And so ends another epic four-day weekend for U.S. denizens, who more than likely gave thanks for the existence of Maalox over trivial things like food, shelter, family, and all that rot. Talk about a stressful four days; it kicked off with the traditional eat-til-you-hurt-yourself bingefest on Thursday, followed by the maim-others-if-you-have-to commencement of the holiday shopping frenzy on Friday-- which, of course, continued throughout the weekend. Why we, as a society, perpetuate this annual stressfest we'll never know. Dragging one's haggard carcass back to the office on Monday would almost seem like a blessing.

So that's the state in which most of the U.S. finds itself today as it crawls back to work. Mental heavy lifting is generally not recommended by the Surgeon General for those in such a condition. If you take a quick sweep around the 'net, you'll find that Apple-related news is still pretty much in a state of suspended animation as the community as a whole slowly eases back into the swing of things. For us, that means an absence of thrilling plot twists and edge-of-your-seat cliffhangers... a scenario that generally prompts us to fall back on lighthearted speculation on matters of little immediate importance. Now, in our present condition, even that sounds like just a little too much work-- so luckily for us, we stumbled upon someone else who took care of it for us. Those resilient folks over at MacCentral spent a little time pondering the nature of Apple's upcoming "iMovie-like" applications, which an uncharacteristically talkative Steve Jobs hinted at in Apple's last earnings report.

It's been widely surmised that one of those two applications will be some sort of DVD-authoring package, given the fact that Apple bought all of Astarte's DVD software back in April. Personally, we're a bit skeptical; by "iMovie-like," we assumed Steve meant "consumer-targeted," and making DVDs doesn't exactly sound like a typical consumer activity. (Then again, that's what most people said about desktop video, and iMovie's a hit-- so who are we to judge?) As for the other package, that's pretty much wide open, which is why we're thankful to MacCentral for introducing the possibility that it'll be some sort of Apple-branded Internet telephony software. You know, something that'll let Mac users join in on the fun of placing telephone calls via their computers for free over the Internet. After all, Apple does own the domain name "iPhone.org." We're reasonably sure the company didn't just register it in a drunken stupor one evening. (Actually, we're not sure of that at all-- it's more of a "benefit of the doubt" kind of thing.)

It's not all that far-fetched an idea. Sure, an Internet telephony application wouldn't exactly be "revolutionary," since a slew of such products already exist on the Wintel platform, but Apple could put its own unique spin on the technology to make it stand out. For instance, maybe iPhone could actually work. Our brief encounters with services like Dialpad consisted of receiving strange phone calls from someone apparently speaking backwards and underwater. The decidedly one-sided conversations generally relied heavily on our use of the phrases "What?", "We can't understand a word you're saying," and "Just spend the frickin' seven cents a minute or whatever and call us on the damn phone already!"

Now, if Apple can improve on that to the point where we could carry on an actual meaningful exchange of ideas more than half the time, the company may just have a new hit on its hands; "free long distance phone calls with every iMac (Internet subscription required)." And throw in some instant messaging features and an option for video, as the MacCentral article suggests, and suddenly iPhone's starting to look like pretty keen. Might we see something like this come Macworld Expo in January? Maybe. Is there one iota of hard evidence that justifies betting on such an unveiling? Not really. Looks like it's "wait and see" time once again.

We've all been waiting for Mac OS X for donkey's years, so naturally we're all pretty excited that it's finally going to ship sometime "early next year." Our bet's on early May, probably at the Worldwide Developers Conference; while that date certainly falls on the right side of the Pessimism Bell Curve, given the lack of "fit and finish" in the public beta, we have a hard time seeing Apple shipping a 1.0 release much earlier than that. In any case, though, provided Apple sticks to the "early 2001" ship date, in no more than six months or so we'll finally have an operating system that will trounce Windows in every category other than software availability. Mac OS X is what will make Apple the undeniable leader in the operating system race. Right?

Well, maybe. We might have to qualify that "undeniable," because unfortunately for Apple, Microsoft's not standing still. Thanks to a Go2Mac article, we took a gander at a SuperSite For Windows preview of the first beta version of Redmond's next operating system, code-named "Whistler." Much as the comparison rankles us, Whistler and Mac OS X have a lot in common from an upgrade point of view; just as Mac OS X leaves behind sixteen years of Mac OS baggage in the leap to a modern OS infrastructure, with Whistler, Bill's geeks have "finally jettisoned the old DOS-based Windows 9x line in favor of the NT-based Windows 2000 product family." And while the screenshots posted at the site aren't quite as pretty as Aqua, they're still a solid step up on the taste ladder from Windows 98. Interface enhancements such as a simplified Start menu and an "improved Taskbar" also might give the much-maligned Dock a serious run for its money.

So let's see, here; we're not sure of Whistler's release schedule, but since it's in beta now, it seems pretty likely to hit the shelves pretty close to Mac OS X's debut. Which means that just when Apple finally brings its customers a buzzword-compliant, multi-user operating system with a fresh new look, Microsoft will be doing the same. We predict about a gazillion "OS X vs. Whistler: Head To Head" articles next year. Here's hoping that Mac OS X can hold its own against Microsoft's first "modern" consumer OS-- and we really wish Mac OS X has shipped this past summer, instead.

Hands up, who remembers "Redmond Justice"? No, the once-highly-rated courtroom drama wasn't cancelled, but admittedly its ratings could use a pretty hefty boost. Unfortunately, the show peaked back when the witness testimony was in full swing; who could forget such wonderful moments as a videotaped Bill Gates claiming not to know what "is" means, Judge Jackson laughing out loud at Microsoft's defense, and government mouthpiece David Boies revealing Redmond's attempts to fake their own evidence-- more than once? Ah, those were the days...

We can only assume that the show went through a massive personnel change or something, because ever since Judge Jackson's ruling that Microsoft should be split down the middle, the writing has lacked... oomph. The players are pretty much the same, but now that the case is knocking around in the appeals process, the action on "Redmond Justice" has slowed to match the glacial pace of the U.S. judicial system, presumably for the sake of "realism." But guess what, people? There's a reason that lawsuits on TV go to trial overnight-- viewers don't want to sit through months of discovery and scheduling nonsense. They have better things to do. (Well, okay, probably not, but they have better things to watch.)

However, this long stretch of inactivity on "Redmond Justice" may soon be winding to a close. According to a Reuters article, today's the day on which Microsoft is slated to file its brief outlining the various and sundry reasons why it doesn't deserve to be torn apart like a pair of star-crossed lovers on some other much more interesting TV show. Among those reasons, the company is expected to list Judge Jackson's perceived no-nos, both in the courtroom and out. For instance, not only did His Honor accept the government's breakup proposal "without holding further hearings," but he's also been known to jabber with the press on occasion-- about the case.

The government, for its part, has until January 12th to file its response to Microsoft's brief. The show won't really heat up until February 26th, though; that's the day on which both sides are scheduled to put aside all the paperwork and just scream at each other in court. Don't forget to set those VCRs!