DOES APPLE REALLY WANT TO CRIPPLE YOUR IPHONE? “The leading computer company plans to build a system that will sense when people are trying to video live events — and turn off their cameras.”

Sounds like totalitarian governments would love this. Kinda makes me wish I’d bought a Droid. If this is really an Apple initiative, I hope that it really hurts their stock price and market share. Meanwhile, it’s another argument in favor of cheap flipcam video cameras.

UPDATE: Reader James Eric Johnson emails:

For a company that built a reputation on the back of its “1984: Big Brother” ad, this type of thing is perplexing. Apple has no conceivable duty to police the use of its products in this fashion. In fact, by doing so, Apple may be assuming a duty to act as a big brother. At the very least, it is enabling Big Brother.

And this coming from a recent Apple convert who would dread the idea of going back to PCs for my personal computing functions (primarily Adobe CS and programming). I’m not at all anti-Apple; I’ll defend their products, but not their worldview.

Indeed. Perhaps this story will turn out to be incorrect.