Like any other wildly successful entity, Microsoft faces a lot of charges these days-- both in and out of the courtroom. They've been called ruthlessly anticompetitive, mediocre creators of shoddy software, and a whole slew of other things, too-- but the one thing that really seems to stick in Bill Gates' craw is hearing that his company isn't innovative. You've heard the allegations a gazillion times, just as Bill has: Microsoft never comes up with its own innovations, but instead waits for other companies to lead the way with new technologies and then either buys them out or cranks out a cheap ripoff that succeeds because of Microsoft's virtual software monopoly. Accusations like that can't be helping Microsoft in the "Redmond Justice" trial very much, but perhaps more importantly, they really chafe Bill Gates' billion-dollar buns. After all, after hearing for the umpteenth time that Windows is a lame knockoff of the Macintosh experience, we can see how the "Microsoft is not an innovator" line might be wearing a little thin.

That's presumably why Bill's recent Comdex keynote was essentially an extended demonstration that Microsoft is an innovator. The shining example of this, said Bill, was Microsoft's forthcoming ClearType technology, which is a new way of smoothing fonts on a computer screen; reportedly it produces results much clearer than old-fashioned antialiasing, particularly on LCD screens like those used for laptops and PDA's. Since ClearType's patents are still pending, the technical details of how it accomplishes its magic are still not public, but those who looked on at Comdex were impressed with the shown examples of ClearType-smoothed text. Microsoft may have a real winner with ClearType: a solid innovation that will change the world for the better.

Except that Microsoft didn't actually invent it. At least, that's what developer Steve Gibson is saying, according to a PC World article. After hearing the description of ClearType and how it "splits pixels" in its font-smoothing technique, a little alarm went off in his head. He went digging through his garage and pulled out some old Apple II technical manuals, which confirmed his suspicions: ClearType may actually be using a font-smoothing technique used by Apple over twenty years ago. Gibson then called up Steve Wozniak to "compare notes," who confirmed his suspicions. What's more, Apple not only patented the technique, but it happened so long ago that the technology is now in the public domain. When ClearType's technical specifications are finally made public, we'll know for sure if it's truly a Microsoft innovation, or just another instance in which Microsoft showed up twenty years too late for Apple's party. If it's the latter, you know what that means for Bill: Foot in mouth. Egg on face. All that stuff. (Of course, fifty billion dollars can soothe a world of hurt, so you know who'll have the last laugh.)

The fact that a new, chunkier version of the iMac is in the works is fairly old news these days. In fact, that particular rumor has been circulating for long enough that a lot of people have even stopped speculating about what's going to change in next year's model. Still, that doesn't stop Mac OS Rumors, who has a special report on the next iMac, code-named "C2." It may not be due until the middle of next year, but it's not too early to start getting excited about the next generation of Apple's consumer desktop system.

One of the harshest criticisms of the original iMac (and one of the most valid, in our opinion) was that it failed in one crucial aspect of the consumer computer experience: it wasn't a kick-ass game machine. It had the terribly anemic 3D performance of the ATI RAGE II+ chip, so many of the most popular games like Quake and Unreal just couldn't keep up. Things started to look up in the revision B iMacs, though, when the graphics chip was upped to a RAGE Pro; with three times the 3D performance (and three times the video RAM), 3D gaming got a serious boost with the rev. B's, and it showed that Apple was starting to pay attention. But if Rumors is correct, next year's C2 will go even further, with a RAGE 128 chip that even outperforms the vaunted 3Dfx Voodoo 2 in certain situations. Combine that with the C2's reported 333 MHz G3 processor, and suddenly, the iMac is a serious gaming machine, capable of running even the most resource-intensive games without blinking a Bondi blue eye.

And speaking of Bondi blue, that's the other news about C2: it may come in different colors. Rumors of multihued iMacs have been floating around since well before the first models even hit the shelves, but the claim now is that Steve Jobs has actually approved seven new colors for the C2, and that iMacs may even be color-coded by speed if multiple iMac configurations are sold. Personally, we tend to doubt this last point, since the iMac is all about simplicity-- it seems unlikely that Apple would decide to muddy the waters and confuse the buying public by shipping several different iMacs with different feature sets. (Maybe only allow options at the build-to-order Apple Store?) But shipping several iMacs whose only difference was case color? Now that would be cool-- collect them all!

Palm this. Palm that. Everywhere we turn, we hear about Palm PDA's. Not that we're bitter, mind you-- we don't want you to think that we're just Newton-clinging holdouts of a bygone era. (Well, okay, we are.) It's just that we wish we could have the best of both worlds-- the ease of use and elegance of the Newton experience combined with the size, weight, cost, and applications of the Palm. For the longest time, it seemed like we were simply dreaming a wonderful dream-- which went up in smoke when Apple killed the Newton project entirely. But now we're starting to dream again.

First of all, there are all these rumors about the MacMate. The MacMate is supposed to be a Mac OS-based handheld computer that will be released sometime in 1999, with a feature set better than the Newton MessagePad 2000. If it turns out to be true, that'd be a great thing. But we're starting to suspect that the MacMate won't be Mac OS-based at all; have you noticed how often Palm and Apple have been seen together lately? Apple's just posted web pages on Palm that are so cheerleader-y, there's got to be something behind them. Palm, meanwhile, bought Claris Organizer from Apple and is in the process of turning it into the new conduit software that connects your Palm to your Mac; a beta is available now. In addition, Apple's been hard at work trying to lure Palm developers to the Mac side of the fence, by giving them deals on iMacs and the like, in an attempt to make the Macintosh the Palm development platform of choice. And then there are those interviews with Steve Jobs in which he admits that Apple had even tried to buy Palm a little while ago. Yessirree, there's a lot happening between the two companies.

Which is why we're suspecting that the MacMate is simply going to be an Apple co-branded Palm PDA. We're not too thrilled about that prospect, because if we wanted a Palm, we'd have bought one by now. The other possibility, which we're really hoping for, is that Apple and Palm will soon announce that they're working together on the MacMate. Imagine the possibilities; Apple never sold off the Newton technologies, so the handwriting recognition engine is available, as are all the other cool things that made the Newton OS such a joy to use. Imagine the offspring of an Apple-Palm alliance. Mac OS Rumors claims that such a partnership is already in the works. Oh, to dream the impossible dream...