After the U2 iPod, what next? The all-white Beatles iPod? Can Steve Jobs and Sir Paul McCartney find more common ground?

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After the U2 iPod, what next? The all-white Beatles iPod? Can Steve Jobs and Sir Paul McCartney find more common ground?

Date Created: 30 Oct, 2004, 08:46 PM

If you're a movie goer, you're likely to have developed your own early warning radar signal detection system that tips you off to what new movies are worth spending your time and energy.

Naturally, I use IMDB.com, as well as local newspaper reviewers. Now there are some reviewers I almost always agree with and so trust their opinions, and there are others who seem to get it so wrong so regularly that I know if they don't like a movie, I will - and vice-versa.

On the 'net, it's no different, and perhaps the effect is even more overt when it comes to pundits making predictions. This is especially so when it comes to the Apple corner of the IT galaxy.

And even more so as soon as Apple releases a new product after weeks of fevered speculation. This was the case with the iPodPhoto, whose presentation in San Jose last week I blogged below, with respect to the possibility of a new Keynote 2.0 due soon.

Predictably, the usual naysayers leapt onto it, either getting it wrong in the case of John C. Dvorak, or making nonsense statements consistent with their previous nitwittedness, as in the case of Paul Thurrott.

Now, some have called Thurrott a Microsoft shill, but anyone who pays for someone to ultimately bring their corporation into disrepute by association would cut them off sooner than this. So I can only assume Thurrott is not a Microsoft flunkie, but has seen The Way and will not deviate from his path to Borg heaven. (If such a place exists ... not being a Trekkie, I wouldn't know. My passions lie elsewhere.)

So I was considering a blog response to practise the fine art of filletting (using Thurrott as cadaver) when I was beaten to the punch. Actually, that's not quite true. Using the Netnewswire RSS aggregator, I was force-fed John Gruber's "Daring Fireball" for October 29, and I have to tell you - as usual, Gruber is the best Iron Chef out there.

Not just does he gut and fillet Thurrott, but he then slow-bakes him. And then cuts him up into small morsels, and decorates him, presenting us a tasty dish of crow before the main course (entre to my North American readers).

He then turns his attention to some of the commentary regarding why video is not the medium of choice currently for the iPod.

The market certainly seemed excited by the announcements if the rising Apple share price is any guide.

But I have to ask a question of the U2iPod. Is this the forerunner of more Special Editions?

Here's what I want to see happen, and would convince me to trade out of my overflowing 2nd gen 10GB iPod.

What I really want to see: An all-white Special Edition Beatles iPod. Totally white, like the Beatles' White album, with a special deal on a digital Beatles boxed set a la U2.

Of course, this would need a settlement between the Beatles "Apple Corps" copyright owners and Apple Computer Inc. of Cupertino. It will need more than the exchange of millions to accomplish; it would need the putting behind of any past animosities between the companies and individuals.

So I ask you, without being morbid:

What do Sir Paul McCartney, one of the two surviving Beatles, and Steve Jobs have in common? That's right, they have both been touch by cancer. (And they are both avowed vegetarians.)

A cancer research society has been setup in Linda MacCartney's memory in Liverpool. And let us not forgot the death of George Harrison also of cancer in late 2001. Ironically a month after the iPod was first released.

Is it time for the two Apples to find common ground, so that 40 years of fans (The Beatles first came to Melbourne Australia 40 years ago this year) can find new appreciation of their legacy of music via Apple's iPod and the iTunes Music Store?

Or is business just business after all is said and done? Isn't life too short to keep this tussle over names going, putting money into lawyers pockets instead of more useful places, like cancer research?