I see one big problem with Ping: it is based on the Apple ID. Currently, my family shares one Apple ID and iTunes account. This makes the Home Sharing functionality in iTunes actually work. Ping is much more personal. It makes music recommendations based on your listening. Apple needs to rework its Apple ID model to allow master and child accounts. Doing that today creates an unworkable federation of Apple IDs.

One of the nice features of iTunes/Address Book is the ability to Sync with services like Exchange, Yahoo! and Google in addition to Apple's own MobileMe. I decided to try these services at the risk of really screwing up my Address Book. I have about 700 entries in my address book. I use both groups and smart groups to organize my contacts. I use the notes, related people, and date fields in addition to the more pedestrian fields for name, address and phone number. Any sync scheme that I could use would need to support these features. I also use the picture field.

The latest rumor out of Cupertino is that the next version of iTunes, version 9, will support Blu-Ray. This rumor does not seem all that unbelievable. Its one of those rumors that seems obvious. Blu-Ray is the successor to DVD and now that the cost of the players has come down it seems reasonable that we will see Blu-Ray hardware in the next round of releases. I'm puzzled by the mention that it will be an iTunes feature. iTunes' only contact with the DVD player today is as a data storage device. It cannot even play back DVD content, you have to go to FrontRow or DVD Player for that.

On Apple.com there is a small animation estimating the number of apps sold in the iTunes App Store since it first opened last year. The counter is closing in on 1 Billion. That's a 1,000 million for our longitudinally-challenged friends on the other side of the Atlantic. This small counter is a small JavaScript animation. One of the features of JavaScript is that its source is all in the browser where anyone can see it. If you look at the code, Apple has given you the clues necessary to estimate when the billionth app will be sold.

I recently read that Apple (formerly Apple Computer) has filed for a trademark for OS X along side its current trademark for Mac OS X™. This is just another step in a methodical move away from the computer industry into the main stream of consumer electronics. Apple no longer sees them as a Computer Hardware or computer software company but as a consumer electronics and media company. Apple did the same thing with our beloved iTunes Music Store once it started selling Movies and Applications.

In mid July I was trying to buy some Apps or Music from the iTunes Music Store. It seemed like every day I was getting a message that my account had been disabled for security reasons. It was really annoying. I was having to change my password for iTunes every day. It was really annoying. I tracked the problem down to my Apple TV. I had recently updated the software on my Apple TV. There was one small change in the Apple TV software that it now does not allow Apple IDs to contain a space. The space key is not even on the on-screen keyboard.

It looks like the last page refresh has come from engadget.com and live.gizmodo.com and all the news is now news. Kevin Rose's leaks on the Nano and iTunes were mostly right. The Genius feature looks like the natural evolution of the iTunes MiniStore and smart playlists. The new iPod Touch was expected. I really like the addition of the volume controls and the speakers. That was my wife's complaint about her iPod Touch -- the lack of speakers. Now I need to figure out a way to upgrade it.