Oh, no, the sky is falling! Seriously, it's falling! Big chunks of it are plummeting to earth even as we speak! A jagged slab of blue with some clouds in it just crashed right through the windshield of your car! Don't believe us? Then you must not have heard that Apple's going to add Windows Media Audio support to the iPod by June-ish. Because, you know, that's certainly proof right there.

The news that has the entire Mac world in a tizzy came to us via faithful viewer Jason Nieckar in the form of a Connected Home Media article from last Friday. It declares that the recent HP-Apple digital music partnership will result in HP's Microsoftification of everyone's favorite little music player; reportedly HP "will be working with Apple to add support for Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio (WMA) format to the iPod by mid-year." What this would mean is that the iPod could soon be able to play downloaded songs purchased from non-iTunes Music Store sources-- which is fantastic news for all the masochists out there who hate it when things are easy and actually work, and therefore eschew the iTMS for, say, BuyMusic.com, which we're told delivers a shopping experience roughly comparable to grinding one's teeth down to the gumline with a belt sander. But you heard Microsoft: Windows is all about choice!

But let's pause for a moment, shall we? Consider the source of this report, especially in light of the manner in which the article's author casually refers to WMA as "superior," when neither testing (by, say, Tom's Hardware, or some guy named Roberto) nor blithely unscientific mob opinion (just read the article's reader comments, for Pete's sake) bears that out. (Gee, an audio format developed by Dolby sounds better than one developed by the software company that brought you Microsoft Bob-- who knew?) It's worth mentioning that so far the only person claiming that the HP deal will result in WMA-enabled iPods is Paul Thurrott.

Yes, that Paul Thurrott, the guy behind Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows-- the only web site with a name cheesy enough to send unwary lactose-intolerant surfers into convulsive cramps. This is a guy who frequently insists that he's not a Redmond puppet, but c'mon... the guy runs Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows. He's the only person on the planet categorically describing WMA as "superior" who isn't wearing a straitjacket and dodging Nurse Ratched. (Yet.) And his statement today in a WinNetMag editorial that-- we swear, this is a direct quote-- "Apple and HP have just set back the convergence of PCs and consumer electronics an untold number of years" is hardly the sort of hyperbole you get from someone who hasn't earned two dozen merit badges as a card-carrying member of Redmond's Rangers. It's all too clear that Bill Gates need never experience a colonoscopy, because he can always ask Paul Thurrott to give Bill's doctor an eyewitness account of just how things are going up there.

That said, we're not saying that Paul's wrong about WMA support coming to the iPod; we really don't know one way or the other, and frankly, we don't much care, as long as the thing keeps supporting AAC and MP3 and we can keep buying our music at the iTMS. Remember, Apple makes money on the iPods, not the song sales, so adding WMA support to the iPod doesn't hurt the company in any direct way (although supporting WMA might hinder the acceptance of AAC and QuickTime in the long run). And there's no question that Apple has at least considered supporting WMA: control-click on the iTunes application, choose "Show Package Contents," take a peek in the Resources folder in Contents, and bam-- there's an icon file named "iTunes-wma.icns" which you can open in Preview and stare at all you like.

This isn't news. The news is that Paul claims that HP made WMA support in the iPod a condition of the deal and set a mid-year timeline. That may or may not be true, and all we're saying is that right now we have only the word of a Windows fanboy to go by, so maybe that sky thing isn't exactly crashing to the ground just yet. And, of course, even if the iPod winds up supporting WMA, that won't mean you have to use it. What? We could buy our music at the iTMS or any of the WMA-based competitors that are currently Windows-only services? Gee, and here we thought it was Windows that's "all about choice."