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Oh, Apple ... Sure you make the trains run on time, but are the peasants truly happy? It seems that there's a bit more unrest being spawned from Cupertino.

First comes word that Microsoft is poaching wooing retail store managers away from Apple in preparation for its own line of retail stores. [Ars via TiPB] Nothing too strange there. These things happen. But for Apple, it's hardly a new trend.

But top that with new of a possible employee walkout on Oct. 3 at the Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, Wash., and this could turn out to be a full-on to-do. Losing the managers is bad enough. But if you can't keep the worker bees happy, they'll go elsewhere. And not even Fake Steve Jobs can stop that.

And with a couple of exciting new products already in the wild (Exhibits A and B), and presumably more on the way, Microsoft couldn't come calling at a better time.

It started with Google, Apple and AT&T. Rejection of the official Google Voice app from the App Store drew attention from the Federal Communications Commission, and now the feds are going to take a look at the entire wireless industry.

An open meeting has been announced for 10 a.m. EDT next Thursday in Washington, D.C. Here's what's on tap:

• The Commission will consider a Notice of Inquiry to seek and understand better the factors that encourage innovation and investment in wireless and to identify concrete steps the Commission can take to support and enourage further innovation and investment in this area.
• The Commission will consider a Notice of Inquiry soliciting information for the next annual report to Congress on the status of competition in the mobile wireless market, including commercial mobile services.
• The Commission will consider a Notice of Inquiry that seeks comment on whether there are opportunities to protect and empower American consumers by ensuring sufficient access to relevant information about communications services.

In other words, they want to know what the frak is going on out there. Better late than never. We'll keep you posted.

FCC (pdf) via ZDNet

Rene, our No. 1 frenemy over at The iPhone Blog, points us to an article in this month's Vogue magazine that — Hang on. My phone's ringing.

What's that, Rene? You don't actually read Vogue, it's an article that GeekSugar and Gizmodo picked up? Sure, sure, I'll mention that. Don't think anyone'll believe me, but anything for you, pal.

Sorry about that. Where were we? Oh, yes, the article. See, Melinda Gates, wife of one of the richest men in the world, sat down with Vogue and let slip that iPhones and iPods are banned in the Gates household, even though she occasionally thinks they're kinda cool.

“There are very few things that are on the banned list in our household,” Gates tells me. “But iPods and iPhones are two things we don’t get for our kids.” Harsh, perhaps, but understandable. After all, it’s hard to walk around tethered to merchandise made by your father’s most famous competitor. Still, Gates acknowledges the inevitable lure of forbidden fruit. “Every now and then I look at my friends and say, ‘Ooh, I wouldn’t mind having that iPhone.’”

So, no iFun in the Gates household. Which leads us to the following question:

How do they prop open their doors?

WMExperts is, strictly speaking, a Windows Mobile site. But we recognize good wireless industry prose when we see it, and we see it in Daniel Roth's piece in Wired magazine, "Google's Open Source Android Phone Will Free the Wireless Web."

Roth details the birth of Android - the brain child of Andy Rubin, seen above - and the Open Handset Alliance, created to directly compete against WinMo and Apple's iPhone, as well as to challenge the status quo among device makers, carriers and software/OS developers.

"But WMExperts," you say, "you were quick to post on a reported Android delay, and we could see the smirk on your face as you chalked up another point in the Windows Mobile column."

OK, we've been skeptical. But the story provides an interesting look at some of the behind-the-scenes problems with developers and carriers that Microsoft currently has to deal with, that Apple largely has bypassed, and that Google is learning to live with.

And besides. We're trying to be a little less evil.

An excerpt:

Microsoft's system, however, was the ugly stepsister of what Rubin was proposing: Redmond executives cared less about opening up the Net to mobile users than about tying the mobile operating system into its desktop dominance. A decade ago, Microsoft had underestimated the growth of the Web and then lost control of it to Google. Now it looked like it was Google's turn to be caught flat-footed.

Read "Google's Open Source Android Phone Will Free the Wireless Web"

You may have heard the news. Here's our live color commentary of the iPhone SDK event. There's a lot of information to parse out with regards to how this will shake out with Windows Mobile -- including how the applications on the iPhone looked stunning compared to most WM apps. More on that later. For now, let's talk about this: Apple licensed Exchange Active Sync.

What's it mean? Read on!

So the iPhone will gain push email, contacts, and calendar. That's big news for Microsoft - they'll pick up a lot of new users for their server products. In a lot of ways it's a bigger attack on RIM than it is on Windows Mobile. First - Apple denigrated the NOC during their presentation - just like Palm did - saying that a 3rd party in the middle is a Bad Idea. It's also a big attack on RIM because now two platforms do their push email via Exchange - Windows Mobile and the iPhone. Together the two might actually have a bigger marketshare than RIM for enterprise in very short order.

But now that the iPhone will support Exchange, will we see an exodus from WM to the iPhone? We'll definitely see some movement in that direction, yes. On the other hand, I am fairly confident in two things.

First, Exchange Active Sync Features on Windows Mobile will always be more advanced.notice, for example, that Apple seems to be writing their own management program instead of using Microsoft's RIM-Server-Killing Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager. So lock down, provisioning, and other management features will be more advanced with Windows Mobile. Yet that's the smaller point.

The second point is the bigger point: Apple's licensing of Active Sync is very likely to grow the overall Exchange pie at a much faster rate than their slice of it will steal from Windows Mobile. Which is to say, yes, some WM users will defect, but there will be even more new Windows Mobile users by dint of the ever-growing standardization on Exchange for mobile push email for enterprise.

...Or so it seems to me. Microsoft has until the release of the Apps in June to come up with something that looks like a response to the new features that will appear on the iPhone. Will they be able to deliver?

I know, I know, it's not right for me to keep writing about Apple-related stuff on a Windows Mobile site, but it's a slow news day. So: when Jobs intro'd the "iPod Touch" my first thought was "Hm, I have an HTC Touch in my pocket right now. How's that gonna work out?" Apparently, it's gonna work out just fine. HTC does indeed own a worldwide trademark on "Touch" for a handheld device and could, if they were so inclined, get sue-happy. That does appear to be in the cards, however:

Ching-hung Wang (transliterated from Chinese), marketing manager of HTC pointed out that he does not think Apple's iPod touch was targeting HTC since Apple should put its focus on bigger companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. As for whether iPod touch violates HTC's trademark, Wang pointed out that in the past Apple and Cisco were able to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement over the rights to the iPhone trademark, adding that the question surrounding the rights to the Touch trademark would need further observation.

Read: HTC proud to share touch vision with Apple

Two thoughts: HTC, I know you want to be humble and all, but you're a plenty big enough target for Apple (or anyone else, for that matter), no need to be so modest. Also, and I'm just saying here, name me a single person who equates "iPhone" with "Cisco" in any way, shape, or form.

...

I'm waiting.

Right. So, in the vein of "no press is bad press," I say take it to 'em, HTC. Like I said at the outset of this post, it's a slow news day and I'd love to see some action.