Just a heads-up to anyone out there using a similar set up to mine:

• 2008 Mini Cooper Clubman
• Y-adapter 30-pin plug (to USB and AUX-IN)
• 1st generation iPod touch
• iPod OS 3.0

This combination doesn’t work. So far, I’ve been unsuccessful in downgrading my iPod to OS 2.2.1 (haven’t tried the DFU mode that some have suggested — see the Apple thread linked below). The result is that the iPod has a really hard time connecting to the Mini (it has routinely taken 10 minutes to connect), and then disconnects the first time it changes tracks (either by skipping to the next track or by letting the first track play to the end).

I’ve been in touch with Mini about this. My local dealer didn’t know about the problem, and the support people at Mini said they’re pretty much at Apple’s mercy on issues like this (which is about what I expected; Apple’s legendary secrecy extends to third-parties supporting their products).

Hopefully there will be an update from Apple and/or Mini that addresses this issue.

• USB Information from Mini.com (PDF)
• Mini/iPod touch Apple Support thread
• NorthAmericanMotoring.com — a short thread

Also, for what it’s worth, Mini told me that while the iPod touch isn’t supported under OS 3.0, the iPhone 3G is. The iPhone 3GS isn’t, though, so guess who upgraded their iPhone 3G to a 3GS this weekend…

Ah, technology…

Apple now dominates the mobile web in the U.S. with a 48% market share

I’m not sure why this surprised me. I think the key is that they point out how Apple has made devices that people want to surf on. I certainly would never have bothered with my previous Motorola pos. It was barely possible to make a phone call with that thing…

Good news for Jobs, for Apple, and for everyone tired of the morbid speculation surrounding the Macworld keynote.

The method for typing the letter ‘Z’ or punctuation seems less like satire, and more like the way many people actually enter text on their cell phones…

What’s interesting about these kinds of spoofs (Saturday Night Live has done a similar take on the iPod/iPod nano), is that they may not look like satire in a few years (okay, the user interaction will be different, but the size of the device itself may not be far off). Consider storage devices, which have gone from the size of the “user’s manual” in this video to the size of the Mactini over the last, what, 15 years?

Here’s hoping Apple gets an update out soon; the 50D’s been out for a couple of weeks now. For now, it’s not listed on Apple’s Raw support page.

Update: Adobe Photoshop CS3 (10.0.1, from 2007) opens the 50D’s files without issue, and I’ve only got Adobe’s Camera RAW plug-in version 4.6.0.30.

At least Aperture shows thumbnails, and lets me export the images so I can work on them in Photoshop.

Some of the applications in your iTunes library were not installed on the iPhone blah blah blah because one or more errors occurred.

Then it gives me the full list of apps, usually a dozen or more, and a link to a KnowledgeBase article: Troubleshooting applications purchased from the App Store.

Despite the good suggestions in that article, it seems the only one that ever works for me is deleting the apps from the iPhone, re-”purchasing” them (which does not involve paying for them again) and reinstalling them. Which is a pain in the ass, frankly.

And despite the iPhone 3G’s strong opening-weekend sales, Rockfeld noted that technology research firm IDC predicted that Windows Mobile will continue to outsell the iPhone 2 to 1 in the consumer market by 2012 and in the business space by 9 to 1.

‘So you can see the hype versus the reality,’ he said.”

Where by ‘reality’ he means ‘wild-ass guess’.