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Verizon Wireless and Motorola are expected to unveil details of their new Android phone today.

Guest: Kent German, CNET

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Today, Dwight Silverman analyzes new commercials from Apple and Microsoft.

Listen - Download MP3 - iTunes

Last weekend, tech blogger and book author Ed Bott got an unpleasant surprise when fired up a machine running Windows 7. Apple's software update tool offered him (and other users) a program called "iPhone Configuration Utility." Bott doesn't own an iPhone. He says Apple violated a sacred trust.

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New iPods? Tablet computer? Steve Jobs?

Apple fans wait to see what they will get at an invitation-only event next week in San Francisco.

Guest: Donald Bell, CNET

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The latest version of Apple's operating system - Mac OS X version 10.6 - is arriving at retail stores this Friday, a week earlier than expected. In the tradition of naming operating system updates after big cats, 10.6 is called Snow Leopard.

Guest: Dwight Silverman

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On his blog Minimal Mac, Patrick Rhone suggests we should ask ourselves what desktop icons, programs, and hardware we truly need, and then get rid of what we rarely or never use.

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The departure of Google CEO Eric Schmidt from the Apple Board of Directors highlights the growing competition between the two companies, according to Philip Elmer-DeWitt, who writes the Apple 2.0 blog for Fortune.

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Guest: Tom Merritt, executive editor at CNET

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I'm in the market for a new phone and facing a bout of indecision. So I'm inviting folks to tell me what to buy. First up, commentator Dwight Silverman says I'd be a fool not to get an iPhone.

Follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, or call me on the comment line at 612-284-1965

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"The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. "With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up."

That's probably true, according to Pete Meyers, associate publisher at O'Reilly and editor of the new book Best iPhone Apps: The Guide for Discriminating Downloaders.

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Microsoft's newest TV ad features the computer shopping quest of a hip young woman named Lauren. She has a $1,000 budget and wants a fast laptop with a 17-inch screen. The ad's message: Macs are not for shoppers on a budget.

Do Macs really cost so much more than Windows PCs? We put that question to Joe Wilcox, editor of Microsoft Watch and Apple Watch.

Listener comments:

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Technology enthusiasts have been cooing over the Palm Pre, a touch screen phone previewed earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show. Many reviewers have taken note of the similarity to Apple's iPhone, especially in its use of multi-touch technology, which allows users to control a graphical interface with multiple fingers.

Apple has noticed, too. Acting CEO Tim Cook made a lot of noise recently when he said Apple will use all its weapons to defend its intellectual property. And Apple was granted a new patent on touch screens technology this week.

It all points to possible legal battle between the powerful Apple and Palm, which desperately needs a hit product.

Guest: Nilay Patel, Engadget

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Apple this week took down from its Web site a technical bulletin that advised Mac owners to run anti-virus software. Apple's move came after the Washington Post took note of the document, which apparently had been up since the middle of last year.

Apple has made the built-in safety of its computers a selling point, but some security experts have been warning Mac users against complacency, saying the number of security threats is rising.

In revoking its advice on anti-virus software Apple's chose marketing over security, according to Future Tense news analyst Dwight Silverman.

Mac users should be using anti-virus, said Silverman.