Sometimes lots of little indications can point to something big bubbling beneath the surface. There have been some fairly quiet happenings coming out of Cupertino lately, and they've left us wondering what we might be missing. First of all, there's the fact that Apple cancelled its much-anticipated Super Bowl commercial at the last minute, which is interesting, if not downright ominous; something happened (or failed to happen) that evidently gave some higher-ups pause about the whole prospect. And for something as big as a Super Bowl commercial, we have to assume that the decision to cancel came down from as high as it gets-- Steve Jobs.

Now, taken by itself, the cancellation of the Super Bowl ad might not be such a big deal; disappointing, yes, but not necessarily indicative of any serious strangeness going on behind the scenes. Heck, it might have been something as innocuous as a production slip-up at TBWA/Chiat/Day, though they're professionals and we doubt they'd let something like that happen. But now there are other signs of something big-- and possibly even sinister-- afoot behind Apple's walls. MacNN reports that Apple has cancelled the first of its three planned Winter Demo Days, the fun-filled retail events at which Mac-savvy volunteers invade local Best Buy and CompUSA stores to push Apple's newest wares. The event was to have taken place this weekend, but for some undisclosed reason, it's not going to happen.

Seeing two Apple promotional events get quietly cancelled (especially when they were separated by only a week on the calendar) sets off those little alarm bells in the heads of your friendly neighborhood AtAT staff. Are the cancellations related? Was there some big secret product unveiling that now isn't going to happen? We can't say for sure, but in our estimation, it's either that or Steve's been captured by aliens and replaced by an exact double who intends to thwart Apple's continued comeback for reasons incomprehensible to our tiny Earthling minds. Then again, it could all just be a coincidence, given that the Demo Days event scheduled for the actual weekend of the Super Bowl is still a go. Until someone manages to grab a tissue sample from "Steve," though, we're never going to know for sure.

Boy, how 'bout that Connectix, hmmm? It seems like they just come up with one magical product after another. Back when RAM was actually expensive (we recall how thrilled we were when we bought a used 16 MB SIMM for $400 cash-- it was a huge bargain!), RAMDoubler was a cheap way to run more applications. And in the early days of the PowerPC, back when very little software was available in PPC-accelerated versions and so most computing was 68k code run in emulation, SpeedDoubler gave an instant boost to many early PowerPC adopters. Then there's the QuickCam, that nifty little eyeball-shaped video camera that made QuickTime capture and videoconferencing possible for a low price. And consider the astonishing capabilities of VirtualPC, which opens the door to run a lot of PC-only software on fast Macs.

How ironic, then, that their latest breakthrough is not a revolutionary productivity enhancer. In fact, it's a productivity reducer; Virtual Game Station lets you play scads of Playstation games directly on your G3 Macintosh. Performance is surprisingly good, compatibility is excellent for a 1.0 release, and it only costs $49. In fact, the product isn't actually available in stores yet, though Connectix sold some 3000 copies on the show floor at the recent Macworld Expo. It's a hit. In fact, it's so much of a hit that this is the killer app that reportedly has Apple negotiating to buy out Connectix lock, stock, and barrel. Apple Insider's got more on this juicy rumor.

See, Connectix has stated that they're planning on releasing a Windows port of their latest hit later this year, but work on the project hasn't started yet. It seems that Apple is determined to prevent a Windows version of VGS from ever hitting the market. A total buyout of Connectix would certainly accomplish that-- and give them the option of either bundling VGS on all future iMacs, or possibly even building the technology right into the Mac OS, for transparent Playstation compatibility. Still, would such a feature really convince a fence-sitting consumer to buy a Mac instead of a PC? After all, several Playstation games are already available in Windows versions, and there are other Playstation emulators being worked on for that platform (though none may be as complete and as downright cool as VGS). Who knows? Perhaps next Christmas Apple will have iMacs that come much closer to being a complete home entertainment appliance; with Playstation compatibility, more native Mac games, and maybe DVD video (complete with video-out to a television), such a machine could be a real marketing juggernaut-- especially if included VirtualPC technology makes every iMac Windows-compatible. Hmmm...

Okay, time for a red-hot news flash: the iMac is a big hit in the consumer market. Surprised? Of course you're not freaking surprised; we've all known this for months and months now. Nobody on earth could look at the iMac sales figures and conclude otherwise, and in fact several traditionally Mac-hostile journalists have grudgingly conceded that Apple's cute and cuddly tranlucent little lump is a winner when it comes to the home computer market. So why, you ask, are we passing off this bit of obvious info as news? Simple-- because apparently nobody told Microsoft.

How do we know this? Because during this era of unparalleled interest in developing consumer-oriented software titles to sell to the large and growing iMac user base, Microsoft has announced that it's actually halting development of the Mac version of Encarta, their home- and education-targeted multimedia encyclopedia product. MacWEEK has more on the subject. Apparently that historic "agreement" between Apple and Microsoft only guaranteed new Mac versions of Office for five years, because Encarta 99 for the Mac is nonexistent. While the product hasn't been killed outright, the final decision on what to do with it will be made this summer.

One take on the whole thing is this: Microsoft knows that Apple doesn't stand a chance of eroding Windows market share by much in the business world-- at least, certainly not anytime soon. But maybe they're more than a little worried about the Mac's resurgence in the home market, given the over 800,000 iMacs that have been purchased since the big rollout in August. So while they're perfectly happy to make money on sales of the new version of Office for the Mac, maybe they're willing to sacrifice sales of their home products in hopes of persuading fence-sitting consumers to buy a Wintel instead of an iMac. Paranoid rant? Hey, given all the stuff that's come out during the "Redmond Justice" trial, it's getting increasingly difficult not to be paranoid when Microsoft's involved.