Where to begin? We're suffering from an advanced state of information overload, following Steve Jobs' Expo keynote. He had such sights to show us-- important sights, like the network booting feature of the imminently-shipping Mac OS X Server; real-time video netcasting to fifty iMacs connected to a single Mac OS X Server box; new commercials, featuring the new iMacs and the Y2K bug; and so much more. Perhaps even more notable were the omissions: no P1 (as Apple had stated, though we had to keep hoping), no MacMate or Apple/Palm announcement, no official release of QuickTime 4 even though it was used in the videocasting demo. And of course there were the biggie announcements-- iMac features boosts and price cuts, Yosemites available now from the Apple Store, a fifth consecutive profitable quarter... out of all of this, where could we possibly begin?

Why, at the conspiracy theory, of course! Believe it or not, the biggest news of the day may well be the official announcement that the iMac is now available in five different colors. Sure, the increase in clock speed from 233 MHz to 266 is a nice little bump, and increasing the hard disk capacity from 4 GB to 6 is a pleasant bonus. And the price drop of $100 is nothing to sneeze at, either. But let's face it-- those changes aren't going to attract new buyers in droves the way that being able to choose a color will. The iMac, whose translucent case was actually designed with the input of professional candy makers, now comes in five fruit flavors: lime, tangerine, strawberry, blueberry, and grape. And they sure do look yummy. (The iMac is, to the best of our knowledge, the first computer that users must suppress the urge to lick.) And as faithful viewer Steve Pissocra points out, "the new colors of the iMac very faithfully mirror the color bands of the old logo." Almost.

Which is where the conspiracy theory comes in. As faithful viewer Jim rightfully exclaims, "WHERE'S BANANA?! I WANT iMACS TO BLEED IN 6 COLORS!" Yes, he's shouting, and we think he has a right to. Why did Apple stop one color short of making iMacs available in versions of the six colors from the groovy 70's style logo? A "banana" or "lemon" iMac would have completed the set. Granted, they couldn't call it a "lemon" without becoming the butt of endless new jokes, but "banana" would have been quite suitable. Maybe their market research shows that few people would buy a yellow computer, but what about the Apple-crazy Mac collectors? Those same people who laid out $7000 for a 20th Anniversary Macintosh when they first shipped probably wouldn't hesitate to drop $7194 on a complete set of six iMacs, just to line them up in the order of the old logo. So what's the real reason that there's no yellow iMac in the product line? Our guess: Steve doesn't like bananas.

We were prepared for the unveiling of the new Power Mac G3's, code-named Yosemite. We had armed ourselves with rational reasons why we just shouldn't buy one right now-- after all, the AtAT workhorse is a PowerTower Pro that's only two years old, and we're saving up to relocate the studios into more spacious digs. (Read: we're planning on buying a house.) Sure, the once-blazing 200 MHz 604e is now feeling pretty pokey for certain things, but most of those "certain things" are games, and we've got to be practical about major capital expenditures like a new professional computer. The bottom line is, the PowerTower has more than enough RAM, sufficient hard disk space (and plenty of drive bays), decent graphics performance, and functions plenty well for the task of cranking out AtAT day after day. Then we watched Steve roll out the new system and all those rational reasons flew out the window.

Okay, that's not exactly true. As we watched the unveiling through the magic of RealVideo, our first reaction to the El Capitan casing was less than flattering. From the side it's a square with points sticking out of its corners-- those handles may be functional, but they sure seem to fit into the "Fashion Don't" category. But after getting a look at the thing from all angles, it's pleasing. Quite pleasing. And we expect it to grow on us even more, given that our first reaction to the iMac's design wasn't overly positive either, and now we think it's the cat's pyjamas. Sure, we would have preferred original Studio Display-style midnight blue to the iMac-classic Bondi Blue and Ice, but again, it's a minor point. And once we saw the matching displays and the way the new case opens with the turn of a single knob, well, it's getting harder to say no. (Anyone who, like us, has actually bled into the innards of a butt-ugly, sharp-metal-edged PowerTower Pro while trying to install RAM will understand the inherent appeal of the Yosemite design.)

So let's recap: Yosemite is here. It looks like an iMac got into the teleporter without seeing a G3 Minitower hiding in the corner. It's fast, more than expandable enough for our needs, and has a very user-friendly (and knuckle-friendly!) design. And here's the kicker-- it's available now, and starts at only $1599 for the base version. Heck, even a standard 400 MHz model costs only $2519 from the Apple Store-- less than we paid for the PowerTower. Yeesh. Er, so who really needs a house anyway, right? If you want to learn more about how the new G3's might tempt you to spend unwisely, Macworld has a review of sorts including several photographs from different angles.

Games! They're the driving force behind the consumer personal computer market. Sure, people claim they need a computer to run Quicken and bring home work from the office, but it's really all about games. So is it any wonder that Apple trails in the race for consumer market share? The iMac's giving them a boost, no doubt, but the simple fact still stands that many, many more games exist for the Wintel platform. And we're not just talking about the loads of shovelware DOS-based crap that no one would want to play anyway; while there's definitely plenty of that, many of the best games out for personal computers aren't out for the Mac. Games like Half-Life, Quake II, and stuff like that. That's the bad news. The good news is that Apple has been doing something about the whole game disparity issue.

First of all, there's the iMac itself. Apple sold 800,000 of the little blue wonders between August 15th and December 31st, and it was the best-selling computer in November. Therefore, the Mac installed base is growing, and games publishers are starting to take notice. But Apple didn't stop there. Two mega-huge announcements during the Expo keynote mean big, big things for the Mac as a gaming platform (and therefore as a consumer computing platform). The first is Connectix's new Virtual Game Station product, the Playstation emulator first reported by Apple Insider. For only $49, iMac owners can buy themselves the capability to play some 1200 Playstation games right on their iMac screens. If somebody ships a USB Playstation-style controller, the iMac may turn into a kick-butt gaming system overnight.

And though the Playstation emulator is huge news, it's the second surprise that may have the bigger impact on Mac gaming in the long run. Apple has officially licensed OpenGL from SGI. For the uninitiated, OpenGL is a set of programming interfaces for 3D development. It's the closest thing to an industry standard that's out there right now. Apple has pledged to support OpenGL at the operating system level, and while that may not sound like a big deal, trust us-- it is. John Carmack of id software (and the creator of Doom and Quake) actually took the stage during the keynote to announce that Quake 3 (Arena) will ship for the Macintosh. This is a well-respected (though not always well-liked) man in the games development community, who in the past has publicly stated that the Mac OS is "crusty" and "Apple doesn't have their 3D act together at all." His very public endorsement of the Mac OS and Apple's final choice to embrace OpenGL could herald a whole new era of Mac games development-- not just late ports of Wintel best-sellers. And on behalf of those of use who were expecting an announcement about Apple licensing OpenGL at last year's Expo, we can only say, it's about time.