Well now, AT&T just announced what Gizmodo is (rightfully) calling “the death of unlimited mobile bandwidth” — no more unlimited plans at all, and the replacement plans, well, they pretty much suck.

And tethering? Don’t get me started. Now AT&T has decided that they will charge you an extra $20 a month for tethering. FOR THE SAME DATA. There isn’t any extra bandwidth allocation, you use the same 2 GB / month data as if you had the DataPro plan ALL BY ITSELF.

This, my friends, is what we call a “ripoff”, speaking technically of course.

The kicker is all the PR crap about unlimited data on the iPhone and iPad, which were core selling points a mere few weeks ago - never worry about your contacts, your online data, etc - all in the trash heap now.

In one of my favorite scenes in Star Wars (not calling it “A New Hope” that’s revisionist garbage), the ever-plucky and courageous Princess Leia and the evil imperial governor Grand Moff Tarkin have one of my favorite exchanges in all those movies (yes, cheeseball but I still love it):

Governor Tarkin: Princess Leia, before your execution, you will join me at a ceremony that will make this battle station operational. No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now.

Princess Leia: The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

Now substitute Steve Jobs for Tarkin, and you’ll get a good idea of what is going on at Apple today.  Notice I didn’t say Jobs was the Emperor; that would be his ego.

Recently I found out about the Brushes app for the iPhone  (well “recently” meaning back in december of last year), which is not only a fantastic time-waster, but also an actual tool that you can use to make actual art.  On your iPhone.  Wherever you go.  Talk about great for a busride!

The Brushes app is a painting tool with a variety of features, including transparency, a decent color picker, import and export from your iPhone photos, and a bunch of preset brushes that really make this a fun little app.  The new version (which i have yet to download) supports four art layers, not just one, which promises to be entirely TOO MUCH fun… and a serious tool for art-on-the-go.