Well, it's happened: what faithful viewer Steve P. refers to as the "Golden Sawtooth Rumor Convergence." Earlier this week, Apple Insider reported that Sawtooth, Apple's next pro motherboard, had fallen far behind schedule, and wouldn't ship until the first quarter of 2000. That sounded a bit fishy to us, since earlier rumors implied that Sawtooth was way ahead of schedule; in fact, for a while it sounded like Apple was considering shipping Sawtooth-based G3 Power Macs instead of waiting for Motorola to get the G4 processor out the door. (Why sit on a great motherboard just because the next-generation chip is late?) But Apple Insider was claiming pretty much the opposite: that the G4 chip is essentially done, but Sawtooth is lagging. They went on to claim that Apple is hard at work trying to get a G4 running on a tweaked current-generation Yosemite motherboard so that Power Mac G4 systems can ship before Sawtooth is ready.

Then, adding to our natural skepticism, we saw Mac OS Rumors' extended report on their week with a Sawtooth-based Power Mac G4 prototype. MOSR's experience seemed to indicate that Sawtooth was pretty stable-- far more stable than a system that wouldn't ship for another six months. So that's when we started wondering if perhaps Apple Insider had fallen prey to Apple-generated disinformation; the two reports just didn't seem to mesh. And then there's the little matter of Apple Insider's reported code name for the alleged G4-on-Yosemite project: "Yikes!" No offense, but while that appellation ranks high on the cool meter, it also smacks of more than the U.S. recommended daily allowance of "hoax."

Now, though, convergence has occurred. Both Apple Insider and Mac OS Rumors have updated their reports, and they're both saying that Sawtooth is in fact not expected to ship until next year. They also both agree that Yosemite-based systems with G4 chips will surface in a matter of weeks. And as for the "Yikes!" name? Mac the Knife has jumped on board, giving his inimitable seal of approval to the project and its alarming name. So there you have it; all the major rumor outlets have aligned on this one. If you were waiting for a Sawtooth-based G4 to be your next Mac, you're probably going to have to keep waiting. If, on the other hand, you don't mind a Yosemite motherboard, start scraping up some cash, because the first Yikes! G4 boxes might be shipping in a matter of weeks. And if Apple Insider is right, they'll be translucent white and grey...

Three suits, no waiting; it's a litigation hat trick for Apple regarding those iMac knock-offs. First they sued Future Power when they unveiled the ePower, which means that Future Power's currently-listed availability date of "early September 99" may be more than a little optimistic. Next, Apple tackled emachines, who took the stealth approach with their eOne (which suddenly appeared on Circuit City shelves before an Apple lawsuit could stop it). And now, according to a CNET article, Apple's taken on Sotec, the Japanese company that really makes the eOne-- which they sell as the "e-one" overseas. (Now there's innovation; emachines apparently couldn't even come up with their own iMac ripoff, so they just resell Sotec's here in the U.S.)

Apple filed this latest lawsuit in a Tokyo court and seeks a "provisional injunction" to block sales, alleging that the e-one "copied the industrial design of the award-winning iMac." According to the article, Sotec's e-one is "a hit" with Japanese consumers, so it could certainly threaten the iMac's success over there. Then again, we don't know what exactly constitutes a "hit," and we're a little hesitant to take the article's word for it, since in one paragraph it states that the e-one has been available since July 27th, and in another it lists the date as July 21st. (Attention to detail is a lost art these days, it seems.)

For their part, Sotec claims that Apple's lawsuit is "not fair" because Sotec "developed the e-one using [their] own technology." And that's where semantics and translation issues come into play, because while the e-one may well have been developed using Sotec's technology, that doesn't mean they didn't illegally copy Apple's design while doing it. But that's up to a judge to decide. Meanwhile, we can only assume that Apple's amassing a worldwide army of lawyers ready to take arms against a sea of counterfeiters, all in an attempt to protect the iMac's honor and good name. And whether or not Apple wins, the suits may at least help get the word out that the iMac is the original and the others are the copycats. Now the only remaining question is whether or not the consumers will care...

If you don't use or rely on Windows NT, consider yourself lucky. People who do have been waiting for NT 5 for so long now, even the name change to "Windows 2000" couldn't disguise the grey hairs and stress lines caused by the seemingly unending delays. But a CNET article now says that there might be light at the end of that long, long tunnel; at least some analysts are predicting that Microsoft will unveil Windows 2000 this November at the big Comdex show, and the operating system will actually finally be available to users "early in 2000."

Microsoft, however, is wise enough not to commit to any dates. "We're going to ship it when it's ready," says Craig Beilinson, Windows 2000's lead product manager. According to other Microsoft spokespeople, "when it's ready" won't be any sooner than the end of this year, at least as far as releasing a final version to manufacturers is concerned. That means that regardless of whether or not Microsoft trots out Windows 2000 to an oohing and aahing Comdex crowd in November, customers likely won't be able to buy Windows 2000-preloaded systems until maybe March. And all of these release dates rely on Windows 2000's second release candidate meeting with testers' approval-- and it's not expected to be out until mid-September.

Sadly, Apple's own next-generation operating system isn't here yet, either. When Apple bought NeXT way back in December of 1996, few of us thought it would take three and a half years to turn the Mac OS into a modern operating system, but that's how things seem to be going. Sure, Mac OS X Server is available already, but we just can't see it being widely adopted until the "client" version of Mac OS X ships and brings NeXT technology to every new Mac sold. With all the Windows 2000 delays, we had high hopes that Mac OS X could beat it to the punch, but while anything's possible, it looks like Mac OS X will be at least a few months behind Microsoft's next offering. Oh, well-- them's the breaks.