iTimes with Tony Bove

With Macworld Expo in San Francisco approaching, the rumor mill is working overtime along with developers feverishly constructing demos and beta versions of new applications.

You want wheat toast, but you have to order a chicken-salad sandwich to get it. So it is with iTunes and the iPod: there many things you can’t do, as they break some rules. But here are five easy pieces for the Mac, five easy pieces for Windows, and a few for the road, that won’t leave you holding your iPod between your knees.

A report from Greenpeace claimed the iPhone contains many toxic materials. Buried in the details are tests that indicate there may be some toxic materials in Apple’s earbud cables, but certainly not enough to cause any alarm.

The net result was more press coverage for Apple than any company could ever achieve by simply releasing new products. There is great price sensitivity in electronics, and the price cut enabled Apple to hit its stated goal of 1 million iPhones sold a few weeks earlier than expected.

With Paul McCartney and Wings, FCC approval, new designs for iPods, and more car integration kits, it is no wonder that as of this writing, Apple stock is surging. We’re going to get hi, hi, hi!

Yahoo is set to unveil the Web’s largest legally licensed database of accurate lyrics. While you can find lyrics on other Web sites, many of those sites are technically breaking copyright law and may also be inaccurate.

So far there have been no reports of trouble with the iTunes 7.1 update. People are mostly thrilled by the full-screen CoverFlow feature for browsing by album covers. But iTunes 7.1 is truly welcome in one corner of the universe — folks who use MusicMatch Jukebox.

Several YouTube videos describe in detail some of the iPhone demonstrations Steve Jobs gave at the Macworld Expo keynote speech in January.

Rumors about Apple are swirling a week after Steve Jobs’ open letter to the music industry (for an excellent summary of reactions, see Engadget’s “DRM: the state of disrepair” by Thomas Ricker). But several developments warrant particular attention:
1. Apple is patenting wireless docking. According to AppleInsider, Apple is developing a dock connector for handheld gadgets […]

Turn your cell phone off in Bronx, Brooklyn’s iPods out of sight / Crazy taxi cab in Harlem, iPod Zombies are in fright / Peds love iPods they’re so proud, but the volume is too loud! / Car 54 where are you? (With apologies, based on the theme from the “Car 54 Where Are You?” TV show, 1961-63)