This is the way the pipe dream ends-- not with a bang, but a... well, not so much a whimper, really, but more a sort of wheezy, strangulated hissing type of sound. Sort of a cross between someone letting the air out of all four of your tires and the sound you'd make if you found out that your girlfriend just left you for the guy who ran over your dog. Yes, sports fans, the Gregnote is over, and if, against all available evidence to the contrary, you were still holding out hope for some big ol' hardware announcements today, you're probably weeping gently into the tattered remains of your overoptimism right about now. Because according to MacMinute, we got zilch. Zippo. So much nothing that we could open an entire franchise of drive-thru NothingBurger™ restaurants coast to coast and immediately expand the menu to include NothingFries™, NothingNuggets™ and Captain Nothing's Crunchy-on-the-Outside, Tender-and-Flaky-on-the-Inside Filet-O-Nothing™. In other words, we got squat.

Sort of. Reportedly Joz "gave a recap of this morning's news on Soundtrack and Final Cut Pro as well as other recent Apple announcements, including Mac OS X 10.3 'Panther' and the Power Mac G5." For those of you who, like us, were in some sort of coma during the last Final Cut Pro version upgrade and therefore have no idea what Soundtrack is, it's apparently a nifty little module that allows musicians as well as mere mortals to cobble together royalty-free background music from a library of "over 4,000 instrument loops and sound effects covering a wide variety of instruments and genres." The news today is that starting next month, you won't have to shell out a grand just to get your mitts on Soundtrack; it's going to be available as a $299 standalone application as well. (As for the Final Cut Pro news, well, that's enough plot fodder for an entire scene of its own. Stay tuned.)

Overall, though, WIRED describes Joz's performance as "tepid" (hey, c'mon, consider his material, guys-- if he'd had something to work with more compelling than, say, the Apple keynote equivalent of the script for Corky Romano, he'd probably have been a star), though apparently the conferencegoers aren't letting a few little things like no Steve, no Stevenote, no new hardware (the G5 is already last month's news, after all), no world peace, and no beverages available for under eight bucks ruin an otherwise good time. Low attendance be hanged; the Mac fans who are there are reportedly making the best out of an otherwise non-event, and the smaller crowds must be encouraging a greater sense of closeness and community. Heck, in a couple more days, everyone will probably be so close they'll all be toasting marshmallows together over the smoldering wreckage of a Javits Center refreshment stand. "Kumbaya" will figure heavily.

So what's the moral, here, kiddies? Well, we suppose one interpretation might be that when life hands you lemons, you can always make lemonade. And a slightly less insipid take on the whole thing might be that you should never ever ever get your hopes up about anything ever again, because disappointment is the soul's slow and silent killer that will eventually leave you crushed and broken beneath the weight of the world's harsh realities. Our chosen interpretation, however, is that we're glad we stayed home and watched TiVo instead.

And thus is fired another fateful volley in the Apple-Adobe Rift Wars (coming soon to a theater near you-- and enjoy an extreme Rift Wars Quesadilla at Taco Bell today!). Remember how Adobe recently announced a brand spankin' new version of its video editing application Premiere, jam-packed with kajillions of great new features? Then you probably also remember that there was one teensy little feature that it lost in the upgrade: Mac support. Yes, folks, Premiere Pro (as it's now apparently calling itself-- you know, kinda like when Peter Brady started calling himself "Scoop") is now "built for the exceptional performance of Microsoft® Windows® XP systems," because everyone knows that Macs are really underpowered and couldn't possibly handle stuff like video editing. Uh-huh.

Apple's response, of course, was basically an unqualified "so what?" After all, four out of five dentists recommend sugarless Final Cut Pro over Premiere for their patients who chew video, and given who makes it, Final Cut Pro isn't about to bail on our beloved platform anytime soon. Still, while Adobe has all sorts of perfectly benign and legitimate reasons why it made the formerly cross-platform Premiere into a Windows-only product (for example, the fact that Final Cut Pro reportedly smacks it twenty yards past silly), the fact is, the move can still be interpreted as a slight. Maybe a slight slight, but a slight nonetheless.

So what did Apple do in response? It invited everybody over to the Final Cut party, of course. Feast your eyes upon this here press release, which announces that orphaned Mac Premiere users can trade in their disks for a completely free copy of Final Cut Express; if they're serious pros and would rather have the whole enchilada, those Premiere disks are good for 50% off a new copy of the $999 Final Cut Pro. Sounds like a good deal to us, since we expect most Mac people who use Premiere are going to be much more willing to switch from Premiere to Final Cut Pro than to toss the Mac for a Wintel box. (Interestingly enough, the offer stands for Windows users, too; how many Windows Premiere users do you suppose will trade up to Final Cut Pro, given that they'll have to switch to a Mac to use it? Here's hoping the answer is "tons.")

If you want to take advantage of this great deal, you've got to move by September 20th; see Apple's offer page for details. Not a former Premiere user? Hey, don't worry-- Apple didn't forget about you. If all you need is Final Cut Express, now you can get a copy for a mere $99 (that's $200 off the already low low price) when you purchase it with any new Mac. Time to add one more thing to your list of rationalizations of why you reallyreallyreallyreally need a G5...

Here we are, halfway through July already-- which means that the Power Mac G5 may start shipping in as little as two weeks' time. Well, okay, it's probably more like six weeks, but technically, August 1st is August, and it's not completely out of the realm of possibility. That said, if Apple does ship its first G5 on August 1st, keep your eyes peeled for two-headed black calves, the seas awash with blood, Pauly Shore winning an Oscar, or any other signs of the impending apocalypse.

No matter what, though, August is just around the corner, which means it's time for Apple to start advertising these things. The first G5 TV commercial surfaced on the airwaves yesterday, and depicts a young man getting blown clear through multiple walls of his house and into a tree, presumably by the sheer speed and force of the Power Mac G5 in his bedroom. Apple commercial mainstay Jeff Goldblum-- does this guy have voiceover tenure at One Infinite Loop, or something?-- then intones a line or two about how the G5 is the fastest and most powerful yadda yadda yadda go buy one. (At broadcast time, Apple still hadn't posted the ad to its web site, but several unofficial QuickTime versions are floating around.)

Personally, we're a little unsure about this ad, since we're not terribly confident that all that many people are going to want to shell out up to three grand for a computer that's going to destroy their domiciles while simultaneously sending them hurtling into the foliage. Still, even though we've only seen a tiny unofficial QuickTime version, we can't deny that the cheese grater actually looked pretty darn sexy up there next to that (admittedly mismatching, but whatever) Cinema Display. And for those of you who are undoubtedly going to complain that Apple should have spent at least a few of its thirty seconds describing something about the G5's technical achievements, we think Apple was smart to make the spot a teaser; there's way too much to cover in thirty seconds, and only tech-savvy people are going to care. Those tech-savvy people can then go check out http://www.apple.com/g5/ as instructed, which has more than they'll ever need to know about Apple's monster new chip and why they should rush right out and buy one.

Meanwhile, on a related note, MacNN reports that there are other Apple-related commercials floating around out there in the airwaves; apparently Volkswagen is airing ads pushing the "Pods Unite" joint promotion: anyone who buys a 2003 Beetle through the end of September gets a free iPod and a special in-car mounting kit. So if you've always wanted an iPod with VW's "Drivers Wanted" logo engraved on the back (ooooooo!), go buy a Beetle; you'll also get a coupon for $100 off any Apple Store purchase of $999 or more, "Volkswagen's exclusive 'Street Mix' CD collection," a free Audible.com ebook, a VW music zine, and a soon-to-be-oh-so-pricey-on-eBay "Pods Unite" window decal. All that, and you only need to buy a car to get it. Man, we love this economy!