So who says no one at Apple is tuning in? Many longtime viewers will recall our occasional frothing-at-the-mouth diatribes against what we consider the single most egregious mistake in the iMac's otherwise awesome design: the built-in 3D acceleration. ("Oh geez," most of you are thinking, "they're back on that again.") Yes, the iMac is a consummate consumer-oriented computer system, except that one of the biggest reasons (if not the biggest reason) consumers buy computers is to play games, whether they admit it or not. And the most popular games these days are of the 3D variety, like Quake and Unreal. Games that support 3D hardware acceleration look a lot better and play a lot smoother when the right hardware is present. Unfortunately, Apple stuck the wrong hardware in the iMac; they used the ATI Rage IIc, which is a capable 2D graphics chip with sadly poor 3D performance. Unreal, for example, detects the Rage II upon startup and announces that it's not even going to try to use it because it's too slow to improve things. Now, the Rage Pro is a much more capable chip, and we'd been saying from the beginning that it should be in the iMac. Heck, we even harangued some poor Apple rep about it for half an hour at last July's Macworld Expo, as we watched a beta of Unreal run on an iMac in software-rendered mode. The guy was adamant-- nobody would mind the Rage II, he claimed.

Now, the real disparity here is that now all other Macs have a Rage Pro in them. All new Power Macs, all new PowerBooks, and even the late lamented Power Mac G3 All-in-one (targeted at the education market-- who obviously needs good Quake performance) had Rage Pro chips pumping out the graphics. So why in heaven's name was Apple's only consumer-oriented computer-- the one by definition targeted at the gaming market-- the only one still shipping with the dinky old Rage II? Well, the good news is, that's about to change. According to NoBeige, the new "revision B" iMacs, in addition to being preloaded with Mac OS 8.5, will ship with 6MB of SGRAM and a Rage Pro on the motherboard. Other sites have mentioned this as rumor, but NoBeige has the photos to prove it. (The other nice change is that to force a restart on a crashed rev. B, you apparently won't need a paperclip.)

What does this mean to the big picture? Well, for starters, owners of older Macs who were ready to upgrade but didn't want to get an iMac because the 3D gaming performance was subpar may start shelling out the dough for a revision B model. And if revision B iMacs are used as store demo systems and are preloaded with Unreal or the Quake demo running in their true hardware-accelerated glory, little Johnny might not steer his relatively clueless parents away from the iMac as the family computer. We're expecting Apple to be very quiet about the addition of Rage Pro to the iMac, because to announce that they've fixed the problem means acknowledging that there was a problem in the first place. But the good news is, early adopters of the iMac are more than likely not hardcore gamers who are going to feel cheated out of a decent hardware accelerator anyway. So listen up, Mac gamers; the iMac is now definitely worth a second look.

Okay, so the iMac's getting its first tune-up in the form of better graphics capability. While that's a great thing, there's still some question about the iMac's suitability for all educational uses; ever since Apple dropped the G3 All-in-one from the educational price list, the iMac has been the standard replacement. For most purposes, sure, the iMac is a very capable stand-in for the tooth-shaped AIO, but it's still not quite right for all uses in that environment. Think of it as more of a stopgap than a full-fledged AIO replacement.

But apparently Apple knows that, because Mac the Knife claims that there are a couple of new creations being molded in the secret underground labs beneath the streets of Cupertino, and they're meant to address this gap in the product line. While details are few and far between, the Knife's claims make these successors to the original AIO sound basically like overgrown iMacs; they have the same 4 GB hard disk and CD-ROM, but include a 266 MHz G3 processor and a 17-inch monitor. The only difference between the two different models that Apple is rumored to be preparing is the amount of RAM (32 or 64 MB), the speed of the Ethernet (10-base-T or 100-base-T), and the presence or absence of Avid Cinema. Though, presumably Apple wouldn't include Avid Cinema unless the higher-end unit included a video capture system, so perhaps these new "teacher station" educational Power Macs really are descended more from the AIO than from the iMac.

That's all well and good, but the real question is this: will these new educational all-in-one units continue the new-found Apple dental design theme? The AIO looked like a cavity-ridden molar, the iMac shares its distinctive colors with Aqua Fresh toothpaste-- will these new "teacher stations" include a USB WaterPik attachment? Or maybe they'll just be bound up in big metal braces...

It was Day 3 of the new "Redmond Justice" season, and the surprises are still coming. You know how the Justice Department's case relies heavily on this May 1995 meeting between Microsoft and Netscape, during which Microsoft reportedly offered to divvy up the browser market to keep Netscape from developing Navigator for Windows 95? Well, Microsoft's lawyer John Warden just proposed in court that the whole meeting was actually Netscape's idea. And his smoking gun is an email message sent to Microsoft from Netscape co-founder James Clark way back in December of 1994, which stated, "we'd like to work with you." There are all kinds of juicy details in a Washington Post article.

The plot thickens! In this email message, Clark reportedly states that coming to some kind of agreement could be in Microsoft's best "self interest" as well as Netscape's, and that "depending on the interest level," Microsoft might even "take an equity position in Netscape." Hmmmm. So during his cross-examination of Netscape chief exec Jim Barksdale, Warden put forth that the deal discussed during the infamous May meeting was "pretty much what Mr. Clark was proposing to Microsoft in December 1994." Barksdale held his ground, though, denying the connection and stating that Clark's proposal was "not consistent with [Netscape's] strategy."

The other interesting little cloak-and-dagger aspect of this mysterious email message from Clark is the last line, which reads, "No one in my organization knows about this message." That's certainly consistent with Barksdale's claim that he only recently found out about Clark's proposal when Netscape was preparting for this trial. Not only that, but the email message was sent at 3:01 AM-- a strange time to be sending mail about company business. Netscape's lawyer claimed Clark was "a little nervous" when he wrote the desperate message, since Netscape was running out of money at the time and Clark was trying to find ways of raising new cash. But Clark has since left Netscape, so we may never find out just what the deal was. Intriguing, though, isn't it? Stay tuned!