification I never make when endorsing the iPod, Mac OS X, the Tom Tom, my favorite bands, or my favorite restaurants. The fact that I finally got a MacBook Pro with tolerable noise levels in 2006, but that Sergey couldn’t get one in 2007, betrays a lingering problem.

If it’s possible to produce high quality MacBooks, then everybody who pays full price should get one. Anything less is a disgrace.

(Also: I have heard a bit of feedback from various sources about how the “core problem” is not easy to fix. I empathize. But fixing hard problems is what you do when you’re the innovation leader for an industry and are working with a product surrounded by billions of dollars in revenue. Fix the damn problem!)