This is actually much bigger news than people understand. We are setting up for a classic battle of ideologies that goes far beyond the scope of just cryptocurrency. Take this however you like, but, this is a world stage event now.
US Senate and Bernanke say bitcoin looks promising
THEN...
China clamps down on exchanges and processors
US-based companies and entrepreneurs start accepting bitcoin
THEN...
Russia outlaws it completely
Apple bans most popular bitcoin apps
THEN...
Microsoft accepts first bitcoin app
You would have to be legally blind to not see this train's headlight coming down the dark tunnel. This is going to be an epic Commies Vs. Patriots or Apple Vs. Microsoft level battle, and it has only just begun. I need to buy some popcorn. In the end, I hope Apple pays for their ignorance, and China and Russia do as well.
I hate Microsoft so much since the release of the original Xbox for an almost limitless number of reasons, the most of which being Halo paraded around in front of PC gamers at E3 2001 only to be ripped from our dreams the next month. However, I can easily say that I hate Apple way more since, well, since they have never been friendly at all to gamers or actual hardware enthusiasts after the release of the Apple IIe.
My overall opinion is let China and Russia and Apple lose a ton of money. They deserve it.
I have way more confidence in Microsoft when it comes to Bitcoin than in apple. Apple is far too controlling to allow such a decentralized and open idea. Funny because it used to be the other way around.
They had you fooled the whole time. Apple was never for open platforms. After the Apple II they had complete control over all hardware that would ever go into their devices. Anybody can make a videocard for Windows, and you can install anybody's videocard as long as it fits the standard. Apple made it a habit to charge extreme sums of money for any authorization of parts for their machines. You would normally have about 100 options for videocards on a PC and you would have 2 on a Mac, if you were extremely lucky. Also, anybody can write anything they want for windows and sell it. Apple is like Nintendo when it comes to software, demanding publishers meet their desires for any kind of software. Once Steve Jobs called Google to tell them to change the color yellow gradient on their iphone app logo. This was not a friendly suggestion but an outright demand. Microsoft on the other hand has usually let people do whatever the fuck they want on Windows, up until the recent version you could install anything you wanted in any possible way you wanted. Now you have to hack the operating system to install tons of old programs from a CD or hard drive exe.
tl:dr Apple has always been a centralized, closed up bunch of assholes. Microsoft have always been assholes, but at least they used to be extremely open to 3rd party products of any kind. Think BetaMAX vs. VHS