CircleID

Conspiracy theories aside, it makes since to have a button for the one TLD used by probably 95% of websites.  If I were writing a browser frontend, I'd probably do the same thing - regardless of VeriSign's sponsorship status.  From an interface perspective, you simply couldn't provide a clickable link to every single TLD (with a constantly-updated list for completeness) without requiring as many clicks as it'd take to writeout the address manually. 

I just don't think the demand is there.  For example, I still think .mobi is the dumbest idea to come around in a while.  Why would we register example.mobi when we already have mobile.example.com for free?  I don't blame Apple for not having a link to it.  First, their goal is to bring the "real" Internet to the iPhone, and not shunt their users into a stripped-down corner of the web.  Second, no one seems to want .mobi or use it, so why should Apple go out of their way to advocate it?

I mean, really, when was the last time you went to a .aero or .coop domain, or any of the other 267 (make that 268 - I think they just created .bostonterrier)?  Apple took the smart path and optimized for the common case that people actually use.

Signed, someone posting to circleid.com

I agree with the .mobi point. It always seemed to me a tenuous value prop—by saying you needed a special domain for mobile sites, in a sense you were betting against the advancement of technology.

Sooner or later a device would be created that came close to replicating the browsing experience on a mobile device. At that point why would you need a .mobi domain?

Maybe the iPhone is that device, maybe it will be eventually or maybe never—but it will come.