We admit it-- we were a little tired of the whole "shiny happy Apple" thing when Steve managed to wrangle the company into the good graces of Wall Street and the press. After all, AtAT was launched back in 1997, in an atmosphere of unprecedented doom and gloom. Half the population thought Apple was going to collapse at any minute, and the other half thought it had either already gone out of business or had been bought out by Microsoft. That's the stuff of drama, baby! It was like mother's milk to us.

So of course we were ambivalent when this latest round of bad karma swung around to smack Apple upside the head. Ever since the earnings warning in September, the company's stock has been twitching on the floor, the pundits are back on the "beleaguered" bandwagon, and Apple's having an all-around tough time catching a break. While we're never happy when Apple's in trouble, at least things had gotten a little more exciting. It's not just like old times, but we've definitely gotten a hit of gratuitous nostalgia from all the hand-wringing and brow-furrowing.

The problem, though, is that the nostalgia got old really fast. Yes, we remember the "bad ol' days," weren't they thrilling, blah blah blah. Frankly, we're tired of the strife; it's not even exciting anymore, because it's the same old story over and over again-- flat sales, anemic stock performance, and "can Apple rebound?" As suspense-builders go, it's not the most compelling story on the shelf. At this point, we'd gladly welcome a ray of sunshine just to break the monotony.

Canada to the rescue! Yes, while the short-term forecast may be overcast for Apple here in the U.S., Apple Canada's reportedly looking at sunshine and clear skies as far as the eye can see. According to The Toronto Star, our neighbors to the north managed to increase unit sales by a whopping 46.8% over the same period last year. That's almost twice as much growth as Apple racked up in the States. And lest you think the Canucks just got lucky, the year before that, Apple Canada's growth was 32.6%. The Canadian branch is clearly on a tear of legendary proportions.

Okay, okay, so there's one teensy little cloud on the horizon: a research firm called the Yankee Group claims that despite Apple Canada's sales growth, the percentage of Canadians with Macs is actually somehow dropping-- to 3%, down from 3.5% the year before. But why focus on the negative? Those of you stateside who are sick to death of all the Apple-angst in Cupertino should just lock your sights onto Apple Canada's impressive sales numbers and rest happy in a Canadian state of mind. We'll let you know when it's safe to head back south.

Observant drama fiends looking for other entertainment to distract themselves from Cupertino's ongoing troubles were rewarded by a special guest appearance on "Redmond Justice" yesterday-- by none other than Apple Computer itself. When Microsoft filed its brief outlining the various and sundry reasons why it shouldn't be axed down the middle, the company evidently felt that this was the perfect time to raise a bunch of issues that probably should have been argued at an earlier time. (Like, say, maybe at the trial?) In any case, though, MacCentral reports that the Redmond crew is finally claiming that it doesn't wield monopoly power because Apple is a "viable competitor." Viable? High praise from Bill's crew, indeed!

See, according to Microsoft, the whole thing's just a big misunderstanding stemming from an incorrect market definition. If the operating system market is "properly defined" to include Apple, then there's no Windows monopoly. Presumably the argument is that despite Windows holding over 90% of the personal computer installed base, the Mac OS could just waltz in at any time and start stealing operating system share like gangbusters. What's wrong with this picture? If Microsoft's lawyers are arguing that Apple threatens Windows's operating system share right now, they might want to ask Gateway, Dell, Compaq, and every other Wintel manufacturer why they don't offer their customers the option of buying Pentium systems preloaded with the Mac OS instead of Windows. (Hint: that whole Mac OS-on-Intel thing is still just a rumor, people.)

In fact, we admit to being rather flummoxed by Microsoft's latest claim. At least when Bill's lawyers state that Linux developers are Microsoft's competitors, we can see that both parties produce operating systems for the same hardware, and the customer can choose one or the other. But Apple sells Macs, and operating systems that run on Macs. Microsoft doesn't sell computers at all, and (leaving aside PocketPC for a second) its operating systems run on x86-compatible PCs. Where, exactly, is the overlap that would "properly define" the market and make Apple a viable competitor? Darwin? Puh-leeze.

Still, it's nice to get the recognition. The next time your PC-using friends chide you for your computing platform choice, you can tell them that Microsoft itself said that Apple is a viable competitor. Heck, it's only a matter of time before Apple starts selling T-shirts to that effect.

Now that Microsoft has officially dubbed both Apple and Linux as "viable competitors" in the operating system market, we've got Bill's stamp of approval to cast both "alternative" systems in the same sort of light. That's a strange scenario at first glance, since both operating systems are so technically different at heart-- Linux with its UNIXy command-line-and-config-files view of the world, and the Mac with its unrepentantly GUI-centric way of doing things. But we've often noticed that Mac folks and Linux folks get along better than one might imagine, and the reason is probably very simple: both systems are underdogs in the shadow of Poppa Windows.

Now, if you accept the fact that the Mac has been fighting the Wintel platform for market share for the past sixteen years, it's probably time to stop and take stock of Apple's progress. Almost twenty years' worth of blood, sweat, and tears have been poured into the Mac's development. (Eeyeeew.) Apple's developers spent countless hours studying how humans interact with machines, observing the tenets of good user interface, and applying an attention to detail that borders on fanatical. The Mac OS in its current state is the pinnacle of fit and finish; it's the most elegant desktop operating system available. A simply ridiculous amount of planning and thought went into its craftsmanship. There's almost twenty years of shine on it, and it shows-- and for Apple's pains, the platform holds something like 5% or less of the entire computer installed base.

Meanwhile, according to a CNET article discussing the autobiography of Linus "I Invented Linux So Chicks Dig Me" Torvalds, Linux was "just one of those things that sort of happens." In other words, it was kind of an accident; it didn't "derive from a far-reaching strategic plan," and caught on "without requiring any real organization." And yet, we estimate that Linux currently holds about as much market share as the Mac.

Hmmmm. Right now we have to wonder whether or not the powers that be in Cupertino are banging their heads against their desks. With all the planning and effort poured into bringing the Mac's operating system all the way up to Mac OS 9.04 (not to mention the insane level of resources committed to Copland and then Rhapsody/Mac OS X), it must smart a little to see somebody say "Whoops! I created an operating system!" and then watch as said operating system catches right up to the Mac's market share. Hopefully this won't give Steve any crazy ideas, though; we don't want to see him cancel Mac OS X and try to create a new operating system by pulling random lines of code out of a hat. (Besides, that's probably Microsoft's development method.)