While we haven't written our own Newton conspiracy theory into the show yet, we're happy to report that Don Crabb's doing an admirable job in our stead. Don's boss Stuart helps craft a diabolical web of intrigue which casts Apple and Intel as co-conspirators in the plan to axe the Newton. You can read his Rumor Reality Report over at MacCentral for all the sordid details.

The Crabb scenario has Apple interim CEO Steve Jobs seeing the explosion of activity in the handheld computer space, as evidenced by the incredible success of the Palm Pilot and the flurry of mediocre Windows CE devices. Steve also notices that the Newton is not faring too well, despite its five-year career which virtually pioneered the whole PDA market. (It may have fared better with more development and just about any marketing, but we digress.) Steve, thinking different, decides to scrap the Newton and start over by working with Intel on a new generation of StrongARM-based handhelds running a version of the Mac OS. This decision occurred last summer, but the announcement had to be delayed until well after Intel bought out Digital's chip designs, including that of the StrongARM at the heart of the current MessagePad, in order to avoid a price-fixing lawsuit. So he reeled in the recently-spun-out Newton, Inc. in preparation for the slaughter that finally happened last week.

We at AtAT doff our collective hat to Don and Stuart. We haven't heard a good "Apple in bed with Intel" story for a long time, and in fact, most Newton conspiracy rumors blame Intel's purchase of the StrongARM for prompting Apple's cancellation of Newton development. It's a refreshing change of pace.

Who, in this modern world, hasn't heard of the Pentium? Darn near no one, right? Thanks to the miracle of television and the near-boundless advertising budget of Intel, even people who have never seen a computer, much less used one, know that the Pentium is the thing that makes those shiny bunnymen so funky. (Also by the miracle of television and the near-hopelessly-constrained advertising budget of Apple, some people also realize that Pentium II's are harvested from the backs of cute snails before the shiny bunnymen put them into those new-fangled computer things.)

Well, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Intel is hoping to repeat the success of the Pentium's brand awareness with a new low-cost chip dubbed the "Celeron." That chip was named by Lexicon Naming, a company that apparently does nothing but come up with brand names for new products, which is one heckuva sweet job. Anyway, they say that the name "Celeron" is based on the word "celerity," meaning "speed." (So what was the name "Pentium" based on?) Until now, the word "celerity" was last used by a guy named Herb Schlossberg back in 1962, whereas a good 99+% of the people on the street know what "celery" is. So when all the "Celeron" ads start flooding the airwaves, which are people going to think of first: speed, or a crunchy, low-cal high-fiber snack?

Could it be that Apple's "Bad Name Disease" is spreading? Or perhaps its a different strain-- Apple's version leads to dull names like "Power Macintosh G3 Home" and "Mac OS Enterprise," while the strain caught by Lexicon Naming leads to inappropriate associations. For instance, while some AtAT staff feel that the name "Celeron" sounds like a color from the Tweeds catalog (perhaps just a shade lighter than "Dusty Sage"), now that I'm past the "celery" association, I'm inexorably reminded of the nasty aliens from Battlestar Galactica. Appropriate, no?

And speaking of Intel, Wall Street is still feeling the aftershocks of their recent earnings warning, which knocked over ten points off Intel's stock price of 86 or so. In turn, most other technical stocks took a sudden downturn, as the NASDAQ likes to follow Intel. News of the decline is available from Wired, and just about everywhere else on the 'net.

So what does this have to do with the Celeron? According to analysts, the main reason that Intel's earnings are down is the massive growth of the low-end PC market. (Sound familiar? Like, perhaps, the same phenomenon that might be hurting Apple's sales?) While Intel's Pentium is the most well-known chip on the planet, it's apparently a little too expensive to put into these super-low-cost computers; alternate offerings from the likes of AMD and Cyrix are more cost-effective. The Celeron, essentially a stripped-down Pentium II, is Intel's attempt to produce a chip that is better suited to the needs of the sub-$1000 market.

Reality check: Just because Intel's earnings will likely be lower than analysts had originally predicted doesn't mean that they're in trouble. Their profits for this quarter are likely to hit ten figures; profits, mind you, not sales. We think they'll be around for a little while longer. ;-)