In August, the iMac made its retail debut and hell froze over, all translucent blue and white. Once the dust had settled and the numbers were tallied up, it became clear that the iMac was the second best-selling computer for the month of August-- a fact made all the more remarkable by its mid-month introduction. In the short term, at least, Apple had a real winner. Then the September numbers came out, and since everyone who'd been chomping at the bit for an iMac since the previous May had run out and gotten one in August, the iMac's position in the retail charts fell to third place. Now, when you consider the issue of pent-up demand and all that, third place for September was a great place to be, but the press didn't see it that way. They took it as a sign that the iMac's popularity was waning, and for a while, we were inundated with stories about how the iMac was only a flash in the pan.

If that's so, then the pan is flashing again. PC Data has just released the sales figures for October, and according to a MacTimes article, the iMac inched its way back up into the second slot again. And while at first we assumed that this was due largely to the release of the revision B iMacs and the $29.99-a-month loan program, we soon realized that both of those developments occurred so late in October that they probably barely affected the sales figures at all. Hopefully that means in a month's time, we'll have some really nice November numbers with which to ring in the new year.

Incidentally, the MacTimes article makes another very interesting observation: the sub-$1000 personal computer is conspicuously underrepresented in the list of the top-selling home computers. Four of the five best sellers came in over the $1000 mark, and the top seller, the Compaq Presario 5050, has an average selling price of over $1500. For those of you who are still clinging to the hope that Apple will cut the price of the iMac before the end of the year, we've got to say, the chances look pretty slim; the average $1266 that iMacs are bringing in seems to be a very popular price point. Then again, if Apple had charged $999 instead, the iMac might have topped the list-- but for a good balance between profit and market share, it looks like the iMac is priced pretty darn well for the holidays.

Early this year, Apple was poised for a powerful comeback after years of bleeding red ink and market share. Steve Jobs had retaken the helm "indefinitely" and made several bold moves to steer Apple away from an iceberg primarily of its own making. Many of those choices were, uh, "unpopular--" killing the clone market springs to mind-- but few can dispute that, overall, things were looking up; the G3's were selling well, Mac OS 8 was a success, Apple's build-to-order online store was popular both with customers and industry analysts, the "Think Different" ad campaign had people talking, and Jobs revealed that Apple would be posting its first real profit in a good long time. Good news all around (as long as you ignored the bad news, of course). While it was still too early to say for sure, it really looked like Apple had turned the corner, and that's why a lot of us were hoping that Apple would take a page from its own history and let the world know by advertising during the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl has long been known as the event during which to air groundbreaking new commercials (as well as dreck like the Intel Bunnymen-- yecch), and Apple had one of the best ever: the 1984 ad which ushered in the age of Macintosh. Since last January it looked like the Mac was back, several of us were somewhat disappointed that Apple didn't air a special "Think Different" ad during the event. Evidently Apple felt it had better things to buy with the $1.3 million than a thirty-second Super Bowl ad. In retrospect, we at AtAT have to agree with Apple's decision; there were still too many questions left unanswered, and the public at large certainly had no particular reason to believe that Apple was still a factor in the computer industry. Remember, this was before the iMac turned the world upside down, and a thirty-second ad-- even a Super Bowl one-- touting Apple's greatness would likely have been a premature gesture.

Not anymore, however. After four consecutive profitable quarters, the unveiling of the PowerBook G3's to rave reviews, and the iMac's big Bondi blue footprint on the minds of the public, Apple has decided it's time to announce its resurgence. According to an Ad Week article, Apple's already committed the $1.6 million or so for a slot, and we can hardly wait to see what they and ad agency TBWA Chiat/Day have up their sleeves. Considering that they haven't advertised during the Super Bowl since 1985, we'll take anything we can get, but only an ad that rivals the 1984 commercial will really feel right. And we should mention that our irrational fear that the ad will simply be thirty seconds of Steve sitting quietly and smiling is completely unfounded. (Wouldn't it be creepy, though?)

And the band played on... Despite warnings from the Judge last week, Microsoft lawyer Michael Lacovara kept the pace slow and "tedious" on "Redmond Justice" as he spent his fourth day grilling government witness Frederick Warren-Boulton in cross-examination. A CNET article paints the final day of Lacovara's seemingly endless questioning as a "painstaking repeat of the previous three days," during which he "challenged nearly every one of Warren-Boulton's assertions." Apparently the latest strategy is to bore the Judge so thoroughly that he dismisses the case out of frustration.

That all changes on Tuesday, though, when the focus of the trial will thankfully shift away from tiresome economic arguments and towards the hopefully juicier issues of whether or not Microsoft attempted to kill the Windows-threatening cross-platform software ideal by poisoning Java. According to an InfoWorld Electric story, the next witness to take the stand will be James Gosling, the Sun fellow who created Java itself. Up to now, the government's case hasn't focused very tightly on the whole Java question, so many of us are looking forward to hearing how the case builds up from here. And that preliminary injunction that Sun won against Microsoft a couple of weeks ago is almost sure to enter the picture.

By the way, Microsoft is reportedly still planning to file a motion "to have the government's case dismissed" after the government is done calling all of its witnesses. Microsoft's rationale? According to Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan, "All the witnesses that already have spoken right now show that this case can be dismissed based on the facts already presented." Hmmm, what channel are they watching? Apparently that's what one sees when one looks at the world through Redmond-colored glasses.