Which rumors to believe? That's always been the conundrum when following Apple, especially these days; crafty Agents of Steve are disseminating false information on purpose in an attempt to isolate leaks in the Silicon Curtain and dilute the real secrets that slip through the cracks. Then again, the disinformation campaign's very existence is yet another rumor that may or may not be true-- and if it's not true but Apple is spreading the rumor that it is, then you've got one of those perplexing logical paradoxes that always made the computers self-destruct on Star Trek. So what's a rabid Apple fanatic to do?

Why, sit back and enjoy it, of course. Whether or not Apple is deliberately leaking fake info, these last couple of years have yielded some of the greatest rumors ever, and the false ones are often the most entertaining. C'mon, you've heard that a Disney buyout of Apple is "a sure thing" several times now-- but doesn't it still make your heart beat a little faster when that rumor resurfaces? And remember that whole "Columbus" thing? Sure, we know now that Columbus was the code name for the iMac's motherboard, but a couple of years ago in the press, Columbus was everything from a portable DVD movie station to a TV set-top box to an Apple-branded food processor. Did all the contradictory data make you angry? No. So don't get twisted out of shape about the recent Sawtooth rumors, either.

We refer, of course, to the rumor we discussed yesterday regarding a possible delay in the delivery of Apple's next-generation professional motherboard, known as Sawtooth. Sawtooth was meant to debut with the PowerPC G4 processor in Apple's desktop line, and while earlier consensus appeared to be that Sawtooth was done and waiting for Motorola to play catch-up, Apple Insider recently claimed that Motorola's sitting on a G4 availability announcement at Apple's request, while Cupertino elves toil endlessly to try to work the remaining bugs out of the Sawtooth product. In addition, Apple Insider claims that Apple may be forced to debut G4s in systems based on the current Yosemite motherboard until Sawtooth is finally ready next year.

So if Sawtooth is postponing the party, what's up with Mac OS Rumors' recent series detailing their "one week with a G4"? Faithful viewers Ian McLeod, Nils Carlson, and Peter Gulvin all noted that MOSR's hitch-free week with a Sawtooth-based G4 unit (via videoconference) seemed rather at odds with Apple Insider's latest juice. It's tough to imagine that there are enough problems with Sawtooth to push it to a 2000 release date if MOSR's reports can be believed. So what's up-- dueling rumors sites? Not likely; we seem to recall that Apple Insider and MOSR have collaborated on at least a few occasions. While it's certainly possible that Apple Insider is the victim of a hoax, MOSR's latest installment in its in-depth saga promises "new revelations about the possibility of G4s before Sawtooth" coming soon. So it'll be interesting to see if (and how) all this info hangs together. Meanwhile, we're just enjoying the possibilities.

Apple fans know how important it is to stay on the cutting edge of style. If fashion weren't a driving force, we'd all be satisfied with beige boxes instead of lusting over the colorful translucent swoops and curves of the iMac or the current Power Mac G3-- and web column material is subject to the rules of fashion, too. De rigueur just a couple of weeks ago, rebuttals of John Dvorak's "girly iBook" article are now passé, and writing one will fetch you more than a few comments along the lines of "that is so August 10th." Nope, the topic du jour is now whether or not Apple should be suing companies that manufacture and sell designer imposters: cheap Wintel systems that obviously try to look like the iMac. It seems everyone's got an opinion about Apple's suits against Future Power and eMachines, which allege intellectual property rights violations in the designs of each company's respective knock-offs.

Some people say hey, sue away-- the iMac's distinctive look and feel is an Apple property and there's no reason to let other companies crash the party and mooch all the punch. But nearly as many people-- Mac fans included-- seem to think that the copycats are well within their rights, that iMac clones are inevitable, and Apple has better things to spend its time and money on than what some people have deemed to be "frivolous" lawsuits. Opinions are like spleens; pretty much everyone's got one. Now, I'm not a lawyer, but I've seen one on TV. And if that's not impressive enough for you, there's an intellectual property lawyer in the next room watching Bob Barker give away fabulous prizes right this second, so sheer proximity must make me at least a quasi-expert. Legally, I think that Apple can win both suits due to trade dress violation and dilution.

The trade dress issue involves the fact that Apple's spent lots of money and resources designing, marketing, and advertising a distinctive product-- and now other companies are trying to piggyback off that effort and sell their own similar-looking goods. (Honestly, the iMac is a cultural icon now-- who can look at an eOne or an E-Power without thinking "iMac"? Really?) The dilution thing is perhaps vaguer, but it seems to go something like this: Apple has sunk a lot of money and resources into building a really strong brand, and now the advent of knock-offs from other companies is weakening that brand. That's my not-a-lawyer take on things. And beyond that, according to a MacWEEK column, eMachines actually claims that they came up with the design for the eOne before the iMac was released-- which is either a baldfaced lie (as in, it's a total coincidence that the two products look similar), or they came up with it in the three months after the iMac was unveiled and before it hit retail shelves. Either way, it's a slimy thing to argue, and we say fry 'em. ;-)

Score a point for Microsoft in its court case. No, not that court case. No, not that one either. Or those four over there, or that half-dozen on the shelf, or any of those in the big pile in the corner. Specifically, we're talking about the legal battle between Microsoft and Sun Microsystems, the folks who brought us Java, the programming language that promised to erase platform boundaries and let developers write software that runs on any kind of computer running any kind of operating system. (You can imagine how concepts like that could cause high-ranking Microsoft officials to lose more than a little sleep.)

Microsoft, you'll recall, decided to play hardball with Java; after licensing the technology, they allegedly "contaminated" it with extensions to the code base that only worked on Windows, effectively monkeywrenching the whole cross-platform intent of the programming language. If developers wrote Java software using Microsoft's additions, then it would only run on Windows systems-- and that's presumably exactly how Microsoft planned to protect its vast Windows market share from a hot technology that may otherwise have rendered Windows irrelevant. Unsurprisingly, Sun cried "Shenanigans!" and sued-- and a judge sided with them early on by issuing a preliminary injunction ordering Microsoft to "fix" its Java implementations to comply with Sun's standards.

Microsoft appealed the injunction, though, and the Appeals Court just "vacated" it; according to a Sm@rt Reseller article, the court "agreed with Sun that Microsoft has likely violated its Java contract," but didn't understand how Microsoft's transgressions could be classified as actual "copyright infringement" as they were apparently called in the injunction. It's a small victory for Microsoft-- but it might not last very long. The injunction now goes back to Judge Whyte for clarification, at which point it could easily be reinstated, but hey, after the Severe Pummeling™ the government dished out in "Redmond Justice," even the small victories are cause for celebration for Microsoft's legal team.