Don't you think we all may be getting our hopes up a tad too far? When Steve Jobs announces Apple's quarterly and year-end financial performance Wednesday afternoon, there seem to be a lot of people who are going to be very let down if the numbers aren't spectacular. Perhaps it's the way that Apple's beat analysts' predictions for three straight quarters now; if they don't do it again, it'll be an anticlimax. Considering that the average guess in the AtAT Beat the Analysts contest was $115.25 million, rabid Mac fans are particularly optimistic.

Of course, there's every indication that Apple's going to do quite well. The analysts seem to expect a quarterly profit of somewhere around maybe $60 million, maybe a bit higher. The iMac had a terrifically successful debut, but keep in mind that it carries a substantially lower profit margin than Apple's used to taking-- and the company spent $100 million to advertise the happy blue machines. And we can't help but wonder if Apple's earnings took a hit from their sporadic supply problems; they kept iMac availability surprisingly constant, but Power Macs and PowerBooks were occasionally pretty tough to come by, for some.

We're not saying that Apple's not going to do well. We're simply saying that headlines like "Apple gears up for blowout quarter" (from CBS MarketWatch) might be priming people for a letdown if Apple can't top $100 million this quarter. However, we're pretty confident they can pull it off... It's pretty uncommon for Apple to announce financial results while the stock market is still open, so we take that as a hint that things are looking pretty rosy on the balance sheet. All we're saying is, it's not the end of the world if Apple doesn't beat the street. Just in case.

Not that anything over at Mac OS Rumors should ever be considered "official," but if their evolving specs for next year's consumer portable (code-named P1) are at all accurate, it's safe to say that Apple's plans for a handheld replacement for the Newton are officially dead. Back when the Newton got deep-sixed, Apple claimed that it would re-enter the handheld computer market in 1999 with a new device. Since then, there's been all kinds of speculation as to what this new handheld will be like. Followers of Apple's announced product strategy have been forced to conclude that the consumer portable will be Apple's new "handheld," but if recent specs of the P1 are accurate, it's only a "handheld" in the sense that you could actually hold one in your hand.

The P1, according to Rumors, will be ergonomically designed to be kid-compatible, and so we anticipate that it'll look like the result of a particularly romantic evening spent between an eMate and an iMac. But the P1 will be a zippy little thing, boasting a 300 MHz G3 processor. The screen is rumored to be 11" in size and "visually similar" to the one used in the PowerBook 2400. In fact, the whole P1 is reportedly going to be 2400-ish in weight, as well-- over four pounds. There's no mention anymore of stylus interface or handwriting recognition (which is not to say that those features are definitely gone), making Rumors' description of the P1 an iMac-looking PowerBook, plain and simple. So much for being a handheld. Try slipping a PowerBook 2400 into your shirt pocket sometime.

So there you have it. An eMate-styled laptop with PowerBook 2400 dimensions and PowerBook G3 performance. It sounds great, no doubt about it, and we fully expect to buy one to replace our aging Duo 280c... but it's not exactly going to compete in the handheld market, and it's obviously not intended to do so. Which, we assume, means that Apple has quietly ducked out of the handheld space altogether, which we consider to be a real shame, because they could kick some serious kiester over there if they had resources to commit. Ah, well... perhaps we'll get a color Palm when they come out.

Look, it's not that we think there are a lot of skeptics out there in the AtAT viewing audience. After all, it takes a certain amount of paranoia open-mindedness to endure endless blather about Bill Gates mind control conspiracies and ninja death attacks. It takes a lot more to consider such blather entertaining enough to keep from clicking to another channel. And then there are those of you faithful viewers who tune in day after day, many of whom probably wouldn't be able to pass a psychiatric screening to get a job sorting mail at the local postal facility (and why would you want to? They're all out to get you anyway). We're grateful to you all, truly.

But we admit, we sense a pervasive aura of "aw, c'mon now" whenever we've broached the subject of an Apple-Disney connection. We certainly weren't the first; Apple Recon has been going on about a possible Disney buyout of Apple for a long time now. Nothing overt has really materialized between the two companies, short of the eventual release of Disney Blast for the Mac, but the signs of a behind-the-scenes alliance (or takeover?) are there, if you know where to look. Faithful viewer Derek Fakehany knows where to look. After all, there's a reason that Apple changed the name of the new Find File utility in Mac OS 8.5 to "Sherlock;" it was obviously someone's entreaty to grab a magnifying glass and dig deeper. So Derek did. He cruised the web sites, examining screen shots of Apple's cool new search tool, when he finally "noticed something rather peculiar."

Don't you agree with Derek that the new cursor used to click on found web links seems "awfully familiar?" Isn't it, in fact, quite easily recognizable as the gloved hand of a particularly famous overgrown rodent with hypnotically round aural appendages? Every single person we showed it to (completely out of context, mind you) immediately identified the hand in the icon as belonging to Mickey Mouse. If that's not a sign of pervasive secret Disney control inside One Infinite Loop, we don't know what is. Is it some brave software engineer's cry for help? As Derek says, "looks like the infiltration of Apple has begun." Indeed.