Still reeling in psychic pain from the anticipation of the soul-crushing inconvenience you'll suffer by not being able to play DVD movies after upgrading to Mac OS X 1.0 in a few weeks? Well, buckle in, Sparky, because your imminent inability to watch Scooby Doo on Zombie Island on your PowerBook may just turn out to be the icing on the Cake of Doom-- at least, that's the decidedly pessimistic view put forth by CNET. Apparently even at this late date, there are several "glitches" remaining in late beta builds of Apple's next-generation operating system, and they range in seriousness from "annoying" to "frustrating."

In addition to the lack of DVD playback software and native versions of iTunes and iMovie, the initial "Cheetah" release of Mac OS X reportedly includes unspecified "sleep problems with Mac laptops," a lack of hardware acceleration support for the ATI RADEON or upcoming nVIDIA GeForce3 graphics chipsets, "a variety of bugs" that can crash the uncrashable OS, performance bottlenecks in certain Classic applications, and a host of other niggling little issues. Those problems have teamed with the initial dearth of Mac OS X-native applications to prompt Apple to shoot for a stealth rollout; if you were expecting a massive marketing push for Mac OS X's release, stop holding your breath, because it's not going to happen. The "Cheetah" release is purely for early adopters willing to deal with the lack of apps and the warts present in a 1.0 OS release; rather than advertising it, Steve says that Apple's going to "let them grab it out of our hands."

In other words, Apple doesn't feel that Mac OS X 1.0 is done enough to target at average users-- which means, of course, that in a way, the Public Beta was a Public Alpha (heck, it wasn't even close to being feature-complete) and the upcoming "Cheetah" release is a Public Beta. But most of us knew that already. Mac OS X probably won't really feel "finished" until the first update ships this summer; "Puma," as it's been dubbed, will allegedly restore missing features such as DVD playback, and it'll also fix a host of bugs in the "Cheetah" release that Apple can't squash in time to meet the March 24th ship date.

So will we cancel our pre-order for Mac OS X's debut release? Not on your life, chum. This is history in the making, and we're getting in on the ground floor. We appreciate the ridiculous amount of work that Apple's sinking into this effort (they're writing an operating system, fer cryin' out Pete's sake! That is so cool!), and we recognize that there are going to be flaws at the start. If you're willing to be realistic about what Mac OS X 1.0 can offer, join us; if you're the less impetuous type, maybe waiting for "Puma" this summer would be a wiser course of action. Make your own choice, but make an informed one. But color us "Cheetah"!

Ouch, the Motorola woes continue to mount like cars in a highway pile-up. In January the company announced that its cell phone business wasn't doing so well, thus necessitating the trimming of 2500 jobs and the closing of a plant. Then a few weeks later Motorola admitted that its semiconductor business was flagging, too-- say hello to another 4000 pink slips. Last week came the news that Motorola might even post its first quarterly loss in years. So what's next in the company's ongoing string of bad news? Would you believe, forced vacations?

No, really! Faithful viewer Jack S. forwarded us an article in the Austin American-Statesman which reports that Motorola is telling "about half of its workers" in its semiconductor division that they have to take one week off this month, and another week sometime in April, May, or June. Woo-hoo, SPRING BREAK! Someone alert the co-ed naked chip-designing team that it's time to get rowdy!

According to Motorola spokesperson Ken Phillips, this so-called "austerity measure" represents a "significant savings" because "it takes vacation costs off the books," even though workers who have accrued paid vacation time will still get their paychecks. We don't pretend to understand how having half of your staff still collecting checks while out at the MTV Beach House jiggling in skimpy swimwear (instead of, say, designing microprocessors while jiggling in skimpy swimwear) constitutes a cost-cutting move, but then again, that's probably why we're not running a multibillion-dollar company-- failing or not. In any event, we're curious about just what might happen to the spring break dynamics at Daytona following a sudden influx of thousands of ready-to-party Motorola engineers. The mind reels.

That said, hopefully this forced vacation will come as a much-needed break for those Motorola designers who probably worked nonstop all last year to stuff the PowerPC G4 through its 500 MHz bottleneck. Now that Power Macs are actually shipping at clock speeds up to 733 MHz, it's finally time to let loose; we wish the beach-bound Moto elves a restful week chock-full of sun, sand, surf, and alcohol-inspired, borderline-illegal, tasteless public behavior. Go get 'em, dudes! San Dimas High School Football rules!

It's the week after a Macworld Expo keynote address, and you know what that means-- it's lull time! Last week we nearly drowned in raw drama from which to spin our daily episodes, what with the rabid, frothing controversy surrounding the new iMac patterns, Steve in a suit, etc. Now, though, things have wound down, the excitement is over, and we can look forward to a couple of weeks of relative boredom (at least until Mac OS X ships). But while the calmness is relaxing, it also makes our lives a little bit tougher; after all, we still have to crank out a soap opera every day.

Longtime viewers know that at times like this, there's always one surefire source of cheap filler material: classic Apple rumors, which refuse to die and are always good for a quick scene or two when things are slow. Let's see, here, which shall it be this time? Mac OS X on Intel hardware? The 17-inch iMac? The Apple handheld? Actually, damn the torpedoes-- we're going for the granddaddy of them all: the Disney-Apple buyout rumor! What's more entertaining than the age-old whispers that The Mouse will swallow Apple whole, stick big round ears on the Apple logo, and crown Steve Jobs the ruler of the Magic Kingdom?

Don't change channels yet-- this time we've got proof! Faithful viewer Allen Huffman was sharp enough to catch a very interesting (not to mention revealing) piece over at DisneyFans.com. It seems that Disney's new California Adventure theme park contains extensive overt references to Apple in the Whoopi Goldberg-narrated film, "Golden Dreams"; in it, the Two Steves are shown introducing the first personal computer to an assemblage of '70s geeks, and at the end, the ghostly form of a modern-day Steve Jobs appears briefly on an iMac screen. Touching moments, to be sure, but don't take our word for it-- the article includes pictures, a complete transcript, and even QuickTime footage of the relevant bits.

Now, we ask you, would Apple be featured so prominently in a Disney production if a buyout weren't about to happen any day now? Yessiree, we're counting the seconds. (Uh, it's how many weeks until Mac OS X ships?)