Dozens of happy new Windows based iPod users found an unexpected surprise in their iTunes playlists; a Windows virus!

Granted, this is old news by now but in light of the totally hilarious nature of this story, I simply could not let it pass without posting something. Believe it or not, this incident truly was merely an unfortunate accident, and not as nutsack conspiracy theorists suggest...a deliberate act. According to the news wire, a batch of 5.5 generation iPods were inadvertently infected with a Windows virus, while in manufacturing, during (ironically) quality control testing when docked with a host PC which was apparently infected with a virus. The infection, both on the test PC and as well as attached iPods, went unnoticed until large quantenties of said iPod units had already shipped.

Perhaps Apple should begin selling downloadable copies of McAfee Anti-Virus from the iTunes Store. What next...rootkits on every iPod nano?

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod

The market for traditional handhelds continues to shrink, as it has done for the past three years, with the last few remaining players in this spacing taking big hits in unit sales. Smartphones are replacing the PDA, unfortunately not fast enough to offset the decline. Palm still remains the leader of this dying segment, with tallying sales of 475,000 units sold...down from 638,376 in the year ago quarter. HP reports a dismal 260,000 units sold, while Dell, who remains at the number three slot, is scraping bottom with a mere 132,050 units moved. What these figures show is that the bottom is falling out of the PDA market at a quickening pace. In fact, the numbers are so low now that the breakers are finally kicking in. By that I mean that the numbers of units sold literally don't justify the cost of development. That's especially true for Dell, where a recent report from DigiTImes indicates that Dell secretly ceased manufacturing its line of Axim Pocket PC handhelds late last year and are trying to clear out remaining inventory.

Dell isn't alone either. HP will soon follow its PC rival out the door, focussing entirely on Smartphones, leaving only Palm in this dwindling market. Naturally the more dimwitted among the Palm fanboy community will see that as some kind of victory, after all...Pocket PC will be for all intents and purposes a dead product category. However the cheering will be short lived, as Palm is doing precisely what Dell and HP are right now. As a matter of fact, I'm betting that Palm's entire handheld line has already ceased production, with no plans for further development. By early next year or mid-year there will no longer be any Palm handhelds on the market.

In a startling turn of events, Walt Mossberg chooses the PalmOS-based Treo 700p over Windows Mobile-based Motorola Q phone. Stunning!

What I love about Mossberg is that he's always predictably last in line to catch on to whats already been happening around him. I have my stopwatch set to see how long it will take before realizes that PalmOS is already dead. And when he does finally figure this out, how much longer will it be before he begins writing articles implying that he knew all along that.

It's not just Mossy either. The entire mainstream media is equally inept at recognizing a trend in motion. I just love these epiphany news titles that read "Is Microsoft starting to catch up with Palm?". Windows Mobile has been outselling PalmOS for well over two years now. PalmOS is laying in a coffin, in almost mummified form, appearing on elderly devices making its rounds on hardware like Lincoln's body on display as it makes its cross country train ride to its final resting place. After Access introduces an entirely new platform, eliminating PalmOS Garnet for good, the media will still be chanting about how many fewer taps it takes to access your data on a dead OS. Enough already! It's over, get over it!