Wow, it's unusual that a new Apple TV ad catches us by surprise; ever since the very first "Think Different" ad premiered, Apple's been announcing the arrival of new commercials by issuing press releases at least a few hours before they first hit the airwaves. So imagine our surprise when Jeff Goldblum's familiar face appeared in a break during Dharma and Greg-- and instead of discussing the email revolution or the color beige, he talked about how you can now get an iMac for the cost of three pizzas a month. If you missed it, Apple has posted a QuickTime version of the new commercial.

Now, we think this latest ad premiered tonight-- Apple seems to like to run new commercials on ABC during the Wednesday night prime-time lineup, but we suppose it could have popped up earlier on some show we don't watch. Regardless, for those of you who have lost count, that makes a grand total of seven different TV commercials for the iMac-- the four that showed only the iMac's futuristic industrial design onscreen ("Traffic," "Two Roads," "Three Steps," and "Un-PC"), the first two that showed Goldblum in front of the camera instead of doing a voiceover from behind it ("Email" and "Beige"), and now this new one. Whew! When Apple said that the iMac would be advertised heavily, they meant it. QuickTime versions of all of these (and more!) are available from the iMac Theater page.

So between several viewings of the new "Three Pizzas" commercial, the iMac on Mimi Bobeck's desk on Drew Carey, and the iMac in the office on NBC's News Radio, we may have hit "iMac saturation" in one night's viewing. It's entirely likely that Apple's Aquafresh-colored consumer system is the most visible computer on the tube these days. Apple's doing a lot of things right as far as the iMac goes: it's a kick-ass machine that looks the part, it's showing up all over the airwaves, it sells at a competitive price (though we'd love to see a price drop soon to pull some eyes off those $600 PC's), its availability is still very strong, it's being sold by (among other outfits) a huge national consumer electronics chain, and people can take one home with no money down, no payments for four months, and monthly payments of less than a dollar a day afterwards. Now we're just waiting for the holiday sales numbers to see if it all pays off...

There's little argument that Apple's quality control had improved mightily in the past year. If you hadn't noticed, think back to the Amelio Era (also referred to in the Apple history books as "those dark, scary days"). Remember the Power Mac 4400, which didn't just look like a PC, but acted like one, too? Between its high out-of-box failure rate and the near impossibility of actually fixing the thing, we're trying to forget that Apple ever stooped so low as to ship such an utterly un-Mac-like Mac as the 4400. Then, of course, there were those Wintel-laptop-looking PowerBook 190's and 5300's; they weren't just overpriced and underfeatured, but they were constructed so poorly, Apple had to promise to replace the plastic housing on those things for years, since they'd crack if you looked at them sideways. And don't forget the highly entertaining syndrome whereby a mild-mannered PowerBook 5300 could suddenly become a "PowerBook Flambé." Ah, those were the days...

Stuff like that seems a lot less frequent from the Apple of today, but odd little problems still materialize every once in a while. For the "Weirdest Quality Control Problem" award, we've got a new issue surfacing that displaces the "PowerBook G3 rattling around loose in the box" syndrome that popped up several months ago. According to NoBeige, iMac keyboards are showing up warped-- but so far, the reports of warped keyboards are limited to Singapore. One of their readers claims that keyboards pulled from three iMac boxes were warped to the extent that they couldn't rest flat on the table; the fourth one they looked at was okay. How's that for a strange one?

As near as we can figure it, we have to attribute this syndrome to some kind of mutant plastic-eating bacteria running loose in Singapore. Apparently the bacterium in question is an inexplicably picky eater and only targets Bondi blue translucent plastics-- and only when used in keyboards. After the bacterium is done feasting on its favorite dish, the iMac keyboard warps due to its lessened structural integrity. Our only other hypothesis is that the Singapore iMac growers are letting the keyboards dry in the sun too long; once picked from the genetically-engineered Keyboard Tree, the fruit should be dried for only twelve hours in direct sunlight for maximum key response and optimal shape. Any longer, and the keyboard first starts to warp, and then to shrivel like a raisin. But whatever the problem is, we're confident that Apple will find it and correct it, guaranteeing iMac customers worldwide a warpless keyboard experience.

You know your company's made it big when you hold your annual shareholders' meeting while your own lawyers are fighting the Justice Department in court. (Actually, you know your company's made it big when your products run on well over 90% of the computers in use today, but that's the easy way to know.) Yup, the Microsoft shareholders' meeting went on even as Redmond-funded attorneys blasted away at Intel exec Steven McGeady, trying to punch holes in his claims that Bill Gates bullied Intel into ceasing software development. The shareholders' meeting gave Gates a chance to reiterate the party line to the company's supporters. A Computer Reseller News article has more on the rallying of the troops.

As Gates sees it, the DoJ is "misusing" email messages to mislead the judge, but that's okay because he's "confident Microsoft would prevail." The shareholders seem to be behind him on that one, judging by the standing ovation they gave him when he entered the auditorium. You've got to assume that the guy is frustrated, given that a year ago he claimed he was "confident the legal system [would] protect Microsoft's ability to compete." Instead, today he's got the headache of a mammoth antitrust lawsuit-- and we've got the top-notch entertainment known to AtAT faithfuls as "Redmond Justice."

Gates is sticking to the same script as always: Microsoft's business practices are the very antithesis of anticompetitive behavior. He maintains that Microsoft is being hounded for doing nothing other than improving its products. Aside from the fact that not a single Windows user we know has yet characterized Windows 98 as an actual noticeable improvement over Windows 95, he seems to be glossing over the little details, like all those threats. Perhaps someday we'll figure out how, exactly, threatening to cancel Office 98 could be viewed as improving upon Office 4.2.1 for the Mac. Er, poor example... Now that we think about it, we would rather use nothing at all than use Word 6.0 again. Hmmm, maybe Bill's on to something after all...