If you're a current iPod user considering upgrading to iTunes 5.0, you might want to wait. Many people are reporting that they are having a wide variety of problems after installing iTunes 5.0. MacFixIt reports that Apple is preparing a 5.0.1 update for release next week.  

I've noted here previously that wireless headphones are the only iPod accessory that I really want (which makes sense because they cost more than some iPods). What could be cooler than that?!

I'll tell you what could be cooler than that--wireless headphones as standard.

It could happen. According to The Independent:

Cambridge Silicon Radio (CSR), the wireless technology group, has approached Apple Computer with the idea of installing its microchips into future generations of the iPod music player.

CSR's chips would allow Apple to manufacture iPods with wireless headsets, an increasingly popular feature of mobile devices among consumers.

Me buy.  

OK, I admit that's not fair. The ROKR phone doesn't suck. It just sucks compared to any product that Apple has announced at an Apple event that Apple designed without help from any other company. In this case, it is obvious that Apple is not responsible for the hardware.

Varun Dubey at CoolTechZone has an interesting theory about why Steve Jobs would claim the ROKR (aka "the iTunes phone") when it clearly doesn't benefit from Apple's hardware aesthetic. The theory: Jobs helped create a mediocre iTunes phone on purpose, because it helps solidify the popular opinion that music-playing phones can never be as good as dedicated music players. Considering the fact that we can probably expect a whole new crop of music-playing phones in the next year, Jobs is making sure that people are predisposed to think that they can never compete with an iPod.

Dubey goes on to speculate that an actual iPhone from Apple is in the works, but frankly, I hope not. I've always thought that phones that have a non-rectangular keypad configuration would be difficult to use, and I don't think an iPhone without a click wheel will work out either. Obviously, the iPhone has to have a click wheel.  

In an interesting behind-the-scenes look at the iPod nano, Time magazine reveals some of the discussion that went into the decision to replace the mini with the nano.

One notable insight from Steve Jobs: "What's really been great for us is the iPod has been a chance to apply Apple's incredibly innovative engineering in an area where we don't have a 5%-operating-system-market-share glass ceiling...And look at what's happened. That same innovation, that same engineering, that same talent applied where we don't run up against the fact that Microsoft got this monopoly, and boom! We have 75% market share."  

Steve Jobs' September 7 product announcement concluded with a couple of songs from rapper Kanye West. So what? This isn't the first time Jobs has included musicians to help kick off a new product.

Back in July, I noted that Apple had continued to offer for free--for six months--Bright Eyes' "When The President Talks To God". I pointed out that this is considerably odd, considering that (a) most tracks get "free" status for only a week, which means Apple is encouraging download of this particular song above any other, (b) the song is flamingly politically extreme, and (c) the song contains profanity that wouldn't make it onto network television (come to think of it, Leno did actually bleep it).

After watching Kanye West's performance, I was left scratching my head once again. What is Apple thinking?

Here are the facts about Kanye West:

1. He performed "Gold Digger" and "All Falls Down", both of which contain profanity so foul that I won't repeat it here, even in censored form.

2. Just 5 days before the Apple event, Kanye West said during a televised concert that "George Bush doesn't care about black people" and "They've [presumably government leadership] given them [presumably the National Guard] permission to go down and shoot us [presumably black people]." (The latter comment was not aired.) I'm not surprised to hear a black rapper say that George Bush doesn't care about black people, because people spout that tired line all the time. However, actually stating that the Guard has been instructed to shoot black people sets West aside as truly whacked out.

So, Apple has once again, in a vastly more public way, aligned itself with a politically extreme musician who expresses himself using profanity (and even did so during the Apple event). Either Apple is whacked, or the whole world is going to pot.

Or both.

The only thing that is more surprising to me than Apple's indiscretion is the lack of a conservative backlash.

Oh, by the way, "When The President Talks To God" is still free, after almost 8 months.