Hey, are you satisfied? Because apparently the odds are pretty good that you are. See, you're tuned into an Apple-flavored online soap opera right now, and unless you're here because you're looking for good prices on "applet urns" (our condolences on the passing and subsequent cremation of your favorite Java applet if you are), that strongly implies that you're a user of Apple's products and/or services. And if you're an Apple customer, a recent study by the University of Michigan shows that you're probably more satisfied than purchasers of any other computers out there. (Yes, we know that probably comes as a great shock. Try not to swallow your tongue.)

Obviously we hardly need a university study to tell us that Mac users are a generally satisfied lot; dissatisfied customers rarely, for example, tattoo corporate logos into their flesh. Still, it's nice to have that satisfaction quantified on occasion, and faithful viewer Andy Van Buren forwarded us an IDG News article which reports that, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, "customer satisfaction with the PC industry has rebounded as vendors have renewed their focus on support and made PC technology easier to set up and use"-- but of all the vendors profiled, "Apple was the only company that received high marks for both quality and support." In fact, Apple's overall score was 81 out of 100, which doesn't sound all that hot to us, but we're assured that it's the highest score that any vendor received. By comparison, Dell came in second place with a 79 (Mike Dell is ascending the clock tower stairs with a rifle as we speak), and Hewlett-Packard and Compaq brands both scored below average (71 and 69 respectively).

Personally, though, we find the most interesting-- and surprising-- stat to emerge from this study to be a fact pointed out by MacMinute: Apple "has advanced from a position of being last in the personal computer industry in customer satisfaction (1998, ACSI score 69) to the top industry position today (ACSI score 81, a 17 percent improvement)." Professor Claes Fornell, the director of the ASCI, is impressed: "I don't think we have ever seen a company go from last to first in the ACSI." And while we're all for meteoric improvement, we just have to say-- 69?! We don't recall Apple being particularly horrendous in 2002, and certainly not scary enough to score a 69. After all, that's a Compaq score, ya know?

Well, there was that eMac problem with the screens, we suppose. And those iMacs with messed-up logos. And we seem to recall hearing something about a PowerBook that drugged its owner, surgically harvested both of his kidneys, and left him lying in an ice-filled hotel bathtub with a phone and a note to call 911. Whatever-- we're just glad that, these days, Apple's back on top of the customer satisfaction game. Fornell says it's because of Apple's "focus on innovation and improving tech support." We figure it's more because of the free pizza with every Mac purchase, but that's just a hunch; we suppose it could be the free beer, instead.

Sure, the iTunes Music Store may be on top now, but if you're a longtime Apple fan, the idea of the company holding the highest market share in any product or service category seems, well, completely and utterly unnatural to you. As such, you constantly suspect that the party can't last forever and that at any moment a competitor will emerge that, better or not, will stomp all over the iTMS and relegate it to the 5%-or-less market share which you suspect is actually coded right into Apple's DNA. We're used to being the underdogs, so we fretted over the advent of BuyMusic.com (as silly as that was), we got a funny tummy over the Napster launch (which has yet to made a dent), and every time another download service shows up with some new gimmick, no matter how many times we've seen the iTMS brush off the "threats" like no more than lint on the Great Sportcoat of Life, we can't help wondering if this will be the one that ends the dream.

The thing is, though, the iTMS's hot streak has lasted through everything the other services have thrown at it thus far, and if you've been nursing a bleeding ulcer and pulling your hair out in fistfuls fretting over RealNetworks's current double-whammy of Harmony and temporary 49-cent downloads, it's probably safe to unclench a little bit. Faithful viewer Fabian tipped us off to a CNET article which reports that, by Real's own admission, while its download business has jumped "severalfold," the company has only sold about a million songs in the first week of its price-slashing madness. The word "million" always sounds like a lot when you hear it, but it's worth keeping in mind that the iTMS also sold a million songs in a week-- its first week. And that was with non-money-losing 99-cent downloads and a much smaller market, since only Mac users could participate at the time. So it sounds to us like for all of Real's headline-grabbing hoopla over "freedom of music choice" and its willingness to temporarily cut prices to what is obviously a loss-leading level, the company is still way behind the curve.

What is it with these services and their willingness to burn through huge gobs of cash for a shot at the crown, anyway? In addition to this goofy 49-cent thing (which will be costing the company money on every song purchase through Labor Day), faithful viewer Panchomill alerts us that Real has also jumped on the "let's sign up colleges and universities at ridiculously low prices" bandwagon popularized by Napster in recent months. According to the Associated Press, the company "will begin offering some university students its digital music subscription service at a steep discount in an effort to stem illegal downloads and attract long-term customers." So students (non-Mac-using ones, anyway) at UC Berkeley and the University of Minnesota get to rent their music for "between $2 and $3 a month," versus the $9.95 Real usually charges. (Okay, technically Real claims it'll still make a profit at that price, but it can't be making much-- certainly not enough to cover what it's losing on its 49-cent songs.) If renting music to college students at severely reduced prices is the best the rest of the industry can come up with as a challenge to iTMS dominance, maybe we shouldn't be worrying after all.

Oh, wait-- scratch that. The Mercury News is reporting that "Microsoft plans to quietly launch the MSN online music store with the new version of its Windows Media 10 player" sometime this week. Why "quietly," you ask? Because while upstarts like Real and BuyMusic need to grab as much attention as possible with fake consumer advocacy campaigns, wildly low prices, and billboards of a giant naked Tommy Lee, Microsoft has a monopoly to fall back on; the company "expects to introduce as many as 130 million people to its music download store as computer users are prompted to update their media player software." Must be nice to have a captive audience, hmmmm?

So the one thing you don't need to worry about is not having anything to worry about. True, the iTMS is available for Windows and almost certainly provides a nicer customer experience than whatever Microsoft has slapped together; truer still, Microsoft's service isn't compatible with the iPod, which is probably a serious disadvantage. But between the 130 million Windows users who'll automatically be directed to Microsoft's download store and the "300 million people who drop by the MSN site," Microsoft has the numbers it needs to get away with mediocrity just like it has a thousand times in the past. So keep them stomachs a-churnin'!

Red alert, people, we've got an emergency here! We never thought it would happen to us, but somehow it seems that both our Skepticism Index and our Common Sense Quotient have risen to dangerously high levels-- levels so high that they endanger our very ability to speculate wildly about upcoming products based on the flimsiest of evidence. Considering that our viewing audience expects a certain amount of crazy product guesswork, we believe the technical term for our problem is "That Ain't Good."

See, it all started a few days ago when we stumbled upon a MacBidouille entry which noted the presence of a couple of noteworthy job openings at Apple's web site. The listings for both positions (hereforth referred to by us as "Hardware System Integrator - iPod" Number One and "Hardware System Integrator - iPod" Number Two) states that for anyone looking to apply, "experience in the following areas is important: [blah blah blah blah] various communication protocols (ie: GSM, Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11, FireWire, and USB) [blah blah blah blah]." And that mention of GSM, Bluetooth, and 802.11 was supposed to be a clue that the next iPod would have some sort of wireless functionality built in.

The thing is, due to our "condition," we never really considered those job listings to be much evidence of a wireless-'net iPod in the offing. We know it's crazy, but when we saw GSM and Bluetooth in that list, we simply assumed that folks in Apple's iPod division have to be conversant with mobile phone wireless technologies because of that whole "iTMS on Motorola cell phones" project. Likewise, when we saw 802.11, we just assumed that the same department works on AirPort Express development. After all, "video and analog integration" in the listing doesn't necessarily mean that the next iPod will be video-enabled, right?

It does? Oh, geez, we're farther gone than we thought.

It's especially weird that we'd have this reaction (or lack of one, rather) because we've mentioned the possibility of upcoming wireless- and video-enabled iPods in the past. Meanwhile, everyone else on the planet (including but not in any way limited to AppleInsider, The Register, MacRumors, and MacMinute) has picked up on the job postings and seems to think they're pretty decent evidence that upcoming 'Pods will be able to stream music directly to AirPort Express units, or double as cell phones, or access the iTunes Music Store directly via a cellular linkup, or something like that. We'd have seen it ourselves if not for this darn hyperskepticism that's ruining our lives.

Well, it all ends here and now; we're simply going to will ourselves credulous again. It might take a while, but we're told that the only medical treatment for the condition involves a series of painful injections under the fingernails and some real torture called "regular exercise," so self-healing seems like a better bet. In the meantime, though, notice that the aforementioned job listings also mention the importance of experience with ATAPI-- clearly this means that future iPods will feature built-in CD-ROM drives and tape backup systems, right?