In other news, people in Palo Alto, California have reported what seems to be rampant screaming of various obscenities. Well, clearly he saw this coming, right? Google is the largest online services company in the world I think, and it is only natural that after Apple and Amazon have entered the online music industry that Google would follow. Especially since they do have Android, and their is money to made in music and ringtone sales on mobile phones as has been already proved.

But does Apple really have to worry about Google and their dinky music store? It’s not like they have to worry about their dinky phone operating system, or at least not yet. Nielsen’s recent reports indicate that Apple has 28% of the smartphone market compared to Android’s 9, which is also still less than Microsoft’s and RIM’s (which is still the dominate).

And look at iTunes, it has over a quarter market share of the U.S. music industry. That’s not a quarter of digital downloads, that’s overall against bog box retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart. They hold a vast majority of the digital market which is already crowded with the likes of Amazon, Real Networks, and some other meaningless companies that don’t matter anymore like MySpace and Microsoft.

And frankly, Apple should be happy that Google wants to enter the digital music market and potentially hook it into the Android OS. It will take some of the heat off from the investigation that the Department of Justice is conducting of Apple and iTunes.

That doesn’t bode well considering it can’t be hooked up to cable or satellite without some sort of third party jerry-rig such as El Gato’s EyeTV line of products. The EyeTV also allows you to channel surf on your Mac in the same way that a TiVo does. It stands to reason that a cable input with a cable-card slot would have been a killer application for this product. By the way, the EyeTV capable of recording HD cable/satellite to a Mac is an extra $200.

However, putting the lack of native DVR functionality aside, why is it that this machine doesn’t come with the Apple TV software. As far as I can tell, it only comes with the standard version of Mac OS X with the standard version of Front Row which looks like the Apple TV back in 2007. Why not make Apple TV a Mac OS X application that replaces Front Row? Steve Jobs himself as called the Apple TV a “hobby” in the past and it doesn’t seem like it would hurt their margins in any way. Steve Jobs had a lot of interesting things to say about this at the recent D8: All Things Digital conference.

Clearly, Apple added an HDMI to the new Mac mini for the hobbyists who have been asking for it since 2008 or so. But, it looks like thos same hobbyists will have to turn to interfaces such as the EyeTV or my personal favorite for this application, Boxee which allows development of applications such as for TWiT.tv and NetFlix streaming.

Speaking of which, is anyone at Apple paying attention to my idea about apps on the Apple TV? That also applies here.

I used to trumpet GoDaddy as a wonderful company, and they were, at least to their relatively new customers. I bought 15 whole months of hosting from them and was happy how easy it was to get started with WordPress and start writing posts. Then, I started having problems, particularly with their billing practices.

For two straight months, each one of the three credit and debit card numbers that I had given them over the last few years had been wrongly charged without prior notice, sometimes for products that I hadn’t even ordered. They were also overzealous, renewing domains and my email hosting account weeks before they were due for renewal. These practices caused checks to my power and DSL companies to bounce and even resulted in Qwest disconnecting my home internet for two days.

I continue to receives emails with an almost threatening tone to them saying that If I don’t renew certain products right away that there will be consequences in the form of “missing out” on great deals. GoDaddy didn’t seem to understand that like most human beings, I have to live on a budget, and a razor thin one as a college student, and that each purchase has to be planned in advance, particularly $60 to $80 hosting purchases. I know, I am poor and I don’t really care.

Then Leo Laporte started talking about GoDaddy (or as he and Scoot Bourne referred to them, “the one with the sexy race car driver“) talking about some of the business practices that they practice. The main example was the trumpeting of company founder Bob Parsons over pulling their business out of China shortly after Google did the same. Clearly riding on the coattails of an internet giant and not mentioning that less than 1% of their business comes from China and that there is no significant loss to them.

I certainly hope that my experience with my new host is a lot better than the past one, and so far it has been very good. iPage has a good support staff and a system of hosting just as good as GoDaddy’s and it was significantly less cost than what GoDaddy wanted to renew my account. If only it was easier to move websites from one low cost host to another, but maybe in the future, it will be.

Speaking of which, do you like the integrated design between here and Duo Citizen? Or should I go back to different designs?

Tate admits after posting the email transcript that he regrets bringing up his wife in reference to the porn argument with Jobs who had said he offers “freedom from porn.” He doesn’t address the statement that he doesn’t believe it will “f**k up my kids if someone in my house looks at a porn clip.” Apparently, Ryan Tate is OK with people watching pornography in the presence of his children (I don’t know if he actually has kids yet, but he is married).

Please, I encourage everyone to read the emails, I think that most intelligent people will agree with me that Mr. Tate should have just ignored the fact he had an exchange with Jobs (or Jobs’s assistant or PR guy or something). All I could think of when I read it was a teenager debating an older adult, like a school teacher or something, about the facts of life.

Tate complains that Flash and Adobe development should be allowed on the iPad and that Apple is “forcing” publishers to develop Objective C based applications for the iPhone/iPad. Jobs of course reminds him that Apple is not forcing anyone. My two blogs don’t have iPhone/iPad apps (mostly because I don’t understand Objective C) and I didn’t get an email from Apple demanding to see my apps submitted soon. Publishers have the freedom to publish on any platform they want to be on and it is reasonable that Apple asks the publishers to play by their rules.

Jobs summed up his feelings and what I believe is part of Apple’s philosophy going forward:

Microsoft had (has) every right to enforce whatever rules for their platform that they want. If people don’t like it, they can write for another platform, which some did. Or they can buy another platform, which some did.

As for us, we’re just doing what we can try and make (and preserve) the user experience we envision. You can disagree with us, but our motives are pure.

One last note, Mr. Tate didn’t reveal that he worked for Gawker until the exchange was in full swing. If he was intending on getting a story with his Bob Dylan bait (which Jobs probably couldn’t resist), he should have been up front about it. Then again, it is Gawker and it is Valleywag, which is like the back room cock fight at the world’s most filthy laundromat in the most crime ridden neighborhood in the world. Another issue I have is his use of profanity and dramatics to make his weak point sound stronger. Pretty cheap I think and Mr. Tate probably should have just left well enough alone after a long night picking fights with CEOs.

They proceeded to dance around how exactly they acquired this iPhone until finally admitting that they bought it from some shady character for $5,000. Then, Apple asked for Gizmodo to respectfully return the hardware, no take down notices and no threats of lawsuits. Well, Brian Lam decided that he hadn’t had enought fun and wrote back to Apple telling them that “it was burning a hole in our pockets.”

I have to say it. Brian Lam works for a company that back in 2006, claimed that they had the first ever iPhone and it turned out to be that Linksys VoIP thing that I don’t even think exists anymore. They are now continually obsessed with Apple and trying to bait Mac fanboys to get into flame wars in their comments such as this recent post calling Apple “backwards” over claiming that HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript are open platforms while Adobe Flash is not. Completely ignoring the fact that the statement is completely accurate and relevant to the issues between Apple and Adobe and development platforms on the iPhone and iPad, or, as John Gruber said, “spot on.”

Also, don’t forget that one of their sister sites is obsessed with a pop star with a whacky sense of dress about whether or not she has the correct set of reproductive organs. Because if we could only get a clear answer from her, then and only then will we find Osama Bin Laden and there will be peace and Democratic elections in the Middle East.

My point is that these Gawker clowns are more interested in controversy and page views than they are in actually being the journalists that they claim to be. Engadget on the other hand has never resorted to cheap tricks and I thoroughly doubt they would be doing underhanded deals such as buying questionably acquired hardware in a back alley. Because of stunts like this, bloggers and news websites are never going to be taken seriously and they will now probably have more difficulty acquiring review units of hardware and software for the bigger companies.

This last month, millions of people read the reviews of the iPad written by David Pogue of the New York Times and Walt “Goatee” Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal. My local paper, the Salt Lake Tribune carried the review from Edward Baig, the tech journalist from USA Today. Where as, only a couple hundred thousand read the reviews on Engadget and Gizmodo. If Gizmodo pulls cheap tricks like this, how likely is it that Apple will be willing to give them advanced peaks at new products or invite them to the next Steve Jobs keynote? I’m willing to bet that Brian Lam and Jason Chem are on a hit list now.

Above all, is Gizmodo’s cheap tricks going to hurt other bloggers in the highly competitive tech blog sector? Sometimes, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch (no pun intended, I think).

Remember, at their heart, the iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad operating systems all are based on Mac OS X and use Apple’s Objective-C as it’s programming base. And this last week, Apple announced the introduction of multi-tasking and the beginning of what appears to be a file system for the iPhone and iPad. The iPad also has stripped down versions of the iWork applications for a third of the price.

So, what’s the next step for Apple’s portable OS? Well, you can only go up. I’m talking about the future of Mac OS X, like version 10.7 or 10.8. Imagine an iMac or a MacBook with a touch screen and multi-touch capability and a Finder based on the iPhone/iPad experience. It could be the largest contribution to computer user interfaces since Apple introduced the mouse back with the original Macintosh in 1984.

I can hear John C. Dvorak and his quote about their being no evidence to support that people want to use a mouse in my head right now. But, with the success of the iPhone and with 300,000 iPads out the door on day one of sales, their is a mountain of evidence to support that people want simple multi-touch interfaces.

And that is always what Apple has excelled at, giving people what they want in simple, easy to use and understand packaging. Designed by Apple in California, built in China.

Lisa of course had the email notifications on by default to let her know when someone new was following her. Which means she woke up to an email box that was brought down to it’s knees. But, she’s going to get an iPad out of it as well as one of her thousands of followers. Hence, I am following her as of this morning.

The tweet that brought Lisa to so much fame and no fortune was “I hate technology,” usually technology haters don’t join twitter. And that was only her second tweet, and she only had two followers according to Rose on the latest episode of TWiT, when she was originally chosen. Lisa has since revealed that she didn’t know who Leo was (obviously, she lives in New Zealand and isn’t tech savvy.) or what an iPad is. She also says that Leo owes her a dress to wear for her upcoming radio interview, I guess she wasn’t lying when she admitted she wasn’t tech savvy.

But, how long will this popularity last? It is not very typical for someone to just get 12,000 followers over night, especially, someone who has only had an account for a little less than a day. I imagine that Lisa may be in for a big shock when the day after Leo announces the winner of the iPad, thousands of people leave her fold. But, that is what is to be expected, people won’t follow you unless you have something to say, something interesting, funny, thought-provoking, but something. No one got followers telling everyone what they had for lunch, and I can’t get followers because I can’t be bothered to tweet anything except my blog posts and Jazz games.

By the way, if you don’t follow me on Twitter, the Jazz beat the Los Angeles Clippers 107-85 on Saturday night (warning: instant playing video), I was there and it was awesome.

I watch a lot of video on my MacBook Pro. H.264 files run without issue as do XVid or any other codec I run through VLC. Even Silverlight, a competitor to Flash made by Microsoft, has no problem running on my machine (NetFlix streaming in the browser uses Silverlight). And yet, every time I wish to watch any show or video on either YouTube or hulu, it always sounds like there is a jet taking off of my desk. Why on earth does Flash need so many CPU cycles?

Now that HTML 5 is finally starting to come into the spotlight and may actually become certified within the next year, Flash is dead anyway. Dave Hyatt is one of the lead developers of HTML 5 and the person responsible for such things as the Safari web browser, found on Macs, iPhones, and the iPad. The new standard will allow videos to be played within the web browser without the need for additional plug-ins. Finally, it won’t feel like we’re surfing the web in 1997 anymore.

Flash would add a whole level of complication to the iPhone and iPad that just isn’t necessary anymore. With the new HTML standard, and things like H.264 streaming video like what the YouTube application on the iPhone currently uses, Flash is just a big bloated memory hog that will crash your phone and cause problems. How many times has your browser, whether it be IE or Firefox or even Safari crashed when you were trying to use a website with Flash? And doesn’t Flash encourage bad habits like annoying background music and unnecessary website intro videos?

And don’t get me started on entire web sites built in Flash. At some point, the people depending on Flash for the functionality of their sites will have to give in to the heavy hand of Apple and move to more elegant and simple solutions for their web sites. And hopefully, that will mean that HTML 5 can be put on the fast track to certification.

Let’s begin with the obvious. Jason Calacanis may have been involved starting Silicon Alley Reporter and Weblogs Inc., he is not a Journalist. He is an entrepreneur and businessman. He is the founder and CEO of Mahalo as well as an investor in such ventures as Gowalla and gdgt among others. Why would Apple send a unit to Calacanis and not Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal or David Pogue of the New York Times? Both of whom have been champions of the Apple media spin machine.

If you look back at the posts Calacanis made to his Twitter, you read things such as, “Planting seeds in farmville on my apple tablet…so cool how you can shake the tablet to plant seeds then wobble it to spread water around” and “Off to bed, but I assure you I’m not joking and the specs are real…. Most of all that this is best gadget ever made and NOT overhyped.” On top of all this, you would think that the Wall Street Journal’s WSJ.com and CNNMoney might have picked up the phone and called Calacanis to confirm what he was posting on Twitter.

What Calacanis has demonstrated is that Tech Journalists, particularly in the professional world, are starved of and addicted to Apple rumors. And it is unfortunately the fault of those who want these rumors such as speculators on the stock market. Merlin Mann’s assertion that Calacanis has some sort of responsibility “as a Journalist” to his readers is ridiculous, and I say that with respect to Merlin as a commentator and as a humorist. Calacanis himself is a commentator and a humorist if you’ve ever heard him as a panelist on This Week in Tech, but is more of a commentator on business and particularly startup companies as the host of This Week in Startups, or TWiST. It is not his responsibility to uphold the “integrity” that is the absurdity that is the Apple rumor-mill.

There is some good that can come of this though, and that is that Calacanis now has the freedom to do this and hopefully not ignite such a firestorm of controversy again. Overall however, it has, according to Calacanis, increased his following on Twitter and traffic to Mahalo. He is intelligent and has been very successful in the past, especially with Weblogs Inc. which he and his partner Brian Alvey sold to AOL for $25 million. Of course, in a few more weeks, no one will even remember this happens and the media will have moved onto a new Apple related rumor.

Just imagine that you have the ability to share your recent purchases and rentals from iTunes with your friends. And imagine a system where your account is credited when people buy songs and movies on your recommendation. I think Apple could afford to throw you 5 cents for every song and up to 50 cents if someone buys a $9.99 movie. This will give all iTunes account holders incentive to actually use the social networking features and would possibly create a service that would rival Facebook and would overshadow Last.fm.

Apple has tried little steps toward making iTunes more social networking friendly like introducing things like iMix, which allows you to create and share playlists with other users, and My iTunes, which allows you to create widgets to post on your website. But why not allow iTunes to tweet your recent purchases or send them to Facebook?

Apple also has possession of the itunes.com domain name, which they could use as a way to automatically publish your playlists, recent purchases, and so on to a web page. That way, someone wouldn’t have to have iTunes installed on their computer (usually the case for most office environments) in order to surf through someone’s profile and see their recommendations. I’m not saying that iTunes should replace Facebook (although, probably not a bad idea considering Facebook has become the new MySpace, now would be the time), but should integrate with services like Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, even Last.fm. And considering that more iTunes compatible devices (the iPod touch, the iPhone, and now the iPad) are able to connect the internet, their are more potential applications for social networking through iTunes.

So, just to recap. You need to be able to make playlists and share them with friends. You need to be able to publish to Twitter, Friendfeed and Facebook, and if Apple is smart, directly to a web page that doesn’t require having the iTunes app installed. You also need to be able to manage your account on your iPhone/iPod/iPad and so on. Can you get on that Apple?