Why lookee here, Vern-- our mailbox just exploded. Why, you ask? Because every single human being on the planet (along with at least thirty percent of the remaining mammalian population) just had to email us about that spiffy new "iWalk" that Apple is allegedly preparing to unveil come Monday. If you've somehow managed to avoid hearing about this, you can get educated over at SpyMac.com, where you'll have to register to get access to the site's many pictures and videos of the PDA device. (Faithful viewer jSun notes a mirror site, though at production time we weren't having much luck with it.)

So why is everyone rushing to tell us about this puppy? Well, quite simply, because it looks like the greatest thing since Smuckers put peanut butter and jelly together in one convenient jar and called it Goober Grape. The iWalk is allegedly an iPodesque largish handheld that boasts a generous color screen, real-time true handwriting recognition, FireWire and audio in/out ports, a jog dial, and some "mystery" port that SpyMac guesses to be the mysterious Gigawire we've all heard bandied around the rumor mill lately. And indeed, based on the text description, those luscious photos, and those three scrumptious videos, the iWalk would be exactly the PDA we'd want if it didn't lack one crucial feature: an actual existence in this plane of reality.

Sorry to burst your bubbles, folks, but the official AtAT stance is that the iWalk is still just a hoax-- although now it's a much better hoax than it used to be. Faithful viewers will recall that SpyMac first appeared last October with its claims of an iWalk PDA; they said that it would be the "breakthrough digital device" that would be unveiled at Apple's mysterious press briefing. Of course, we got the iPod instead, and we weren't surprised, especially since SpyMac's "spy photos" of the iWalk were pretty darn unconvincing-- to us, anyway. A 3D rendering inserted into a grainy digital photograph does not an Apple product make.

These new "photos," however, are a lot more convincing, and the videos look just plain fantastic. Unfortunately, there are a slew of reasons why we're sure that the iWalk is no more real than Regis Philbin:

• Why does this new iWalk look completely different from the iWalk photos that SpyMac posted in October? Are we supposed to believe that Apple completely redesigned the product in two months' time? C'mon, people-- they're good, but no one's that good.

• We mentioned this last time, but it bears repeating: SpyMac.com is registered to a German gentleman named Holger Ehlis, who also happens to own ehlis-design.de. Back during the first iWalk hoax, the Ehlis Design web site contained a lot of 3D renderings of proposed Mac mock-ups. Those pics were quickly yanked once the proprietor noticed that some people were making the connection and SpyMac's credibility was spiralling down the toilet. Faithful viewer Jens Baumeister confirms that Ehlis is "the graphics person for a German magazine called MacLife" and that he put together these mock-ups last summer.

• Take a gander at the desk in some of those photos and videos. There's a distinctly German electrical outlet set into it, and German speech is audible in the background of one of the videos. Now, there are a couple of explanations for this. The first is that Apple allowed a top secret prerelease product not just out of the building, but out of the country a week before it's supposed to go public. The second is that, hey, some German guy faked this whole thing. Now, where are we going to find a German guy with experience in making fake Macs? Hmmmm...

• Looks like ol' Holger should have stuck with the stills, because while those videos look amazing at first glance, upon closer study they're quite definitely fake. Step through the third one frame by frame and you'll notice that the person's fingers move long before the iWalk's jog dial does-- and then it "jumps" to catch up. There's also a telltale notch cut out of the fingers' shadow in a couple of frames that is distinctly unnatural. The text in the second video also does a jittery sort of thing which hints strongly that everything on the iWalk's screen was pasted in as the video was composed, but it's the jumping jog dial/notched shadow that clinched it for us.

So that's our take on it; the iWalk is a hoax, albeit the best darn hoax we've yet encountered in this biz. If we're wrong, we'll eat crow in the appropriate manner (or, at least, vegan soy-based crow substitute), but we're not exactly preheating the oven, if you catch our drift. We actually hope that we are wrong, because we'd love an iWalk of our very own, but we strongly suggest that you don't get your hopes up for this Monday's Stevenote-- at least not for an iWalk. (By the way, please don't email us asking for copies of the pictures or videos-- we're not keeping them.)

So what are we going to see come Monday's keynote? Steve only knows, but Apple's web site is dropping hints, albeit in a maddeningly vague way. On Monday the site teased us by saying "This one is big. Even by our standards." On Tuesday we were told to "Count the days. Count the minutes. Count on being blown away." Yesterday, things got a little personal: "Beyond the rumor sites. Way beyond." (We imagine that Apple may be regretting that one a bit, now that most of the Mac-using world is fully expecting the introduction of the iWalk next week. Whoops.)

As faithful viewer Ryan B points out, Apple's latest clue is that next week's show will be "like a backstage pass to the future." Ah, now we're getting somewhere! Finally, a clue with a little substance. We can only interpret this to mean that Apple has finally finished up its years-long and massively illegal secret experiments in the field of time distortion and is now ready to introduce its first consumer product using that technology. Yes, kids, prepare yourselves for... the iWarp. (Suppose they can get Tom Baker as a spokesperson?)

Think of it; with an iWarp in your pocket (or, more likely, towed behind you in a largish wagon, since our best recon indicates that it's three feet on a side, weighs 127 pounds, and is powered by a hunk of plutonium the size of your head), you need never be late for meetings again. Heck, if they're boring (and really, how many meetings aren't?), you can now simply fast-forward past them. And what could be more useful in today's fast-paced society than the ability to alter the very fabric of time upon a whim in order to get that frozen turkey cooked by 6 PM for tonight's dinner, dire cosmic consequences be damned?

As an added bonus, hyping the iWarp so heavily is really a risk-free situation, which explains Apple's sudden willingness to engage in this unprecedented degree of marketing grandiosity. If the audience's (and Wall Street's) reaction to the product is less than compelling, all Steve needs to do is fire up the iWarp, travel back to last Monday, and deliver some edits to the web guys. One paradox-inducing action later, and voilà: Apple's web site last Monday always said, "7 days to Macworld Expo. It's going to be pretty nifty," Tuesday's said "Count on being slightly impressed," and yesterday's said "Those rumors sites sure are fun, aren't they?" In the end, it's just a practical demonstration of why everyone needs an iWarp. MSRP: $8.9 trillion, so start saving now. Oh, and there's a $50 rebate if you order by the end of the month.