What goes on in the head of the world's most mercurial interim CEO? Heck, all kinds of stuff, as evidenced by Fortune magazine's recent interview with Steve Jobs. Others may not agree, but AtAT stands by our principle that any Jobs interview is a must-read for any Apple-watcher.

There's seemingly no end to the interesting little tidbits one can extract from the short interview. For instance, we weren't aware that Steve had attempted to have Apple buy the PalmPilot from 3Com. That sort of throws the whole Newton scenario into a slightly different light. And while we're fully aware of how people can overreact, it's more than a little disturbing to read that Steve received death threats for ending the clone business. There's even an explanation of that infamous sale of all of his Apple stock-- except for one share. Call it a case of poor timing.

Certain aspects of the interview are a little worrisome to some of us-- we don't mind, for instance, that Steve doesn't plan for Apple to expand into non-computer electronic appliances. We always thought that Amelio-era idea of having Apple-branded educational toys and cybercafés was just a little bit cheesy. And we're just dandy with his direction of focusing on making Apple primarily a consumer-oriented company, but we hope and pray that Steve doesn't forget about the professionals who have kept Apple alive. We love our iMac, and most of what we do to produce AtAT could definitely be done on it. But not the video capture, for instance... and we'd feel a little cramped putting AtAT together on a 15" display. And those real professionals out there who push pixels all day, or edit broadcast-quality video, rely on pro-level Macs for their livelihood. The iMac rocks, but we're more than overdue for a serious high-end Mac.

"Redmond Justice" began its new season with a bang, to be sure, but the pace is now starting to drag. We like Jim Barksdale's style on the stand, to be sure, and his cross-examination by Microsoft's lawyer John Warden definitely started out with some real fireworks; if you want to see just how nasty this soap opera's been getting, we highly recommend checking out Inter@ctive Investor's coverage of the flaring tempers. But he's been on camera for a little too long, now, and still Warden won't let him off the stand. Check out TechWeb's coverage for more on this.

The fireworks have since died down a bit, and Thursday's proceedings were little more than a seemingly endless attempt by Warden to show that Netscape wasn't harmed by anything that Microsoft may have done. The general consensus seems to be that Microsoft is now just stalling for time; the longer the case runs, the better it is for them. Unfortunately, such a move is also worse for us viewers, who tune in to hear the dirt and keep our fingers crossed for violent outbursts and tearful confessions. Day 4 offered none of that; it's as if it were just a trial, or something. Yecch.

Meanwhile, Avie Tevanian, former NeXT and current Apple superduper software dude, must be feeling like Rip Taylor when he gets bumped from the Tonight Show because another guest ran long. Avie's next up in the witness list, and was expected to take the stand on Thursday, but Warden just doesn't want to let go of Barksdale. Our advice to the director of this thing? Pick up the pace-- the viewers are losing interest. And it's not nice to keep Avie waiting; the boy has to get back to work on Mac OS X, for crying out loud.

It's been a little while since we've seen a new lawsuit rear its ugly litigious head on our show, but the sue-free zone ends here. Some company named Harris Corp. has filed suit against Apple for canceling the Newton project, in a move marking what we believe to be the first legal fallout from the detonation of the Newton bomb last February. Harris, a Newton licensee whose contract with Apple runs through next June, built its entire business on the prospect of making Newton variations for other companies like Ameritech. The San Jose Mercury News has more details on this latest lawsuit to garnish Apple's legal blue plate special.

This lawsuit isn't a very big one, in terms of money at stake: Harris is asking for at least $17 million in damages because it was a licensee of Newton technology who basically lost its business when Apple relegated the Newton to the dustbin of high-tech. That's nothing compared to that laughable Imatec lawsuit over ColorSync for $1 billion, of course, but the Harris suit actually holds water; they were courted by Apple to become a Newton licensee, their license has not yet expired, but all the business they had assembled around the Newton has been decimated by Apple's formal announcement that it would not develop the technology any further. (If Apple had spun off or sold Newton, things might be different, but as it stands, the technology remains in Apple's hands, who has decided to leave it stagnating on the shelf.)

More than likely, Apple (read: Steve) assumed that suits like this one would arise when Newton got canned, but the cost of paying off a $17 million legal settlement is quite likely considered a small price to pay for refocusing Apple on its core priorities. We're not privy to how much the Newton project was making or losing at the time that Apple finally killed it (after years of batting it around like a cat playing with a terrified field mouse, we might add). The sad truth of the matter is that the Newton could have really taken off if it had been handled right from the beginning; in fact, we still think it's the best handheld technology out there. But instead, it became only a distraction-- one that Apple deems worth paying to go away.