You're probably as sick of the John Dvorak "girly" wars as we are. You know what we're talking about; in a PC Magazine article, Dvorak ripped apart the iBook not because of its feature set, but because he feels it looks too effeminate to appeal to "real men" (meaning, apparently, men like him). That touched off a firestorm of debate, charges of sexism, and about a kajillion response columns analyzing Dvorak's comments in minute detail. And having read just about all of those kajillion responses, we've had enough. No amount of analysis, thoughtful counterpoint, or outright insult will settle the argument (though it's entertaining as all get out). What will settle the matter is waiting until the iBook hits the shelves and the sales figures emerge, at which point we'll find out whether or not Dvorak was right to call the iBook's stylings a "disaster."

But before we leave this subject for a couple of months, we'd like to point out two articles among the kajillion that we though were particularly cool. The runner-up goes to "iBook, GoodBook, OtherBook" by Andy Ihnatko, one of our favorite Mac writers, who slapped together a well-reasoned piece that clarifies how Apple has created a fresh new product that ought to sell like crazy without "steal[ing] a single sale away from the PowerBook G3 line." It's worthy of recognition because it takes some nice pokes at Dvorak's insecurity without ever mentioning names, and it manages to make the whole issue look as silly as it really is. And it gets bonus points for lauding the PowerBook 2400, for imploring Apple to create a new subnotebook, and for using the phrase "my eyes will immediately melt from my sockets."

The winner, though, is Donna Ladd's recent "Mac Chick" column, which makes a really good point: let's say Dvorak's right, and the iBook will be shunned by manly types who like beige computers and PC Magazine. Let's say the iBook only sells to "women, children, teens, college students, creatives, gays and even straight guys with style"-- all those groups that Dvorak derides in his column. Well, geez, that sounds like a pretty big market to us. And it also sounds like a market that only Apple is even considering. (We're flashing back to the news that half of the enormous Japanese iMac sales were going to women, who finally felt someone was making a computer for them.) So bring on the "girly" iBooks, because we're very interested to see, for example, what percentage of laptop-buying women buy an iBook. Basically, we acknowledge that John Dvorak has "issues" and he's not comfortable carrying a laptop that isn't black and boxy and, preferably, nice and big. (Real men don't carry subnotebooks either, right?) Maybe at some point in the future Apple will diversify its portable line and release a variation on the iBook that's jet black and angular, with metal studs, flame detailing, and a Harley logo on the lid. Heck, we'd probably buy one of those, too.

Never mind the "girly" comments-- critics said the iMac would flop in part because it looks like a toy, and it's whupping some serious tail out there in retail; just the same, the iBook's distinctive style will very likely only help sales, not hinder them. What people should really be concerned with is the substance behind the style; in other words, is the iBook's feature set strong enough to lure in the buyers? For the most part it's a solid machine, but there are omissions that are causing some hand-wringing.

Once again, we're seeing history repeat. Complaints about the iBook's "missing" features sound eerily familiar when compared to all those omissions that "doomed" the iMac before it even made it onto the shelves. One has no PCI slots, the other has no PC card slots. Neither has video-out. Neither allows the attachment of peripherals by any means other than USB, though that's less of a complaint these days-- amazing what a difference a year can make, right? I mean, has anyone heard anyone complaining about the iBook's lack of a floppy drive? But anyway, there is one criticism of the iBook's feature set that didn't apply to the iMac: the iBook lacks a built-in microphone. That's kind of a wacky thing to leave out on a student-oriented laptop, since the ability to record voice notes (or even an entire lecture-- heck, audio's relatively small) seems like a natural. And what about all these cool voice dictation products we're finally going to get for the Mac from IBM, MacSpeech, and Dragon Systems? Sure, IBM's working on a headset for ViaVoice that will plug into the iBook's USB port, but wouldn't a standard audio-in port make life easier for everyone?

Well, speaking of history repeating, remember the uproar when Apple announced that the iMac would come standard with a 33.6 kbps modem? Apple relented and switched to a 56K model before the system shipped. Interestingly enough, rumor has it that Apple's rethinking the whole "no microphone" issue for the iBook, as well; according to Mac the Knife, no less an authority than Steve Jobs himself is cracking the whip, following the criticism of the iBook's deafness; if true, then a built-in microphone may yet appear on the iBook before it ships, though it's so late we consider it a lot more likely to show up in a "Revision B" model later in the year. Personally, we'd probably rather have an audio-in port plus a cheap plug-in microphone thrown in the box; no built-in microphone is likely to be nearly good enough to use for voice recognition, which is why such software usually comes with its own special microphone. But we'll take anything we can get.

Hey, we were as surprised as anyone when, during his Macworld Expo keynote address last month, Steve Jobs unveiled Apple's next big operating system release, Mac OS 9. Not that we were surprised they were working on yet another revision to the Mac OS; the web is full of reports on the upgrade code-named "Sonata," which includes the beginnings of multi-user support, an improved Sherlock search utility, and the foundation for the migration to Mac OS X when it finally appears next year. No, what made our eyebrows raise a few notches was the fact that Sonata was going to be Mac OS 9, instead of the widely-assumed Mac OS 8.7.

See, the moniker "Mac OS 9" disappeared from Apple's OS road map quite a while ago, and most of us figured that the reason was the existing presence of another operating system with a similar name: Microware's OS-9. OS-9 is a real-time operating system that's targeted at embedded systems, and to make matters worse, it runs on the PowerPC architecture. So there was widespread speculation that Apple was steering clear of the Mac OS 9 name to avoid trademark problems with Microware-- and when the Mac OS 9 name reappeared at the Expo, some of us foolishly assumed that Apple had come to some agreement with Microware that allowed the use of the name.

So how naïve were we? When it comes to trademarks, Apple has traditionally embraced the doctrine that it's better to act first and apologize later than to ask for permission. (The use of the very name "Macintosh" is the legendary example.) It really shouldn't have surprised us to see Apple Insider's report that Microware is gearing up to sue Apple as soon as the first Mac OS 9 CDs roll off the line. Microware has apparently warned Apple of their intent, and if the rumors are true, Apple has "hurriedly been readying a second release of their Mac OS 9 Operating System under a new name, which is currently unknown." Let's see, we've had Mac OS 8, 8.1, 8.5, 8.6, and we know Mac OS X is coming later. So what can Apple use in place of "9"? "8.7" would make it tough for Apple to justify the upgrade's $99 price tag. Perhaps "Mac OS IX"?