Just a couple of music-related reminders, folks: first of all, do you have a few (or a few dozen) winning Pepsi caps still sitting around unclaimed? Because as faithful viewer Lyle Gunderson points out, there are only a few more days in which to cash in your free-tune redemption codes, and since you're limited to claiming ten songs a day, if you've been hoarding winning caps, you really need to get on the stick before all that luscious yellow plastic turns back into a pumpkin at midnight on Saturday. Or Friday. Depends on how you choose to define these things; Friday night, a.k.a. 12:00 AM Saturday. You know what we mean. Mark the calendar or something.

Secondly, while this is technically Monday's episode, thanks to some wacky renovations that have thrown the AtAT compound into an even greater state of higgledy-piggledy than usual (the contractors left our toilet out in the rain-- it's like "MacArthur Park," only with doody humor!), you're tuning in on Tuesday-- which means it's Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day, and as we mentioned last week, if you're one of the first 50,000 people to take their online Oath to Vote, you'll be emailed a free iTunes Music Store song code in a few days' time. (Regardless of whether or not you're quick enough to score a free song, you'll also be entered to win a free iPod, an iMac, and a trip to Vermont "to spend a day as an honorary Flavor Guru." Can't beat that with a stick.)

Meanwhile, in slightly less-free-song iTMS news, faithful viewer neopod informs us that Apple is planning a special birthday event of some sort this coming Wednesday. According to MacMinute, at 11:30 AM EDT on the 28th Apple will be throwing an "iTunes Music Store anniversary conference call," during which the Big Steve himself will "update media and industry analysts on the iTunes Music Store one year after its launch." How 'bout that? The Mac turned 20 this past January and Apple let the day pass without so much as a cupcake with a candle stuck in it, and yet the iTMS gets a full-blown media event (albeit a telephonic one) complete with Steve just one year out of the gate.

But we digress. The thing to focus on, here, is that Apple is fully acknowledging the iTMS's imminent anniversary and isn't trying to weasel out of reporting just how far it fell short of Steve's "100 million songs sold in the first year" goal. Last month, you'll recall, Steve remarked to the press that Apple was "not going to make that number" and figured on maybe "70 million to 75 million" songs total once the first full year's sales were tallied up and all those Pepsi downloads were rolled in as well. But if Steve is going to have a full-blown conference call to discuss the numbers, which he's obviously not obligated to do under any existing federal, state, or local laws (at least until the National Groovy Download Tally Disclosure Act passes), maybe the iTMS did better than previously expected.

Then again, maybe Steve's got something else up his sleeve. Some people are already getting their hopes up for an iTMS launch in Europe or Canada, but we tend to think that Apple would stage something a bit bigger than a conference call for news of that magnitude. (And faithful viewer johnny0 noticed that Apple's still looking to hire a Featured Content Manager that speaks French and German, so that may hint that the Europe store, at least, is as far off as EuroSteve Pascal Cagni recently implied.)

Whatever. There's only a day or so before we find out exactly what's up, so there's no sense spraining a lobe trying to puzzle it out. In the meantime, don't forget to cash in those Pepsi caps-- immediately, if possible, since there's still one last day in which Apple can try to inch closer to that iTMS sales goal. Likewise, if there's anything you've been planning to buy (admit it-- ever since we mentioned it after the flood of Disney albums, you've had your eye on that Hayley Mills album), now's the time.

So yeah, the iTunes Music Store at least gets a Stevular media conference call on its first birthday, but for its twentieth the Macintosh rated nothing more a passing mention during a Stevenote held weeks earlier. And if we hold that up as still further proof that Apple is philosophically divesting itself of its identity as the Macmaker (not to be confused with the Freshmaker-- that's Mentos, the mint that lets you get away with cheeky and mildly socially unacceptable behavior in public), we're just helping the folks amassing evidence that'll eventually get us committed as raving paranoiacs who are a danger to ourselves and others. We've already run that whole "music is the No. 1 priority of the company" thing into the ground; either you're wigged out by Apple selling more iPods than Macs last quarter or you're not. We don't need to keep harping on it.

Well, maybe just one last time. For old time's sake.

See, faithful viewer agila dished us a New York Times article which underscores yet again Apple's transformation from "computer company that makes Macs" into "consumer electronics company that makes iPods (and Macs)." The article, titled "Oh, Yeah, He Also Sells Computers" is mostly about the inimitable Mr. Steve and his Svengali-like ability to pull his company and his industry in directions that apparently get injected directly into his brain juice by a future version of himself armed with a time machine and a hypodermic. There's also a nice explanation for why Rob Glaser of RealNetworks is so desperate to get Steve to open up the iPod to other services: apparently the guy who led the engineering effort behind the iPod's six-month development process came to Apple from RealNetworks, for whom he might have created an "iPod-like hit product" had Glaser not chased him off with a negative attitude. Oooh, the sting of missed opportunity.

The starkly relevant bit, though, comes right at the beginning: "Stroll the corridors and the atriums on Apple Computer's corporate campus these days and you will notice that something is missing. Gone are the posters and graphics accenting the company's sleek personal computers. In their place, in the main lobby, is a striking, three-story-high billboard celebrating Steven P. Jobs's brand-new billion-dollar consumer electronics business-- the iPod digital MP3 music player."

That's just good strategy, of course, since the iPod is a far more recognizable icon these days than any Mac Apple sells, and it's also much more of a visible success-- just the sort of thing you want visitors to your corporate headquarters to see when they first walk in the door. Still, we can't help getting a bit jittery every time there's another little hint that Steve may find the Mac boring these days. He can't ignore it yet, of course, while Macs still pull in the bulk of Apple's revenue, but as non-Mac products make up a bigger and bigger chunk of Apple's income, is it totally inconceivable that Mac development might start to suffer just a smidge? The iPod's one thing, but if Apple ships a couple more breakthrough digital lifestyle devices that enjoy similar levels of success, we wonder at what point the money will dictate that continuing development of the Macintosh would be a liability. (Yes, we also worry about the sky falling, the sun burning out, the polar ice caps melting, and whether Charisma Carpenter will ever get another series. So you really shouldn't pay a whole lot of attention to us.)

We should probably clarify once again that we aren't actually opposed to Apple turning into a cooler version of Sony, especially since Sony makes VAIOs, which, we hear, suck about as little as possible for computers running Windows. It's not an "either-or" situation; iPods (and whatever other consumer electronics wizardry Steve has in mind) can coexist peacefully at Apple with the Macintosh. We just wonder every once in a while whether Steve wants them to. But don't worry, we usually only get this way when we forget to take our medication.

Rejoice, AirPort 3.4 casualties: no longer shall you suffer startlingly reduced signal strength or the heartbreak of repeated dropped connections, for sweet relief is at hand! Soon you'll be able to enjoy all those AirPort 3.4-specific features like "improved antenna output control," "performance improvements for WPA security implementations," and "stronger, leaner legs, glutes, and hips" with all the signal strength and rock-solid performance you experienced under previous releases of the AirPort software. Trust us, your 3.4-related worries are over.

Probably. We're actually just guessing, here, but it seems like a pretty decent bet.

See, faithful viewer DavidRock tipped us off to the sudden appearance of AirPort Update 3.4.1 in his Software Update panel. Interestingly enough, while the title and version number of the posted README lists version 3.4.1, everything else on the page still refers to 3.4, implying strongly that Apple simply reused the same document and literally nothing has changed from the 3.4 version released last week-- at least, nothing that Apple wants to admit. After all, stating that "AirPort Update 3.4.1 corrects numerous egregious problems introduced by version 3.4, which never should have left the building, but our Quality Control personnel were all too busy doing the weird floating arms experiment to notice" might reveal just a little more about Apple's software release process than would be prudent.

So we're pretty sure that 3.4.1 is purely a bug-fix release that could technically have been numbered "3.4 Take 2." Still, it might be a good idea to wait a bit while the early adopters charge in blindly (those guys are so useful, aren't they?) just to make sure that 3.4.1 doesn't introduce some other heinous bugs-- like, say, a dramatically increased RF output that cooks your kidneys after thirty minutes of continued use causing a painful and horrifying death. Or maybe, heaven forfend, a typo.

We're guessing that reports on 3.4.1 will start showing up on MacFixIt and MacInTouch any minute now, and they'll probably be along the lines of "works great, fixes everything, life is once again a boundless vista of wonder and delight." Still, the only thing worse than weak signals and dropped connections is strong signals and dropped connections coupled with internal organs nuked medium rare. We just advise a little caution, is all. Remember, you're dealing with a Quality Control department with crazy floaty arms; never has there been a more piquant recipe for disaster. Just pray that no one teaches them how to look through holes in their hands or they'll wind up so distracted they'll ship PowerBooks coated in rat poison and iMacs with razor blades poking out of their enclosures.