So we decided to spend the whole day offline to deal with personal issues and get caught up with a dear old friend, because we just assumed not much would be going on-- did we miss anything?

That is, other than the introduction of the new lighter, faster PowerBooks; the official release of Mac OS 8.6; the surprise announcement that Dragon Systems plans to release a Mac version of their continuous speech dictation software by the end of the year; the introduction of the 1.0 release of Apple's OpenGL implementation; official confirmation that Sears will start selling iMacs by the end of the month; and the distribution of the Developer Preview 1.0 release of Mac OS X. Because other than that, it was a pretty slow news day, wasn't it?

Okay, we admit it-- for a WWDC keynote address, while there weren't any big surprises beyond the Dragon announcement, Steve and Avie managed to whip up a pretty satisfying little presentation, there. Playing to their audience, they finally released a lot of software: OpenGL, Mac OS 8.6, the finalized Carbon APIs, a new Mac OS Runtime for Java, and the first glimpse of Mac OS X (including the new PDF-based imaging engine). There was news that iMacs are still selling well, with one out of every three going to a first-time computer buyer, and sales should increase once the irresistible fruit-flavored lumps start getting hawked in some 800 Sears stores at the end of the month. All told, it was good news and well-received; here's hoping the good stuff continues. By the way, thanks a ton to the "Programmer Goddess" among AtAT's faithful viewers, who fed us updates while we were out slacking off.

One of the things we always look forward to at WWDC is an influx of new names. For instance, until WWDC last year, the Mac world was still anxiously awaiting Rhapsody Premiere and Rhapsody Unified; after the keynote, suddenly it was Mac OS X we all wanted and craved. And writing software for Mac OS X was as simple as bringing existing application code in line with a new set of APIs, called Carbon. Snazzy new names make the world go 'round-- nothing makes us sit up and take notice like a catchy appellation, or maybe a bright, shiny object.

And this year was no disappointment, according to MacInTouch's in-depth report from the WWDC keynote address. First of all, Apple's starting to distance themselves more and more from the original Rhapsody operating system plan by renaming its components. Remember the Blue Box? Well, the Mac OS compatibility environment formerly known as "Blue Box" henceforth shall be known as "Classic," just like the original Coca Cola formula. (Well, not the original original formula, 'cause that one had cocaine in it, but you catch our drift.) Remember the Yellow Box? It's yellow no more; now that it's received Java APIs in addition to its native Objective C roots, it's been renamed "Cocoa." And let's not forget the new stuff, too-- Mac OS X ditches Rhapsody's Display Postscript imaging engine in favor of a PDF-based architecture that Apple's dubbed "Quartz." Whoa! Cool name overload!

So why all the new names, name changes, and the like? Why, purely for our personal entertainment, of course. That, and possibly to buy a little more time now that the new additions to Mac OS X's architecture have pushed the SuperOS' release date forward into next year. But that's okay-- we don't mind waiting. Anything that has components with such cool names as "Carbon," "Quartz," and "Cocoa" is obviously worth waiting for. (See? It's working already.)

Wouldn't you know it? We spend another day touring the city of Boston and its surrounding environs, and the iMac sightings just increase. This time, we saw them in a very cool place-- literally. It is perhaps not universally well-known that some of the very best ice cream in the world comes from Toscanini's on Main Street in Cambridge, just about in Central Square. That stuff is both heavenly and exotic; when you pick a flavor, sure, you can stick with a heaping helping of a good old-fashioned stand-by like Strawberry (and at Tosci's you can be sure it's done right), but a quick glance at the day's flavor board will typically reveal some more unusual varieties, such as Green Tea, Burnt Caramel, Cocoa Pudding, or even-- and we are not making this up-- Guinness.

Anyway, we stopped in at Tosci's to partake of some excellent frozen dessert, when what do we spy on a center table but five iMacs, one of each flavor, arranged in a happy little rainbow circle. "Gourmet ice cream and iMacs? But that's too much bliss for the average mind to handle!" you exclaim. Perhaps so, faithful viewers, but we speak the truth. Being in a bit of a rush, we were unable to grasp completely why the iMacs were present, but we gathered it had something to do with promoting a new cybercafé run by the same management or something. We're unsure.

But the reason the iMacs are there is almost irrelevant when you hear the really cool part; Tosci's is introducing five new sorbets to match the iMac's flavor palette-- Blueberry, Lime, Tangerine, Strawberry, and Grape. And since these are sorbets, they're even suitable for those of us who share Steve Jobs' aversion to dairy. We sampled the Grape, and while it didn't come close to matching the iMac's hue, the sheer perfection of its red grape flavor (yes, it actually tasted like grapes, and not like "grape," the flavor otherwise known as "purple") is highly reminiscent of the triumph of design and style one experiences when using an iMac. Kudos to Toscanini's for their latest efforts.