Sometimes the timing all just falls into place, you know? Just yesterday we were bemoaning the lack of wild-eyed and frothing speculation on all aspects of the imminent iMac G5, hinting that diehard rumor hounds might have been taken aback by Apple's official confirmation of the product's existence and general release time frame and that they'd be more comfortable chasing down less "official" rumors that wander farther afield from Apple's PR department. Well, guess what? You get to spend your weekend wondering endlessly just what the heck this thing is, whose design Apple tried to trademark in Europe last May.

Yes, faithful viewer DanMann was the first of many to point out that The Register unearthed a design trademark application for a "handheld computer" that was just made public this week, and which includes some sketches that ought to claim the lives of at least three or four weak-hearted Mac fiends who've been thumping the table for an Apple tablet device for the past couple of years. What is it? We don't know. It looks kind of like the screen from a 12-inch iBook or PowerBook-- and only the screen. There's a little ridgy thing on the side that looks kind of like an iPod dock connector. And that's pretty much all anyone has to go on right now.

So is it a PDA? Not likely, since it looks way too big. How about a tablet Mac of some sort, such as has been rumored for years, now? Possibly, especially given all the past rumors about such a device and the fact that Apple still hasn't done anything compelling with the "Ink" handwriting recognition engine that debuted in Mac OS X 10.2 almost two years ago. Still others think it may even be the screen of the iMac G5, which they predict can be undocked from the base unit and used as a wireless tablet via AirPort Extreme. And other others figure it's a standalone wireless media device of some sort, which will handle wireless pictures and video to complement the iPod's role in the "Digital Hub" scheme of things. You want frothing speculation coming out of your ears? Take a trundle on over to MacRumors or one of those other rumors forums; they're really working themselves into a frenzy over this one.

Before your pleasure center explodes and you posthumously lose your cleaning deposit, let us remind you that Apple trademarks things all the time that it never ends up using. (Remember Junkyard? iPhone?) So there's a chance that, whatever this thing is, it won't ever actually come to market. Personally, though, we're starting to suspect that Apple is only months away from taking the wraps off its own version of Microsoft's deliriously lukewarm Tablet PC; part of us still thinks that, just like with the PDA issue, Apple wouldn't want to enter any market that can barely support its existing players, let alone a newbie, but we can't forget that the iPod changed all the rules and finally did portable digital music right. So who's to say that an Apple tablet device wouldn't school Microsoft sixty ways from Sunday and wind up being a tablet that people actually do want to buy and use?

It's the weekend. Start chewing.

Can we just say up front that this isn't meant to be any sort of commentary on FOX News in general? Because we try really hard to keep politics at least a hundred feet from the AtAT set at all times (we even took out a restraining order), but in recent years it seems that any commentary whatsoever on anything FOX News says will be construed as some sort of political statement, and that's not at all what we're doing, here. All that happened was that faithful viewer Pixel tipped us off to a FOX News tidbit on the ongoing Apple-vs.-Apple lawsuit, we felt it was good weekend episode fodder, and we're blathering on and on about it like anyone actually cares, as per our long-established modus operandi. End of story.

That said, does anyone else get the feeling that Roger Friedman of FOX411 may be on some serious drugs?

We ask in a strictly apolitical manner, of course, but the fact of the matter is that he ran a headline asking "Will Paul McCartney Wind Up with iTunes?" as if something had happened in the case to suggest that such a thing could possibly happen-- or, indeed, that anything had happened in the case at all. But nothing new has happened, and so Roger just recaps Apple's attempt to have the trial moved to California and the judge's refusal to do so-- and implies that this somehow means that "Paul McCartney could wind up owning the Apple iTunes Stores along with Yoko Ono, Ringo Starr, and Olivia Harrison." And, of course, the only appropriate reaction to this is a big, fat "What the--?!"

But wait, it gets even more baffling. He argues that "the Beatles look like they will have the upper hand in this case," a sentiment with which we happen to agree-- but as his basis for that conclusion, he offers the following quote from the 1991 agreement between the companies in which Apple said it would keep its digital mitts off of the music business: "In section 4, paragraph 3 of the agreement: '[Apple] shall not use or authorize others to use the Apple Computer Marks on or in connection with physical media delivering pre-recorded content (such as a compact disc of the Rolling Stones music)...'"

Um... so?

When, exactly, has Apple distributed commercial recorded music on Apple-branded physical media? Because when last we checked, the iTMS was strictly a digital download affair. Technically we suppose the Beatles can make a case that when we bought our Power Mac G4 almost four years ago and the iTunes folder on the hard drive contained a "Tunes Sampler" consisting of 14 MP3 files, the drive in the Mac constituted "physical media delivering pre-recorded content," but you could argue the same thing about any Mac that ever shipped with alert sounds in the System Folder. The language of the clause makes it pretty clear to us that the Fab Four's lawyers were talking about Apple getting into the music label business and shipping physical CDs; while it's certainly the case that Apple is doing label-like things (such as selling exclusive music not available anywhere else), it has yet to sell a single Apple-branded piece of "physical media" from the iTunes Music Store.

Regardless, Roger offers up this quote like it's some kind of slam dunk or something; maybe we're missing the obvious (we're doing that more and more often these days), but we just don't see it. (There's also the fact that he incorrectly refers to Apple Computer as "Apple Computers" seven times in as many paragraphs, despite correctly using the name when quoting the 1991 agreement excerpted above. But that's not drugs, that's just us being picky.)

In any event, no matter how badly Apple might lose this case, where on earth does Roger get the idea that the outcome would be the Beatles estate taking over the iTMS? Was this ever on the table and somehow we completely missed it? At worst Apple would have to pay damages and a hefty licensing fee, but the iTMS is so central to its current growth plans there's no way it'd give it up to settle yet another lame Beatles "you stole our label name" lawsuit-- especially since the company's got $5 billion in the bank to pay off litigious rockers if it really needs to.

Oh, Roger, Roger, Roger... seek help, before it's too late.

Just say no, kids.

It's official: the years are all a blur. It's funny, but when you crank out 2.24 million words (over ten times the number of words in Melville's Moby Dick; we win!) comprising almost five thousand scenes in 1600-odd episodes of an online soap opera about weird Apple stuff over the course of roughly seven years during which you logged about twelve minutes of sleep, you really start to lose track of what happened when. (Go figure.) For instance, we'd swear we covered the topic of obscenely overpriced designer iPod cases at least once at some point in the show's history; they've been on the market for years, after all. But for the life of us, we can't seem to find any such plot twist while flipping around through the reruns, so we're either completely nuts or it was a "Maybe Pile" plot element a couple of times and just never made the cut.

Or both. Don't forget both.

In any event, we're now going to blithely assume that we haven't incorporated designer iPod cases into the plotline prior to now, in which case you'll all be freshly entertained to the gills when we direct you to a spread from an upcoming CITY Magazine article that, as Verbose Coma puts it, is all about "high fashion designer iPod and iPod mini cases from such designers as Louis Vuitton, Dior, Gucci, Paul Smith and more." A few months ago, PC World reported that, according to Apple's iPod worldwide product marketing manager, more iPod cases are sold than iPods, presumably because some people need several cases to match their many outfits. (It's a rough life, but someone has to live it.) Indeed, ignore all the cases available for "normal people" for a minute; the breadth of selection just among the haute couture offerings is enough to make your head spin and your wallet hide under the couch.

For example, for the practical gal, there's the no-nonsense pink or green Kate Spade case for the miniPod, which features "mock croc leather," "luxe brass accents," and "a convenient strap" and will only set you back a mere $55. Not excessive enough for you? Well, Coach offers your iPod a "comfy leather home" with "convenient cutouts" to allow access to all the controls for $78. In the $105-115 range you can choose between a psychedelic freak-out Paul Smith case and an understated and classy one from Dunhill. $195 gets you a Gucci, which reportedly sold out its first run, which just goes to show that there are too many people with too much money these days. And they're the ones who are trying to decide whether to spend a whopping $265 on the Louis Vuitton iPod case or the Dior one... and then finally just decide to get both.

When it comes to the ultimate in high fashion, though, CITY missed the biggest of the big. Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes on Maneesh's superCase. And yes, there's one on eBay. What, no bids yet?