There’s an Apple beat-up going on in the media. It’s rather as if migrating to Intel chips has saddled what was once the coolest company in IT with the Microsoft curse. But what is rotten at the core of Apple is not what you might think; it’s iTunes 7. When companies try to make technology ‘simpler’, there’s always a price to pay, and removing the options for people to correct glitches and idiosyncrasies in the company’s costly products for themselves will do the Apple brand no favours. The latest and most profound error Apple has made is the removal of the iPod Updater from its software equation. A quick look at the Apple discussion groups will prove I’m not the only iPod user having problems with the latest release of its software. Bill Bennett over at Reseller News has some words of wisdom for those waxing lyrical about the supposedly “intuitive” iPod interface, but my own words are currently rather more colourful.