There are only a few days left until Macworld Expo, and we're mentally gearing up for the whole experience. The sights! The sounds! And, especially since the relocation to New York, the smells! (Last year, just walking the six blocks from our hotel to the Javits Center was an olfactory roller coaster ride of the highest caliber.) There's a ton to get excited about-- all the booths loaded with new products (many of which won't ship for another six months), the special show prices on all the latest goodies, being able to fill multiple bags with cheap plastic swag like promotional ball-point pens and logo keychains, etc. What we're looking forward to the most, though, is Steve Jobs' keynote address. We have a gut feeling that this keynote will be one of Steve's best ever, and that's really saying something. Somehow we think he's got a lot more than "just" the consumer portable up his big, baggy sleeves.

It would be a shame if the vast majority of the Mac faithful had to miss what may well turn out to be a momentous turning point in Apple's history just because they couldn't get away to New York, so Apple's doing their part to make sure that the event is as accessible as possible to the geographically remote. Those of you who aren't quite lucky enough to be Expo-bound but are lucky enough to have a satellite dish, Apple's posted the downlink information via a press release. And for those of you without dishes, was there ever any doubt that Jobs' keynote would also be webcast via the live streaming magic of QuickTime 4? Apple's got the web page all ready to go-- just point your browsers there on Wednesday at 9 AM EDT and be a witness to history. Or, at least, a witness to a small, pixelated, slightly smeared-out and fuzzy digital reproduction of history, at any rate. (Given the massive interest in this keynote, we think it'll be a great test of how well QuickTime Streaming performs under extreme stress.)

By the way, if you are going to be attending the show live and in person and you'd like to hook up with the AtAT staff to say howdy, drop us a line and we'll try to work something out. We're going to be absurdly busy, but we'd at least like to try to meet a few of you if our ridiculously jam-packed schedule permits. We'll try to reply to as many interested people as possible via email over the weekend; we hit the road on Tuesday. And yes, AtAT will continue to broadcast throughout the show, although we wouldn't be a bit surprised if episodes are sporadic and broadcast at distinctly bizarre times. Still, we'll do our level best.

First, Apple severed all ties with its existing national resellers. Then they worked out a deal with megachain CompUSA whereby Apple products would be attractively displayed and competently sold in special "stores within stores." Later on, Best Buy climbed back on board to sell iMacs, and not long ago, Sears enlisted, too. But CompUSA (who never fully lived up to its promise anyway) is now talking about "de-emphasizing" the personal computer in favor of PDAs and consumer electronics, the whole Best Buy iMac thing exploded with the force of a billion executives yelling "I don't get it" all at once, and after a simultaneously frustrating and exciting start, the Sears situation is still just lukewarm at best. So now what?

Wouldja believe, Apple's own chain of stores? We've been hearing furtive whispers for a good couple of months now that Apple was seriously considering taking a page from Gateway's book and opening special boutiques across the country, where customers would be guaranteed a solid, Mac-friendly and Mac-knowledgeable sales experience. Certainly there have been plenty of opinion columns on the web stating that Apple needs to do this if they're ever going to get away from the horrors of an uncontrolled and indifferent retail sales force. To be honest, while we love the idea, we never considered it very feasible; Apple could never get the kind of coverage they would get with Sears or CompUSA. But if Apple Insider is correct, now it looks like they're really going to try.

The Apple Insider article is a long and in-depth examination of the retail Apple Store concept, and it's the first time we've seen those furtive whispers coalesce into an overt declaration that Apple is indeed preparing to make bold changes to the way they do business. Imagine being able to walk into a store and seeing nothing but Macs and Mac accessories from wall to wall. Imagine being able to question a salesperson about a Power Mac without being steered towards a Compaq system instead. Imagine being able to custom-configure your dream Mac and have it built to order in the back room for you to throw in the car and take home right away. Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn't it? But it's just one more rumor that might materialize as fact during next week's keynote address. Oh, the suspense...

Yes, folks, it happened again; Apple posted quarterly financial results reflecting a profit quite a bit higher than the analysts were expecting, at which point the company's stock started plummeting like a stone. Well, okay, losing about 2 3/4 points off a near-six-year-high of $56 or so probably doesn't qualify as a "plummet," per se... more like a "wilting." But regardless, the curse continues; Apple's stock always seems to go down instead of up every single time they report better-than-expected profits. They beat the Street, and the Streets beats back.

This time, though, we think we at least detect a rational reason behind the stock's decline, and it's not just profit-taking. According to a CBS MarketWatch report, Wall Street managed to look past the higher profits, the continued year-over-year growth, the $3 billion in cash reserves, the increased gross margins, and everything else positive and instead focused on the fact that, while Apple's revenues went up, they didn't go up as far as people had hoped: "Sales hit $1.56 billion, up from $1.4 billion a year before. However, that was about $40 million lower than most analysts expected." Hence, the even-stronger-than-usual post-profit stock price deflation. Man, those analysts are picky.

At broadcast time, AAPL is back up a bit, probably due in no small part to BancBoston Robertson Stephens' reiteration that, in their opinion, Apple is still a "buy." In fact, they even upped their estimates on Apple once the quarterly results were posted. So not all of the analysts are spoiling the party. What we're really anxious to see is what the analysts will say following whatever big news Apple sends our way during next week's Expo...