Apple's slow climb back into the consumer market should accelerate quickly once the cute and lumpy iMac makes its debut on store shelves this August. Unfortunately, since Apple pulled out of a significant portion of the retail space a few months ago when it yanked Macs out of all national retail chains except for CompUSA, there are fewer shelves on which to display the iMac when it's ready to sell. The fact that CompUSA keeps opening new stores is therefore a good sign for Apple, and the news that CompUSA is buying the entire Computer City chain is also a boon. Whether CompUSA converts existing Computer City stores (adding Apple sections in the process) or closes them (sending customers to existing CompUSA superstores), Apple stands to gain a little visibility among consumers in the U.S.

But whither Canada? CompUSA sells only within (surprise!) the U.S.A., whereas Computer City stores also sell to our neighbors to the north. Well, the good news is, with the CompUSA buyout, Computer City stores in Canada will stay open-- and they'll each gain an Apple store-within-a-store. A MacNN special report notes the happy development, and includes comments from several readers who report that a few of the Canadian Computer City stores have had Apple salon stores for months now.

Now, while there are only seven Computer City stores in Canada, we still take this to be positive news. And if CompUSA decides to use Computer City as their official "over-the-border" brand name, at the rate CompUSA's been opening new stores domestically, it's entirely possible that those seven will begin to multiply. Imagine, dozens of shiny new Computer Cities, dispensing thousands of sparkling Bondi-blue-and-Ice-white iMacs to our northern continentmates. Today it's just a dream, but what a glorious dream it is...

It would appear that Don Crabb has finally received the last word (for now, at least) on Apple's plans for the number of PCI slots to include in its upcoming high-end G3 Power Macs. In short, don't hold your breath waiting for a six-slot box. Apple has no plans to deliver one at all. Since Apple's trying to simplify their product line and reduce the number of motherboards on which they base their products, a six-slot board that caters only to the teensy-weensy number of Mac users who use high-end multi-card video editing systems wouldn't make sense. We at AtAT can get behind that logic; what percentage of Mac users actually use more than three slots? Probably fewer than one percent. Why design a whole logic board to cater to that crowd?

Why? Because that crowd, consisting of digital media professionals, is incredibly important to Apple's future, that's why. Heck, we've even heard Steve Jobs himself state that "content creators" are one of Apple's two core markets (the other being education). So why are they now almost daring one of their core markets to switch over to six-slot Wintel solutions? Lack of communication, mostly. (From Apple? Naaahhh...) While the industry has been scratching its big collective head about what Apple's going to do about the slot problem, Apple had apparently decided on a solution: it would work with third-party companies who make PCI expansion chassis and help them ensure 100% compatibility with Apple's upcoming Pro systems, which will feature a fourth 64-bit PCI slot to use as a bridge to the expansion chassis. Problem solved; people who need more than four slots buy the chassis, and nobody else pays for slots they don't need. Sounds just dandy to us-- especially if Apple sells some configurations of the Pro G3's with a third-party PCI chassis included.

The thing that kills us is that Apple has kept mum on this issue for so long, while one of their core markets looked towards Wintel since there were no six-slot Macs available for purchase. We would have guessed it should have been simple enough to issue a brief statement of available options for those customers who need six-slot systems. But that wouldn't have been nearly as exciting, would it?

It seems like the whole Mac-using world is holding its breath awaiting the arrival of the iMac. We at AtAT are so used to hearing release dates of "ninety days" that we often forget that time marches forward; the iMac isn't due in ninety days anymore-- it's due in forty-four! That's right, Steve Jobs stunned us all by unveiling his translucent little retro-Mac waaaay back on May 6th-- seven and a half weeks ago. So the world only has, at most, another seven or eight weeks to wait before the World's Cutest Desktop Computer becomes commercially available.

And when we say "the world," we mean the world; apparently the iMac won't be one of those Macs that Apple waits six months before releasing overseas. Apple intends the iMac to take the whole world by storm. In fact, according to Mac the Knife, the first production run is ramping up in Apple's Singapore plant, and Apple Singapore is lobbying for the right to unveil the shipping iMac at MacWorld Singapore on July 21st. Somehow we doubt that such a thing will come to pass, though, and while the iMac will probably be launched here in the U.S. sometime in early- to mid-August, we fully expect that they'll be available to Mac-lovers (new and old) world-wide.

So when friends of ours ask for a recommendation on what Mac to buy to replace their aging LC II, the answer's a lot easier if they can wait another forty-four days or so before purchasing...