It's always a bit sad when a nice, juicy rumor dies a horrible twisted death, but with a few notable exceptions (that whole Disney-Apple buyout thing), every rumor must eventually either be proven true or sent to that Great Rumor Mill in the sky. So don the black armbands and wear a somber expression, because after only a few short days in circulation, the "Mac OS 9 Recall" rumor has officially passed on. Despite worrisome clues to the contrary, Mac OS 9 is alive and shipping, and rumors of its recall have been greatly exaggerated.

As it turns out, the whole hubbub was caused by-- wait for it-- a CompUSA "internal error." According to a MacWEEK article, CompUSA received way more copies of Mac OS 9 than they needed, and therefore issued an overstock-return order to send some copies back. But apparently somebody was still in a turkey-induced coma or something, because "some stores accidentally got the message to return all copies" of Mac OS 9 instead. When customers at those stores asked where all the Mac OS 9 boxes were, personnel said that they'd all been recalled. We in the Mac community took that info, threw in a dash of Microware OS-9 lawsuit paranoia, and, well, a feisty little rumor was born. (Awww, look, he's spreading... Isn't that cute?)

And so we pay our respects to a great rumor that burned brightly, but burned out quickly. CompUSA's working to restock those stores at which all copies were pulled and soon everything will be back to normal. Whatever's going on with Microware's lawsuit to protect its OS-9 trademark evidently hasn't resulted in an injunction yet, so Mac OS 9 is still out there and available-- and by the time anything happens in that case, it's entirely possible that Apple will have moved on to Mac OS X anyway. And for customers whose Macs won't run Mac OS X, we have a feeling that Mac OS 9 will be supplanted with a free bug-fix update that will re-brand the system "Mac OS X Lite" or something. But then again, that's just another rumor...

So just how many eOnes do you suppose eMachines has in stock, anyway? We all know that Sotec, the Japanese manufacturer of that particular iMac copycat, was barred from making or exporting any more of them, at least in the translucent blue and white casing. Yet eOnes are still on the shelves in Circuit City and Micro Center stores, at the very least. Does eMachines have a few million of them tucked away, somewhere? If so, it may not be long before huge flocks of eOnes start winging their way into U.S. homes-- for free. (Sorta.)

See, according to a MacCentral article, eMachines has just merged with Free PC Inc., those guys who "give away" Wintel systems to people willing to sign up for a few years' worth of Internet service. Which means that eMachines, the PC rookie who shot right into the big leagues in terms of retail sales, will soon have another distribution channel through which it can infect the world with cheap, ugly systems. Apple's closest similar marketing push involves a rebate for iMac customers willing to sign up for a long-term Compuserve contract, but that offer hasn't exactly been trumpeted from the rooftops. And the only company offering "free" iMacs is FreeMac.com.

But FreeMac.com doesn't seem any closer to giving away their million iMacs. In fact, they haven't even started yet, despite their anticipated launch date of a couple of months ago-- their web site still just says "very soon" (with a "late 1999/early 2000" note in the fine print) and has a sign-up form by which eager and interested parties can request to be notified the night before the real sign-up goes live. Forgive us if we're a little suspicious, here, but there are several factors that make us a bit leery. There's the lateness of the launch. There's the collection of name and address data along with email address for the notification sign-up-- why would they need that just to send email? And then there's the lack of any sort of privacy policy on the sign-up page. Now, we're not accusing FreeMac of anything, but our distrustful side can't think of any better way to collect lucrative Mac-targeted spam and junk-mail lists than by offering to give away free iMacs. (Could that have been the business plan all along?) Conspiracy theories aside, Apple's going to have a tough battle to fight in the low-cost consumer space against the likes of eMachines and Free PC.

New details are coming to light about Dell's latest move to copy Apple's recent consumer success. Sometime on Tuesday the company is expected to unveil the "WebPC," a low-cost computer that's aimed squarely at the Average Shmoe. The good folks at CNET seem to have weaseled a fair number of details about this new system, and the list of features may strike some of you as oddly familiar. Let's see, here... "stylized"; "easy-to-use"; "consumer-friendly"; "simplified means of connecting mice and keyboards"; "small, curvy case". Higher-end WebPCs will offer "a blue case" and "snap-on plastic keyboard and case covers that come in four different colors." Ringing any bells?

Now, here's the really interesting thing: a faithful viewer known only as "j" points out that the word "iMac" doesn't appear anywhere in CNET's article. Neither does the word "Apple." Apparently we've officially reached the stage at which the iMac is so firmly entrenched as a paradigm for the consumer computer market, there's no longer any need to mention it when other companies emulate its features and style in their own products. Hey, it was bound to happen. After all, articles about Windows don't throw in a sentence about its "borrowing" of the Mac OS interface any more, right? (There's also the distinct possibility that the article's author is either clueless or anti-Apple...)

Here's something else we found noteworthy: the WebPC is actually less configurable than an iMac, in terms of build-to-order. Dell pretty much pioneered the whole build-your-own-computer-online idea, which Apple later adopted for the Apple Store. One of the big criticisms of the Apple Store, though, is that its Macs aren't as configurable as they could be-- some systems don't allow the removal of a built-in modem, others require a built-in Zip drive, systems can't be ordered with no RAM and hard drive, etc. But with the WebPC, Dell's overtaken Apple in the "less configurable" department; you can pick the amount of RAM you want in your iMac, but the WebPC will come in "three configurations that will not vary." Yet more evidence of the Apple-ing of Dell.