Until around two years ago, there were two kinds of snack bars. You had traditional candy bars, such as Hershey's and Snickers. Then you had energy bars, like Clif Bar, Luna and Balance. These were mostly made of wholesome ingredients like oats and grains instead of chocolate and nougat.

Then something odd happened. The candy bar manufacturers branched out into energy bars, and the energy bar people tried making wholesome candy bars. You can now get a chocolate fudge and peanut butter Balance bar. Why settle for oatmeal or granola?

The result: go to your corner deli and try selecting one of these bars. You may need to bring a compass, because by the time you're done, the world will be spinning. More importantly, if everyone had stuck to what they were good at all along, I think each product would be better.

Now there are reports that Apple's trademark registration of "Mobile Me" suggests it may try to make the iPod into a phone and resell cell phone service. Of course, if anyone can pull off this design feat, it's Apple. But if they go this one-stop-shop route, I hope they do it in a way that is minimally distracting to its core business. I've always thought that while Apple's hardware is superbly designed, its software is less so. I'm hoping that packing everything into the iPod will not lead it further astray with declining expertise.