If there's one factor contributing most to the hesitancy of potential computer buyers, it's probably the constant niggling fear that as soon as they plunk down x dollars for a particular model, a week later the same computer will suddenly be available for, say, x-500 dollars. That's why we're always hesitant to talk about any rumors of upcoming Apple price drops; some people who were all set to buy an iMac suddenly decide that they want to wait for the price reduction-- which may never materialize at all. Apple loses a sale, and the potential customer loses out on having a really cool computer for a while longer. Nobody really wins in such a situation.

In fact, reports of iMac price reductions have been circulating for several months now, and people who were waiting for Apple to make the iMac a sub-$1000 machine for the holiday buying season are probably pretty disappointed that everyone's favorite consumer computer is holding steady at $1299. We never fully believed that the iMac would drop to $999 before the end of the year, given how strong the demand has been at the current price point; Apple's going to sell as many as they can for $1299, make no mistake about that. The latest rumors of an iMac price drop say that the sub-$1K move now won't happen until this February, which makes a lot more sense. According to Computer Retail Week, the price cut will coincide with the release of a new iMac model with a "larger hard drive and more processing power;" the current "revision B" iMacs will drop to under $1000 in price, while the new "souped-up" models will sell at the familiar $1299 point.

Of course, people who have been buying computers for a while usually eventually come to realize that if you keep waiting for the best deal, you could end up waiting forever. It's tough to know just when to buy, but when it comes to the iMac, our personal recommendation is this: if you want one, and you'll get plenty of use out of it between now and February, go ahead and buy it now. Sure, you might be able to save a few hundred dollars by waiting another two or three months, but there's no guarantee that the price will actually drop, and by then, even if it does happen, you'll just be second-guessing yourself again with the rumors of another price drop in May. The people who took the plunge and bought iMacs seem to love them and consider them well worth the price. Your mileage may vary.

Regular viewers will recall that a couple of months ago, there was a bit of a flap about how Apple Expo 98, the largest Apple-focused trade show set in London, was going to be missing one very important ingredient: Apple. Just imagine if this January's Macworld Expo were to take place without Apple in attendance; it'd kick up quite a stink, wouldn't it? So yeah, things got a little tense over in England back when Apple U.K. announced that they were pulling out of the London show due to disagreements with Emap Trenton, the show's sponsor, who decided to run a second trade show alongside Apple Expo. "Total Design Technology" would run concurrently in the same convention hall, and would be cross-platform and targeted at designers. Apple U.K. didn't like that, so they bailed, much to Emap's surprise.

Well, the show took place last week (seeing as the English don't celebrate Thanksgiving), and according to one report, the event was as underwhelming as you'd probably expect. The conference hall was split down the middle, with Apple Expo on one side, and Total Design Technology on the other. People attending both shows actually had to have their badges swiped every time they wanted to cross from one side to the other. That inconvenience might not have been too much to bear-- if there had been much reason to cross the divide at all, or in fact to be on either side in the first place. Apple Expo lacked a number of big names on the show floor; Apple's withdrawal apparently also sparked the absence of Adobe, Quark, Microsoft, etc. The vendors that did show up reportedly lacked enthusiasm. As for the cross-platform show, well, it sounds as though most of the vendors on that side of the fence were just selling large-format color printers. Hmmm.

So there you have it: Portrait of a Non-Event. It's somewhat debatable whether the apparent failure of this show was entirely due to Apple's no-show, but it was undoubtedly a factor. When they announced their intention to skip Apple Expo, Apple U.K. said they'd be throwing their own trade show instead, to take place sometime in 1999. Let's hope that affair goes a little better.

So if you're a United States denizen, another Thanksgiving has come and gone; what were you thankful for? After all, when it comes to Apple-related stuff, there was a lot to give thanks for this year: Steve Jobs' continued CEO-ship, continuing profitability, impending growth, the unbelievable success of the iMac, etc. Perhaps you reflected on these many blessings as you ate yourself into a digestive coma and dreamed happy little Mac dreams.

As for us, we had a particularly timely thing to give thanks for; we were grateful to Core Development for posting the "Drawing Board" theme on their website. As it turns out, "Drawing Board" is apparently one of several themes that were originally planned to ship with Mac OS 8.5; it makes the interface of your Mac look and feel like an architect's sketch pad. Window borders and icons are sketched in overlapping pencil lines, checkboxes become red pencil check marks, highlighted menu items are underlined in red pencil, scrolling through menus sounds like shuffling through papers... you get the idea. It's a very pretty piece of work, and we were thankful to be able to try it out. Unfortunately, it turns out that it wasn't Core Development's to give away; once Apple got wind of the link, they requested that distribution cease, and Core complied.

So now we're mostly just thankful that we got to download the theme and try it out before it got pulled. And given how cool "Drawing Board" was when we tried it, we're also thankful that Core Development is working on a "theme construction tool" that will allow third parties to make their own themes for Mac users to install and enjoy. We really hope that Apple decides to release its themes at some point in the near future, if not as part of an operating system update, at the very least as an optional download from their web site. If the other themes they've been working on (including the "High-Tech" and "Gizmo" looks we've seen in screenshots ever since Copland was the big buzz) are anywhere near as cool, we're anxiously awaiting their release.