Say, remember how, when Apple finally admitted that it would be opening its own retail stores, it swore to its resellers that it would never stock its own shelves with product while the resellers' cupboards were bare? Promises, promises; anecdotal evidence over the past couple of years strongly suggests that Apple's own retail stores frequently had the latest gear ready for customers to take home while resellers were stuck resorting to overhead transparencies, hand puppets, and mime in order to sign up pre-orders without so much as a demo model on hand. Thus, most observers conclude that Apple's repeated assurances to resellers were emptier than Steve Ballmer's jerky bin on a Saturday night and can be categorized strictly as a verbal symptom of acute Pants On Fire Syndrome.

Well, sometimes-- and you could have knocked us over with a feather when we heard this-- apparently actions have these thingies called "consequences." Go figure. The Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal reports that Elite Computer and Software Inc. has shut down five stores in the Bay Area, citing "Apple's allocation of product" as a major factor in the decision. According to Elite bigwig Tom Armes, "we didn't get as much product as the Apple stores, and we got it later than the Apple stores."

Longtime viewers may recall that Elite isn't the first Mac reseller to announce the closing of a store or five while blaming Apple's retail practices for the unpleasantness; in March of last year, CapitolMac of Richmond, Virginia announced it was shutting its doors, claiming that Apple's "competitive tactics and anti-reseller policies" had left it "no choice." (Cash from a last-minute investor reportedly allowed CapitolMac to stay open after all.)

Of course, there are always twelve sides to every story, and if you're so inclined, you can always choose to believe that Apple's iffy product distribution tactics are merely a convenient scapegoat when resellers' businesses are already on the skids. Back during the CapitolMac crisis, several viewers familiar with the store cited outrageously high prices and management by a team of lobotomized howler monkeys as more fundamental reasons for the store's brush with bankruptcy. Meanwhile, after sixteen years of selling Macs, we strongly suspect that Elite's real problem is that it's failed to keep up with the times; had it changed its outdated name to "733t Warez" a few years back, we doubt it would be in such a pickle.

Still, with twenty more Apple retail stores opening over the course of the next year, we can't help but wonder whether the third party Mac reseller is doomed to extinction-- not this year, of course, but maybe another ten or fifteen down the line. Suppose Steve's long-term game plan is 100% control over every aspect of the Mac shopping experience? And more to the point, could it actually work?

Ah, AirPort; 'tis truly a wondrous thing. In fact, it's the very technology that's making it possible for us to produce this episode one-handed on a PowerBook while trapped on the couch under twenty-three pounds of somnolent baby. And given the alarming frequency with which we find ourselves in precisely this situation nowadays, it is by no means a stretch to say that, if it weren't for the freedom afforded us by AirPort's effortless wireless networking, AtAT's return to the airwaves may well have been delayed by another, oh, seventeen years or so. So, three cheers for AirPort, rah rah rah, etc.

Of course Apple, not content to rest on its laurels, took the wraps off Airport Extreme last January, thus upping the wireless bandwidth ante from 11 Mbps to a jaw-droppingly zippy 54 Mbps-- which is basically overkill for our own purposes, but must have been welcome news to people who need to, say, stream high-quality video to a PowerBook while running around the room with it. AirPort Extreme achieved these impressive speeds without sacrificing compatibility with original AirPort devices by embracing the IEEE 802.11g wireless draft specification, which is fully backward-compatible with the 802.11b technology used in older AirPort gear. Smart, right?

There's just one tiny hitch: that word "draft." When AirPort Extreme shipped, the 802.11g standard hadn't yet been finalized. No problem, figured Apple; once the standard was ratified, AirPort Extreme cards and base stations could easily be made compliant via firmware updates. All the bases were covered-- except, maybe, for an unexpected and significant drop in rated speeds in the final 802.11g spec. Faithful viewer LKM noted that Slashdot was discussing a Computerworld article which mentions that the final 802.11g draft standard "throttles data rates down." How far down? Well, that 54 Mbps you were so excited about? Now it's "between 10 M and 20 Mbps," due to a required "electronic warning to 11b devices that a 11g device is operating, a warning that is enough to cause a cutback in actual throughput." D'oh!

This raises an important point-- namely, that if Apple embraces the final and now much slower 802.11g standard, Airport Extreme won't really be particularly "extreme" anymore. Of course, Apple could decide to say "screw the standard" and just leave out the 802.11b warning beacon, or possibly allow users to turn it on and off themselves, which would allow theoretical 54 Mbps operation on AirPort Extreme networks with no older AirPort nodes. But if AirPort Extreme does indeed drop as low as 10 Mbps in regular use, it might become a really tough sell to folks with a need for speed. "AirPort Extreme: Occasionally Slower Than The Original AirPort Technology, But Now With The Word 'Extreme' Added To The Name!"

There's nothing quite like kicking off a long weekend with a smattering of good news. Longtime viewers are already well aware that the AtAT staff would sooner lick roadkill than give up our TiVo, which has become as indispensable down here at the AtAT compound as running water. More so, even; we can always drink bottled water and sit around simmering in our own filth, if absolutely necessary. But returning to life without TiVo would be the equivalent of giving up our Macs and having to use Windows; three days of that kind of abuse without the comforting ignorance of a better alternative, and we'd be sticking our heads in the oven. (It's electric, but still.)

So how gosh-darn cool is it that Mac Rumors reports that TiVo digital video recorders will soon be sold in select Apple retail stores? Apparently this is less a rumor than an actual, straight-from-the-horse's-gaping-maw fact; A TiVo rep allegedly mentioned the arrangement during the company's quarterly financial conference call yesterday. Why TiVos in Apple's stores, you ask? Well, true, a TiVo isn't exactly a Mac peripheral or anything, but with the advent of the recently-released Home Media Option, TiVos can use Rendezvous to stream photo slideshows from iPhoto and music from iTunes, even wirelessly via AirPort. It's a nice way to extend two of Apple's core iApps to the living room.

We do have to admit, though, we're a little surprised-- not that Apple would recognize TiVo as a kick-butt spoke on the Digital Hub, but rather that El Steve agreed to allow what is almost exclusively a TV-watching aid to grace the shelves of Apple's retail stores. It's no secret that Steve is not a fan of television, and probably blames it for most of the world's problems today, including (but in no way limited to) famine, disease, deforestation, racial cleansing, the destruction of the ozone layer, the rise in world terrorism, tooth decay, and the way that soap gets all slimy and gross if you forget to empty the water out of the bottom of the soap dish. But hey, whatever; we're just glad that an Apple/TiVo partnership appears to be blooming.

So does this lend any weight to recent speculation that Apple should buy TiVo? No idea, but we can say that TiVos in the Apple stores bodes well for an upgrade to the Home Media Option so that it can finally stream music purchased from the iTunes Music Store-- something which it can't yet do. And personally, once we can stream our protected AACs to the living room without first having to burn them and re-encode them as MP3s, we'll have a lot more free time on our hands-- you know, to watch more TiVo and further contribute to the decline and fall of Western civilization. Ah, it all goes according to plan...