Wow. Wow! No, really-- wow. Is any of this sinking in? Because "wow" is our admittedly unimaginative monosyllabic response to seeing an honest-to-goodness photograph of a Graphite "Kihei" iMac. And if you're not just saying "wow" over and over again yourself, you probably haven't seen it yet. If that's the case, then this is one of those sad moments in life when the aphorism "you snooze, you lose" applies so perfectly; predictably, following what we imagine must have been a truly impressive apoplectic fit, Steve Jobs released the legal hounds and got Apple Insider to pull the image.

And we would have been fools to assume otherwise. After all, here's Apple, trying hard to make iMac 2.0 everything that the critics said iMac 1.0 was not; they add high-speed peripheral expansion via FireWire, pop in a DVD-ROM drive, slap a very capable 3D chipset on the motherboard, toss in a luscious melange of other compute-y goodness, and wrap the whole thing up in an even niftier-looking new enclosure-- only to have a photo of the new masterpiece posted to a high-traffic rumors site effectively ruining the surprise. Of course Apple had the image pulled at light speed. And no, we're not going to dig through our browser's cache files to find it and post it, because the last thing we need right now is the Wrath of Steve beating down upon our heads and shoulders; Apple's our favorite computer company, and it would be bad karma to tick them off.

That said, we just have to say this: Apple pulled it off. They really did. They managed to come up with a new iMac design that's clearly a continuation of the original, but it feels newer, crisper, and more modern. By incorporating RF shielding into the translucent plastic shell itself, Apple's managed to do away with the metal shielding that surrounds the innards of existing iMacs, making the Kihei the modern computing equivalent of The Visible Man-- you can see all the guts. Kihei's going to sell like crazy this holiday season, mark our words... In fact, we're sorely tempted to trade up our Bondi Blue model, but we could never really part with the funky blue guy. (Perhaps another iMac for the dining room?) Meanwhile, Apple Insider has probably just made the top spot on Steve's Most Wanted list for posting an actual photo of an unreleased and unannounced product, so we hope they're watching their backs. (Note: at broadcast time, several MacNews.de Kihei photos-- in Graphite, as well as in fruit flavors-- were still available at Mac OS Rumors. Hurry, or you'll miss your chance. Apple's lawyers move fast.)

But Kihei is just what's next on the horizon for Apple's continued consumer success. While sales of current iMacs appear to be flagging slightly, what's making waves here and now is the iMac-To-Go: the iBook. With over 160,000 pre-orders logged before the first chubby little portables even made it out the door, Apple stands to repeat its iMac success with the consumer-oriented laptop that you can toss in a backpack. That is, assuming customers can ever actually get their hands on them; Steve may have announced that iBooks were shipping way back on September 15th, but they must have been sent via that drunk stork in the Bugs Bunny cartoons ("When it absolutely, positively has to be there at some point in the nebulous future"), because as of yesterday, there still wasn't any sign of the first iBooks preordered.

That's all changed, now, though. It appears that the stork is back on the wagon and has made at least some of his scheduled deliveries, because reports are trickling in from the happy souls who placed the very first pre-orders. Faithful AtAT viewer Gavin Holden Jones loves his new Blueberry bundle of joy, for instance. And there are a couple of reports from iBook Planet readers, too, who confirm the arrival of their bouncing baby 'books. Want photographic evidence? Just look at these adorable snapshots of the new addition to Brian B.'s family-- arrived 9/27/99, home safe and sound. So if you've got an iBook on order and you were wondering if Apple would ever ship the things, hang in there-- real people are receiving real iBooks. Really. Now it's just a matter of time before Apple fills the other 159,996 pre-orders. Piece of cake.

However, we should mention that there have been some reports of minor glitches with the first iBooks received in the field. In particular, MacProvider notes several reader reports of a "slanted keyboard"; "the left side of the keyboard is slightly higher than the right." Huh. In addition to that little quirk, there have also been some reports of the mouse cursor "clicking in random places." No word on whether or not the problem is alleviated by turning off the clicking and dragging options in the Trackpad control panel. Lastly, unless you're left handed, don't bother trying to use an iMac mouse with the iBook, because the cord apparently just isn't long enough. But these are just the kinds of quirks that a mother learns to love...

Millennium!! It's an impressive word, right? It's something that happens once in a thousand years. It sends shivers right up the spine. Magnificent! Imposing! A breakthrough the likes of which we've never seen before! Unless, of course, you're talking about the "Millennium" version of Windows, which is sounding less impressive by the minute. Faithful viewer Jerry O'Neil points out a Sm@rt Reseller article which reveals that Microsoft's Next Big Consumer Operating System™ may not live up to its name.

Millennium was originally scheduled to be a major Windows upgrade available to consumers this month; instead, the first beta version of the OS is only just being seeded to testers this week. And while the original plans for the system included a multitude of new features like a "new user interface" and "Activity Centers" (which sound like OS-level "wizards" to guide users through specific application tasks), now it looks as though Millennium won't boast any new features at all. In fact, Millennium may turn out to be such a minor upgrade, Microsoft may release it as a downloadable Service Pack instead of a full shrink-wrapped operating system. And that's really saying something, considering that the shrink-wrapped Windows 98 was little more than Windows 95 plus a bunch of freely-downloadable bug fixes and the new version of Internet Explorer.

So now that Millennium is shaping up to be little more than a Windows 98 service release, perhaps its time that Microsoft rethinks its code name. Then again, maybe "Millennium" could still work; a name that connotes a sense of enormity and scope is still quite appropriate for a beta operating system that, according to a beta tester, is "bloated, taking up almost 2 GB of space." Good lord. It sounds like the Death Star of operating systems. Millennium, indeed.