Here we go again. The New York Times asks Will Apple’s Culture Hurt the iPhone? Cue: the usual arguments about how Android’s going to pound Apple’s head into the dirt, because—shock!—Android marketshare is about to leapfrog iOS and there are a billion different devices to choose from.

Newsflash one: Apple doesn’t care about the low-end fights where most of this marketshare battle is taking place. It cares about profits. As the PC industry as shown, marketshare counts for shit, unless you’re also making money from what you’re selling. Apple, by comparison, makes money hand over fist with a relatively small chunk of the market. The same would happen if iOS lost a decent-sized chunk of its mobile share.

Newsflash two: Having ‘only’ one device isn’t a drawback—it’s in many ways a benefit. It simplifies things. Customers dither when faced with choices, and many then take the choice to not buy anything. Also, fewer hardware variations typically means tighter software integration and robust devices.

So, New York Times, to answer your question: Will Apple’s Culture Hurt the iPhone? No.

I grimace every time I go to update apps or download promo codes in iTunes. Writing for mags like Tap! and iPod User, you might imagine I have many apps—and you’d be right. And every time I try to do one of the aforementioned actions, I get an error. Sometimes, it’s a ‘5002’ error, and other times I am bafflingly informed “The item you tried to buy is no longer available”. At the moment, I get six dialog boxes in a row (saying I cannot connect to the iTunes Store) every time I click ‘redeem’ to get promo codes.

If this was just happening to me, that would be bad enough. However, on talking to other iOS device users, it’s clear that’s not the case. Interestingly, though, the app update process is generally smoother on the actual devices. There are occasional issues, but not nearly as many as you get inside iTunes itself.

This is why I’m hoping Apple reveals something ‘magical’ regarding cloud computing very soon indeed. Apple’s building a gigantic data centre, and no-one knows why. I suspect there will be some new web services, and I hope they will be free and aimed primarily at iOS. Sign up for the free service and no more wired sync. No more iTunes errors. Instead, your content would sync across your devices, without you having to do a thing.

Of course, Apple might just announce a new version of iWeb with upgraded web hosting and say “Oh yeah, all you guys having problems with iTunes: tough noogies.”

A leading industry analyst has declared that “Apple is basically fucked” after Apple’s 2010 fourth quarter results revealed that iPod sales had declined by 11 percent.

With the ubiquitous music player the only important product Apple makes, the leading analyst dismissed Apple’s record $20.4 billion revenue and $4.31 billion profit as “a blip” and said “it’s not like we just make shit up as we go along, you know,” adding: “If I were you, I wouldn’t even bother to sell your Apple shares, because the company really is that fucked—by the time you try, it’ll be too late.”

Another leading industry analyst agreed, pointing out that Apple was “closed”, “not open”, “somewhat shut” and “blinkered”, again pointing to the disastrous 11 percent decline in iPod sales as the “final proof that Apple is done”. Writing off the 27 percent jump in Mac sales and 91 increase in iPhone sales (to 14.1 million), he added: “Look, the iPod is where it’s at, and it’s clear Apple is losing that battle. I predict that within the year, Apple will be lucky to sell whatever’s left of its battered reputation to Acer for ten bucks and change.”

Yet another leading analyst chimed in: “It’s unlikely that Apple will survive the year. The drop in iPod sales will really hit Apple, and the tiny number of iPad sales—just over four million—won’t be enough to help the iPod maker struggle into 2011.”

Retro Gamer won a GMA last night (‘Best Games Magazine’), which is rather nice. Since it’s the only games magazine I write for, I’m going to take all the credit.

Meanwhile, if you’re a fan of Infocom, Steve Meretzky, leather goddesses, Phobos, or Leather Goddesses of Phobos, buying the latest issue of the mag (complete with flying Mario advent calendar cover—I kid you not) would be a good idea, since it includes The Making of… Leather Goddesses of Phobos (by yours truly).

Gah. I’m so behind the rest of the world. There’s been antennaegate and then there was Ryan Block’s not-at-all-link-bait glassgate that the rest of the tech industry parroted in its typical unthinking manner, without, you know, thinking it might be a good idea to check some of the supposed facts.

I need my own ‘gate’ to become famous (and then, presumably, hated and ridiculed a few hours later, but that’s the price of fame—just ask Jedward), but I don’t even own an iPhone 4 (not that lacking something you’re writing about is a problem for quite a few tech hacks these days).

Any ideas? I was thinking about actually-it-seems-that-the-iphone-4-works-quite-well-gate, but I don’t think that’ll draw in the traffic.