Believe it or not, some of us harbored a mild sense of guarded optimism when Best Buy signed back on to sell iMacs. Sure, we remembered what it was like in the Performa days, and we hadn't forgotten that Best Buy was the first national retailer to jump ship when Apple started jettisoning its retail partners like so much bad fish. Still, Best Buy has a lot of consumer-oriented electronics stores across the country, and they sell a slew of computers to the average schmoe-- and there are Best Buys in many areas which lack a CompUSA. And surely Best Buy had learned its lesson, right?

So yeah, you can imagine that we're pretty much choking on that optimism right now, given that Best Buy has all but bowed out of the iMac game altogether, because they don't like the idea of stocking computers in five different colors. It's quite clear to us now that Best Buy just doesn't "get it" and it's unlikely that they ever will. And the whole Best Buy fracas has, unsurprisingly, somewhat tempered our enthusiasm about Apple's renewed partnership with Sears. Don't get us wrong-- we love the idea that iMacs will be gracing the shelves of some 800 departments stores nationwide, and it makes us somewhat giddy to think that most consumers will finally be able to buy iMacs at their local mall. But that doesn't mean we're not still nervous that the whole thing might collapse; after all, the iMac officially debuted in those 800 stores this past weekend, and we didn't see a single mention of the fact in the Sunday circulars. (Shades of CompUSA, anyone?) There's also the little matter of Sears charging a hundred bucks more for the iMac than even Apple is, which still gives us pause, even though people have made it clear to us that Sears really doesn't really need to compete with the likes of CompUSA and the Apple Store on price, since they have a ready-made and loyal clientele.

There have been some reports that Apple is working very closely with Sears to make sure that everything goes well, and that's encouraging, but we refuse to get our hopes up just yet. In the meantime, we'll buoy our spirits with the news that CompUSA is finally moving in the right direction; according to an article at theiMac.com, the national computer superstore is finally instituting a policy of training all of their sales staff on Apple's product line. Training apparently begins next week, and all sales reps will need to gain certification. That's a pretty serious commitment, and we hope it signals a realization at CompUSA's very top ranks just how much profit potential Apple products represent. Given CompUSA's recent financial woes, it's definitely time for them to start Thinking Different.

Yeah, sure, okay, you've heard it all before: the blue and white G3s are slated to receive a "speed bump," which will increase the processor speeds in shipping models without increasing the prices of the configurations. We last expected that to happen way back in April, but what we got were the same old (if you can call a three-month old computer line "old") systems running between 300 and 400 MHz. This time, though, it's for real. And even if you don't believe Apple Insider, who broke the story earlier, you're probably unlikely to doubt the Apple Store itself.

That's right-- the new configurations are official. They're posted and ready for ordering (though whether or not they're actually ready for shipment is beyond the reach of our fledgling psychic abilities). Apple's new bottom-of-the-barrel Power Mac now sports a 350 MHz G3 and a full megabyte of backside cache, along with 64 MB of RAM, a 6 GB hard drive, a CD-ROM drive, and the standard RAGE 128 graphics and fast Ethernet-- all for the same low price of $1599. Kick in another $400 and you can move up to the mid-range system, which boosts the processor speed to 400 MHz and replaces the CD-ROM with a DVD-ROM instead, complete with video decoding so you can watch "Holy Man" the way it was meant to be seen, complete with all its subtle nuances and in its full cinematic glory. At the high end of the spectrum, you can now opt for a 450 MHz processor; if you go the build-to-order route and keep all the extras to a minimum, you can buy one for as low at $2159.

So there you have it. What better way to celebrate the advent of June than by blowing a wad of hard-earned cash on a brand-spankin'-new G3? Now you can get more pure processing power for your dollar than ever before. We're mighty tempted down here at AtAT studios, but we've got our chunk of change set aside for a P1 whenever they ship; we're still in 68K-ville on the portable side, and we've got to keep our priorities straight.

Speaking of "whenever they ship," we doubt we're the only ones who were expecting another Wall Street-esque PowerBook drought with the new "bronze" PowerBooks. When Steve Jobs took the wraps off the new thinner, lighter, faster, longer-lasting, translucent-keyboard-and-trackpad-button model at the Worldwide Developers Conference in early May, we're pretty sure he said that the luscious new laptops would be shipping no later than the 20th. But the 20th came and went, with no sign of the slim portables in sight. The Apple Store now claims they'll be "shipping in early June," but those poor souls out there who got strung along for months last year waiting for a Wall Street with a 14-inch screen probably aren't buying it.

And yet, Apple may have indeed learned its lesson and kept the 101 delay down to a mere couple of weeks. According to The PowerBook Zone, Apple has released the hounds: 400 MHz PowerBooks are reportedly winging their svelte way to Apple Store customers, with a few 333 MHz units to round out the shipment. What this apparently means is that if you ordered a new PowerBook and were given a ship date in the first half of June, you're actually pretty likely to receive it in the first half of June, instead of watching Apple continuously move the delivery date forward until you're tempted to get a tattoo that says "Born To Wait For My PowerBook Until Jesus Comes Back Or I Die."

Of course, we won't know for sure until customers really start getting those PowerBooks in their grubby little hands, but at this point we're pretty confident that Apple has avoided a repeat of last year's availability problem. But then, we're usually overly-optimistic. Hmmm, maybe we should do something about that...