Apple CEO Steve Jobs has written an open letter explaining why Apple does not allow Flash to run on the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

I like it because it’s not only well thought out, but he taken all of his random verbal explanations from the last few years and put them all in one place. It’s definitely worth reading.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last week, you would have noticed all of the hoopla going on about Gizmodo and the “found” next generation iPhone they dissected.

I’m not going to get into it because, let’s be honest, I don’t think anybody will ever know all the facts about the situation. Although I will be following closely to see if there are any legal ramifications…

My biggest problem with the whole affair is this – Gizmodo had absolutely nothing to gain by releasing the name and photo of the Apple engineer who lost the phone in the first place. So why do it?

Anybody who loses a phone feels bad already. This poor guy lost a prototype from a company known for their secrecy and internal compartmentalism. I imagine he was feeling really, really ordinary from the moment he realized he no longer had the iPhone. Not to mention the stress of having to tell his employer.

To release his details in the public domain was simply heartless. Cruel and unnecessary.

I feel safe making this prediction – Gizmodo won’t be receiving any more invites the Apple events they so fondly liveblog for their readers, resulting in thousands of extra website hits and advertising dollars.

Customers of AT&T have been anxiously waiting for tethering to be enabled on the iPhone since we were told it was “coming soon” way back in 2008. Two years later, we’re still anxiously waiting…

The recent introduction of the iPad has highlighted more than ever that iPhone tethering is still not supported on the AT&T cellular network. You see, the iPad 3G requires a data plan to be used when there aren’t any wireless networks available. A majority of iPhone users already pay a monthly fee to access data on AT&T’s 3G network and are understandably reluctant to pay a second fee for what is essentially the same thing.

Allow me to humbly suggest the following solution to AT&T…

Provide a 3G micro-sim that is linked to an existing iPhone account, enabling customers to pay only one fee. By all means, limit the bandwidth to a certain amount per month if you really must, but please don’t just terminate the connection when the limit has been reached. Instead, charge a set amount for each additional full or partial gigabyte used.

This method is really only suitable for those people who have the iPad 3G, and we mustn’t forget those who only have the wifi version. For those people, enable tethering via bluetooth on the iPhone, but limit it so that only an iPad can successfully connect. This will keep the wifi owners happy as well.

Alternatively, do nothing. Calmly sit back and watch your customers change to a different phone on a competing network that does allow tethering as soon as their contracts expire. This is obviously the easiest option for the short term, but not the greatest long term solution.

I fear that by the time the iPhone is sold on an additional network in the United States, it will be too late for AT&T to realize just how many of their customers are only there because of the exclusivity deal with Apple. It could be a financial disaster if they still don’t support tethering when that happens.