It's the hottest fad to sweep the nation since the hula hoop, so hurry up, lawyers, and climb on the "Let's File A Class Action Against Apple For Stock Manipulation" bandwagon! But be quick, or else you'll get branded as a pathetic legal outcast and you'll have to sit with the geeks and dweebs at lunch for the rest of your professional careers. If you value your reputation in the least, you'll slap Apple with a lawsuit posthaste. After all, all the cool lawyers are doing it...

That's right, the three suits we mentioned yesterday were evidently just the beginning. It's looking like pig-pile on Apple time, because the Mac Observer reports that a fourth firm has now leaped into the fray: Cauley Geller Bowman & Coates, LLP is the latest to accuse Apple of making false and misleading statements about its financial situation in order to drive up its share price and profit from stock sales before the bottom dropped out in September of last year. We'd accuse Cauley et al of just copying the cool kids in a feeble attempt to relate, but a Digital Coast Daily article from back in May reveals that this firm has been "assiduously adding to the number of boom-era public companies being sued" for stock fraud, and while Apple isn't exactly a dot-com organization, its stock tanked in much the same manner. So it's all coming naturally to CGBC.

Interestingly enough, CGBC's press release describing the action contains much of the exact same language as used in the press release issued by Schiffrin & Barroway, which was excerpted by the Mac Observer yesterday-- and that press release was almost identical to the one issued by Milberg Weiss a couple of weeks ago. Presumably this sort of thing is standard practice in class action law, but to us it just looks like the cool kids all copy each others' homework.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how Apple defends itself against these allegations; faithful viewer Blah admits to having purchased Apple stock pre-meltdown partly due to comments that Money Czar Fred Anderson made to the Sydney Morning Herald in August, and it's hard to deny that there's a pretty rosy picture being painted merely a month before the collapse. ("Apple expects to eclipse Dell as the fastest growing computer company this quarter"? Hmmmm...) In the meantime, we're at four class actions and counting; anyone want to start an office pool on how long it'll be before the count hits double digits?

Okay, complaints about its $399 price tag are still raging, so despite the fact that we at AtAT consider that to be a pretty fair price for a gadget as advanced, as useful, and as achingly gorgeous as the iPod is, we're here to present three more ways to justify the device's cost. And just in time for the holidays! How considerate of us is that? (Don't thank us; just send cash.)

Method #1: Consider a heftier alternative. The iPod will look like an absolute bargain if you price out Hewlett-PAQard's new "Home Digital Music Player" first. As faithful viewer Edward Liu points out, a Reuters article quotes the product manager of the Digital Entertainment Center de100c as stating that his focus is on the need for "my music, anywhere." Sounds like the iPod's philosophy, doesn't it? But strangely enough, the de100c is the size of a "large VCR," so you'll probably have to spring for a backpack and a really long extension cord to take it with you-- and when you weigh the portability factor against this device's $1000 price tag, suddenly the iPod looks dirt cheap. Heck, just think of the money you'll save in chiropractic bills. (For best results, ignore the fact that the de100c has eight times the storage space, can rip and burn CDs, and plays Internet radio.)

Method #2: Score a huge discount after scoping Amazon's price. Faithful viewer Brian Freeman pointed out that, for whatever reason, Amazon is listing the iPod at the low, low price of... $599.99. (Inexplicably, the "Apple iPod MP3 Jukebox" also happens to be listed as a product of Applica Consumer Products, Inc. Who knew?) Yes, this is definitely Apple's iPod they're selling, as the description is the standard spiel about 1,000 songs and a 10-hour battery in a "stunning 6.5-ounce package." So now that you know that Amazon sells it for $600, you can jet over to the Apple Store and place your iPod preorder for just $399-- that's a miraculous 33% off Amazon's everyday low price! Act now, because at that level of savings, these things are going fast!

Method #3: Relax your definition of "iPod" just a little. If $399 still sounds like a lot to you, but you've just got to have an iPod or you'll die of a stroke, faithful viewer The Court Composer found just what you need: the i-pod. Sure, the name's hyphenated and it's in all lower-case letters. And sure, it's a contact lens case instead of a portable digital audio player. But this i-pod is still "compact and sporty," and it only costs 29 Deutsche Marks. That's a mere $13.41 in U.S. currency-- perfect for buyers on a budget. Go wild.

From a purely rational standpoint (or, at least, as close as we ever get to such a thing), we can't say we're all that surprised that "Redmond Justice" is now probably mere hours away from one seriously anticlimactic final episode. After all, the new judge had given Microsoft and the Justice Department a deadline of tomorrow by which to arrive at a settlement, and the new Bush-era DoJ has reportedly been far less interested in smacking down Redmond than its predecessor was. Still, though, the fact that former settlement talks had always been utter wastes of time gave us a glimmer of hope that maybe this case would be headed back to court for another round of high drama.

Alas, though, it appears that further conflict is not to be; faithful viewer dzhim! forwarded us an Associated Press article which indicates that Microsoft and the DoJ have actually reached a "tentative" settlement deal. Sadly, we have no idea what the terms of that agreement might be, though the very fact that Microsoft is willing to accept them implies to us that the deal seriously lacks teeth. In all likelihood, after nearly four years of bitter struggle at the taxpayers' expense, despite having proven that Microsoft both wields and abuses monopoly power (the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, so Microsoft's out of appeals on that front), it looks like the feds are preparing to roll over and deal Bill and the gang a slap on the wrist.

Indeed, one of the proposed settlement terms kicked around over the past few days involves "letting Microsoft add new features into its flagship Windows software, but requiring the company also to offer a version that doesn't include those additions." Ooooo, stop it, you're scaring us. So Microsoft can keep steamrolling competitors the same way it neutered Netscape just as long as it keeps selling, say, Windows 3.1 as well as Windows XP 2 ("Now With Integrated Office™!!")? Man, Bill must be shaking in his boots. This might turn out to be almost as bad for him as that earlier 1995 consent decree that forced him to change his ways so he couldn't bundle IE with Windows, drive a competitor out of business, and prompt yet another federal antitrust lawsui-- uh, yeah.

But there's still a chance of drama ahead; the state attorneys general are still reviewing the terms of the settlement, and if they don't sign on, they'll fight on without the feds. So we'll see what happens come tomorrow. At this point, though, we're expecting yet another consent decree that Microsoft can mount in a nice frame, hang on the wall of the board room next to the last one, and snicker at each morning before business as usual. But hey, the ride was fun, right?