Well, this is good, at least... we've finally managed to confirm that there is an Apple press event today at 10 AM PDT, though it's apparently not at the historic Flint Center as MacSlash recently reported-- and not because the Flint Center was already booked, since its online calendar still shows today to be wide open. So maybe it's time to tone down any expectations you may have of earth-shattering product introductions on par with the first iMac or the original Macintosh.

But like we said, the fabled press event is indeed happening, and several unnameable sources have even passed us what appears to be the details of this shindig. Instead of booking the Flint Center, Apple apparently opted to keep the home field advantage by setting up shop in its own Town Hall, where only invited press will be admitted. All employees are invited to watch the event live via closed-circuit TV in Caffé Mac (as well as via satellite broadcast in various far-flung Apple Market Centers scattered throughout the country). Applefolk are reminded that the broadcast is "internal only," and that guests, PowerBooks, iBooks, PDAs, and recording devices need to be checked at the door.

As for the subject of this secret little get-together, that's still anybody's guess. We're still leaning heavily towards an unveiling of new iBooks, especially since faithful viewer Chris Wood and several others noted that Apple's web site was mysteriously down late last night; once service was restored, there were no visible changes, but we strongly suspect that Apple's web gnomes were busy setting the stage for a quick and seamless content flip once Steve gives the word-- at which point "the new iBook" will be replaced with "the new new iBook." Meanwhile, expectations of a retail store announcement are running high, and Macworld predicts a heavy focus on Apple's recent purchase of PowerSchool and how that will tie in with the company's education strategy.

That's all well and good, and we don't want to step on anybody's buzz, but personally, we've just tapped into a dark vein of dread and feel compelled to share it with you. The more we know about this "press event," the more we're vaguely concerned that bad news is a-brewin'. Think about it; when was the last time Apple announced a new product only to the press, with no webcast or anything? We can't recall a single instance, because word-of-mouth by the Mac faithful is the best advertising the company ever gets. And even if you accept the premise that Apple would do such a thing, why is the whole event shrouded in such secrecy?

More questions: What sort of announcement warrants informing the entire Apple staff and select members of the press, but not the Mac community at large? Why keep the announcement on comfortable home turf? Why are we so gosh-darned paranoid all the time? Maybe it's just our natural angst rising to the surface and our dramatic minds run amuck, but all this cloak-and-dagger stuff (coupled with recent rumors that Steve Jobs has been pondering the unthinkable) has us a bit on edge. Hopefully in a few hours, though, our worrywart expressions will be replaced with slavering looks of techno-lust as we eye the new contours of Apple's latest gear. We'll see.

Those of you who have lusted after the bit-crushing power of the G4 processor for years but find yourselves doomed always to lag a generation or two behind the Latest and Greatest, rejoice, for your salvation is at hand! Or almost at hand. Faithful viewer Justin informs us that Mac OS Rumors has the scoop on a new Mac prototype sporting all sorts of next-generation bells and whistles, like 200 MHz RAM, an 8x AGP slot, 800 Mbps FireWire, and-- hold onto your Altivec units-- an honest-to-goodness working G5 processor.

Yes, G5-- as in G4 + 1, or G3 + 2, or "your current rig suddenly feels very, very old and infirm." And when we say "working," we're using the loosest possible definition of the word, because reportedly the prototype crashes more often than a narcoleptic on Nyquil locked in a pillow factory. Still, this non-feature-complete, single-core, half-cache proto-G5 is at least a viable shadow of its future 64-bit self, and it is indeed capable of running Mac OS X, Photoshop, and a web browser in between frequent nosedives into crashville.

As for the clock speed, well, the G5 is designed with longer pipelines to allow higher megahertz ratings, but don't expect anything to make Intel's marketing gurus quake in their bunny suits just yet. Eventually the G5 may reach as high as 2 GHz, but this prototype is running-- er, crashing-- unstably at a "mere" 900 MHz. But don't lose hope entirely, because the aforementioned Photoshop and web browsing demos apparently took place at a very respectable 1.33 GHz, so Motorola could theoretically start cranking out 1333 MHz G5s tomorrow, provided Mac users don't mind rebooting every twelve seconds. (And at least we'd be rebooting at warp speed.) In short, it's not quite ready for prime time, but the G5 is definitely on its way.

All of which means, of course, that if you've been dying for a way to justify blowing the kids' college fund on a SuperDrive-equipped Power Mac G4/733 to replace your struggling G3 system, you now have all the ammo you need to craft an intricate bit of rationalization. After all, if the G5 is already at the prototype stage (yes, you should edit out that whole "rumored to be" qualifier when building your internal justification), then surely it's just around the corner as a shipping product. Therefore, you'd be saving money by scoring yourself a G4, since that's all but officially yesterday's chip. And you can't be expected to suffer with a G3 anymore, since the imminent advent of the G5 makes your existing system officially decrepit. Ta-daa! Now off to the Apple Store with you!

Whoops, breaking news, here, folks... by the time you actually see this broadcast, we're sure it'll all be over and done with, but we've only just noticed that the Apple Store is currently down. And not "down" as in "unreachable," as all of Apple.com was late last night, but "down" as in "there's a big yellow Post-It Note on the home page that says 'We'll be back soon.'" Looks like our "bad news" radar needs a swift kick for adjustment purposes. Or a higher dose of antidepressants. Whichever.

Yes, as of fifteen minutes before the start of this mysterious press-and-staff-only announcement about to take place at One Infinite Loop, Apple's web gnomes have posted the following message: "We are busy updating the store for you and will be back within the hour." Allow us to heave a mammoth sigh of relief, because if this isn't utter proof that some kind of new gear is being loaded onto the virtual shelves, we don't know what is. That's not to say that Steve still couldn't mix a little catastrophic news in with a major product announcement, but frankly we don't think it's his style.

So we're back to being cautiously optimistic, we're looking forward to drooling over new iBooks, and in the absence of an actual webcast of the event (which, for all we know, Apple skipped simply to save money in these belt-tightening times) we'll just keep reloading the Apple Store page until the notice is replaced with shiny new Macs of all shapes, sizes, and hues. It just might turn out to be a good day after all...