You really have to hand it to Apple: sometimes we wonder if those folks would chew off their own legs to meet a deadline. Remember back in early January when Steve said that the company would ship high-end iMacs by the end of the month, mid-range ones in February, and low-end units in March? Well, you probably recall that Apple indeed shipped the very first SuperDrive models on January 28th, beating the first deadline with days to spare; Steve and the gang even saw fit to crow about the accomplishment in a full-blown press release. Nice, but not overly dramatic, right?

But just last week as February was winding to a close, we noted that the mid-range iMacs were still nowhere to be seen-- and that MacUser was reporting that Apple had been "quietly warning dealers to expect virtually no mid-range and low-end models until April." Bummer, right? For the first time in ages, it appeared that Apple had actually failed to meet a shipping deadline that had issued forth directly from Steve's Mighty Lips. We picture scads of crestfallen Apple employees staring shamefacedly at their shoes, morale in the ranks at an all-time low, the screams of a couple of scapegoats echoing through the halls as cattle prods meet naked flesh, etc. In short, nothing good.

But wait-- what's this? Faithful viewer Troy Biesterfeld tells us that if Apple missed its end-of-February shipping deadline, it sure didn't miss it by much; Troy got email from Apple informing him that the earliest mid-range iMac order should ship "within the next 7 business days." And since Troy's own combo drive iMac left Taiwan just two days ago on March 2nd (you can even track his shipment), apparently Apple missed the cutoff by less than 48 hours. Not too shabby.

Since then, other AtAT viewers have informed us that their combo drive iMacs have shipped, and readers over at MacNN are reporting the same. What's more, Troy placed his order on January 15th-- a full week after the new iMacs were introduced, implying that there were quite a few orders in the queue ahead of him. And considering that Troy's email from Apple announcing that the mid-range iMacs were "now shipping" arrived in his inbox "on February 28 at 10:30 PM CT," well, heck... maybe, just maybe, Apple squeezed the first such order out the door before March officially reared its ugly head.

At least, that's what we'd like to think; hundreds of jubilant Apple worker elves high-fiving themselves at five minutes to midnight is a much nicer mental image than faces set in grim despair amid screams and the stench of searing flesh. Or maybe it's just a matter of taste.

Hey, you know how Macs are so elegant and easy to use, they let artists, writers, and musicians reap the benefits of high tech without needing a degree in computer science? Well, good news-- now they're also letting said artists, writers, and musicians get patents on inventions without actually getting their hands dirty at the implementation level. Faithful viewer Mark A. Gangi informs us that Harry Connick, Jr. was just granted U.S. patent number 6,348,648 for "a system and method for coordinating music display among players in an orchestra"-- and according to the New York Times, that system and method is all about Macs.

A few years ago, Connick got fed up with watching sheet music get blown off the stands when his orchestra played in the blustery outdoors. So he signed up David Pogue as his tech consultant, batted around an idea or two, and then rustled up sixteen blue and white Power Mac G3s to serve as electronic music stands and page-turners for his players. Apparently it works like a charm; Connick can upload last-minute changes in the arrangement to everyone's Mac and the new music is immediately available for the whole band to play. And besides the benefit of immediacy, computer displays aren't just more wind-resistant than sheets of paper-- they're also quieter. In studio recordings, it's "no longer necessary to digitally remove the page-turning rustling in the background."

So, yeah, Connick now holds a honest-to-goodness patent on this system, despite the fact that he didn't actually do any of the programming to make it all hang together-- which is actually pretty cool, when you think about it. It's just one more example of the Mac helping to free people of those niggling little details and just get on with the big picture stuff. Now Connick can add Inventor to the rest of his accomplishments: Composer, Singer, Pianist, Actor, and Guy Who Snagged Jill Goodacre.

Interestingly enough, though, Connick originally approached Apple about "helping him develop the system"-- he'd be the idea guy, Apple would serve as the wheel-man, and it would be a match made in heaven, right? Not so. "I thought for sure they would go for it," says Connick, but Apple decided to pass. Perhaps they recognized the danger involved in the project; if you take a quick look at the photo in that NYT article, it just looks like Connick is resting comfortably in a sea of Power Macs. Take a closer look, though, and we think it's pretty clear that the man is at the center of a blue and white feeding frenzy-- seconds after that picture was snapped, those untamed Macs tore him limb from limb. But hey, at least his patent will live on forever. (Or for twenty years. Same difference.) Whaddaya think, is it too soon to make a play for the Widow Goodacre?

Oh, lordy, it's like some sort of beautiful dream: faithful viewer Jens Baumeister informs us that "Redmond Justice" has just taken a turn for the juicier, as the Washington Post reports that Microsoft's strategy during next week's hearing will be to argue that the sanctions sought by the nine holdout states are so fundamentally crippling, the company "would be forced to pull its latest Windows computer operating systems off the market and be unable to develop new systems." (To which, of course, our response is: "And?...")

They're serious, folks! Microsoft is steadfastly claiming that neither Windows XP nor Windows 2000 could be "redesigned to satisfy state demands that they be made available... with and without key programs, such as the Internet Explorer Web browser." Ah, so we're back to that old "IE is an inextricable component of Windows" tune, are we? Sheesh, you'd think we'd have moved past this by now; after all, Microsoft was singing that song back in 1997 when Judge Jackson ordered that a version of Windows 95 (remember Windows 95?) be made available sans IE and Microsoft "complied" by shipping a version of Windows that didn't boot at all. Four years later, we're hearing the very same thing about XP.

Twenty seconds of searching turned up 98lite.net, with a product called "IEradicator" that purports to "remove all versions of Internet Explorer from all versions of Windows 95/98/Me/2000." While we know nothing whatsoever about the product, let's assume for the sake of melodrama that the testimonials are legit and it works as advertised. So those guys can remove IE from Windows, but Microsoft can't? Interesting. And even if IE "can't" be removed from XP, all that means is that Microsoft spent the past four years burying it as deeply as they possibly could, just so they'd be able to make this kind of argument. Here's hoping the judge isn't brain-damaged or high on chemical inhalants next week, because those are the only circumstances in which we can imagine that she'd swallow such tripe.

Seriously, though, this sure smacks of "if you can't play by our rules, we're taking our operating system and going home." Suddenly we're all supposed to blanch at the prospect of a world without Windows; it's a threat, plain and simple, albeit a hilariously ineffectual one to those of us who consider the concept of a Windows-free world to be a majestic paradise. Intent in intent, however, and faithful viewer John Gabel puts it best: "Microsoft is effectively leveraging its monopoly power in an antitrust lawsuit." Will the judge stand for it?