Okay, the buzz on the PowerPC 970 is starting to heat up something fierce. It's already pretty much a given that Apple plans on at least demonstrating the new chip's capabilities at next month's Worldwide Developers Conference, but the big question is whether or not Steve will drop jaws from Tallahassee to Timbuktu by announcing that real, honest-to-goodness 970-based Power Macs will be "available immediately." As far as we know, all the official poop on the 970 indicates that it shouldn't show up in shipping systems for several more months yet, but hey, wasn't that the story with the G4 in the summer of '99, when Steve yoinked 'em out of his sleeve anyway? So, you know, anything's possible.

The only problem with infinite possibilities is that they tend to make every little unsubstantiated bit of dirt that wafts through the ether at least mildly believable, and that can be hazardous to one's well-cultivated sense of cautious skepticism. For example, faithful viewer Chuck tipped us off to a note over at MacRumors, which in turn refers to yet another rumor at MacBidouille-- whose name is French for "Lots More Rumors About The PowerPC 970 Then All Those Non-French Sites Put Together." (It's a very efficient language.) As far as we can make out from the translation, MacBidouille claims that the first 970-based Macs are done. As in, done done. As in, "off the production lines, into the boxes, stacked on pallets" done. Reportedly said pallets are wrapped in "opaque and sealed film" and bear labels that read "tamper-proof seal, confidential property inside, prosecution may result if opened by unauthorized personnel." The alleged "Do Not Open Until" date? June 23rd-- the first day of WWDC.

Now, granted, the folks at MacBidouille have the grace to admit that this rumor is "without tangible proof," but in their own estimation "it has very good chances to be true." Personally, we don't see any particular reason to form a strong opinion one way or the other, but we will say this: if 970-based Power Macs are indeed sitting on a pallet in a warehouse somewhere, we find it hard to believe that at least a couple haven't walked off already, tamper-proof film be damned. Given that Mac professionals have been stuck with Motorola's glacial rate of G4 improvement for almost four years now, we can pretty much guarantee that there are at least a few impatient Mac users out there who are rabid enough for an upgrade to locate those pallets, make their way past Steve's elite squadron of heavily-armed Secret-Keepers™ (perhaps losing a limb or two in the process), tear through those tamper-proof labels with broken teeth, and drag the gear off clutched in charred and bloody stumps.

Seriously, if those systems really are done, making the Mac pros wait another three and a half more weeks to get their hands on them just seems cruel. Of course, that doesn't mean it's not true...

Well, sports fans, we've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Apple has released iTunes 4.0.1, which "includes a number of performance and network access enhancements"-- not the least of which are apparent fixes for the weird sound-fading and "muffled music" bugs, according to MacFixIt. The bad news is that, well, Apple has released iTunes 4.0.1-- which, as pointed out by faithful viewer Jonathan Claydon, also "only allows music sharing between computers using iTunes 4.0.1 or later on a local network (in the same subnet)," which, granted, prevents one form of rampant music piracy, but also negated some perfectly innocent uses of wide-area streaming-- such as being able to listen to your home iTunes library while you're chained to your desk at work.

Now, from Apple's perspective, this is actually a win-win update; that lousy sound bug is more than likely responsible for most, if not all, of the reviews of the iTunes Music Store in which reviewers likened the sound quality of 128 kbps AAC as roughly that of taping a song on a Fisher-Price Tuff Stuff Tape Recorder while opening a can of soup with a tree-shredder. And the success of the iTunes Music Store depends largely on Apple's ability to persuade the recording industry to continue licensing songs into a fairly lenient digital format; songs purchased from the iTMS are far less restrictive than digital songs distributed elsewhere, but it won't be that way for long if it looks like Apple is distributing a means for piracy.

Interestingly enough, according to CNET, Apple never intended iTunes's sharing feature to be used across the Internet in the first place: "Rendezvous music sharing... has been used by some in ways that have surprised and disappointed us." Apparently whether or not sharing music constitutes Being Naughty™ is largely a function of distance; Apple claims that the feature was designed "to allow friends and family to easily stream their music between computers at home or in a small group setting." Sharing the same music with the same friends and family while they're at work or off at college, however, is evidently a mortal sin.

Nah, we're just kiddin'; that's probably fine, too-- but thanks to those who abused that ability, it's no longer an option. So those of you who were using the Internet sharing feature of iTunes 4.0 for a legitimate purpose are boned, done in by the same selfish mentality that killed the "Pump First" gas station. But hey, there are always going to be people who ruin things for the rest of us, and look on the bright side: now you can listen to your tunes without worrying that they're going to sound like you've got Cheez Whiz packed into your aural canals. And who knows? The Internet sharing feature might return in some form someday. After all, "Pump First" gas stations are making a comeback.

Hoo, mama-- the mad scramble to glom onto the success of the iTunes Music Store continues unabated. Recently we noted that Roxio just announced plans to resurrect Napster as a "legitimate" online music business next year; now Microsoft and RealNetworks are getting into the act as well. Suddenly we're steeped in the depths of a digital music free-for-all; there's a party in my ear and everyone's invited!

On the Redmond side, CNET reported last week that "Microsoft is quietly preparing for a counterattack by improving its own technology for supporting subscription music services." Sigh. What is it about Microsoft that it's so hell-bent on renting out music instead of selling it? Did the colossal failure of the pay-to-watch-even-after-you-buy-it bastardization of the DVD known as Divx teach them nothing? The iTMS is doing well so far because people can give it a spin without shelling out ten bucks every month until they die; you can buy one song for a buck, and then that song is yours, and you're done. What, does Bill Gates hang out in Blockbuster all day, watching the patrons and drooling into a cup over what he imagines is the attainment of Business Model Nirvana?

We couldn't say. But what we do know is that Microsoft is working on a way to incorporate subscription-based digital rights management into portable music players, so that you can take your rented music with you instead of being tethered to your Wintel PC. Once this comes to pass, if you subscribe to PressPlay, MusicNow, TenBucksAMonthForLife, WeGoUnderAndYouLoseAllYourMusic, or any of the other subscription-based services, you'll finally be able to load your downloaded tracks onto a compatible music player and rock out on the go. Of course, if your subscription happens to lapse right in the middle of listening to "Disco Duck" on the subway, well, so be it.

And now lookee here: according to WIRED, Rhapsody, yet another of the subscription-based music services that was already clogging the pipe, was bought out by RealNetworks last month and has just mysteriously decided to lower its price on burnable downloads from 99 cents to 79 cents. Hmmm... do we smell a price war in the offing? Well, uh, probably not, actually, seeing as how Rhapsody doesn't work on Macs and iTunes isn't out for Windows (yet). But even if you did have a choice between the two services right now, don't forget, that 79 cents at Rhapsody isn't much of a bargain when you lump in the $9.95 monthly subscription fee you have to pay for the privilege of buying your 79-cent song. Still, kudos to Rhapsody for finding a way to get its name out there alongside the iTMS buzz.

What amuses us to no end about this situation is the way that none of these people will admit that this recent flurry of activity has anything whatsoever to do with the iTunes Music Store and its early success. Roxio "doesn't even consider it a competitor." Microsoft brushes off the iTunes Music Store as irrelevant because Apple "is not looking at or supporting" subscription-based services. And Listen.com/Rhapsody insists that its sudden move to lower its price for burnable downloads to 79 cents was "not a response to Apple's iTunes music service." Just nod understandingly, folks, and back away slowly...