The latest iPod game, Pirates of the Caribbean: Aegir’s Fire, runs aground immediately. Like nearly every other licensed videogame, this sailing adventure feels like a cash-in, looting unsuspecting iPod fans. While the first few ship battles are briefly fun, Aegir’s Fire is mostly tedious, repetitive, and frustrating.

 For as long as I’ve owned my iPhone, it’s held a permanent spot on my desk in its dock adjacent to one of my JBL Creature speakers. My cell phone is my primary form of communication in and outside my home, so it needs to be within reach at all times; and with so much e-mail checking and Internet browsing, it also usually needs to be charged. 

Stacks: Entirely useless There, I said it. It has been far and away my biggest disappointment with Leopard. Stacks was one feature I was really excited about, but after 10 seconds of using it, I knew Stacks had to go. Worse than being less than I expected, Stacks actually took away my favorite feature of the dock: the ability to navigate through folder structures.

In January of 1998, you could have bought as much Apple stock as you wanted for $4 per share. There was no iTunes, no iPod, no iPhone, MacBook, or really, much of anything save for the solid operating system software known then as Macintosh.