Okay, we've had a full day to digest this whole fracas with Phil Schiller publicly denying any development of an Apple handheld computer, and the suspicion centers of our brains are starting to click into gear. Given all of the talk we've been hearing for so long, given all of the hints dropped by even Uncle Steve himself, is it really likely that Phil's bald statement that "there's nothing going on" regarding Apple's development of a handheld is an accurate portrayal of the situation? Consider, too, that while Steve hated the Newton because it was Sculley's baby, he obviously isn't pathologically averse to handhelds in general-- he admitted trying to buy Palm, and rumor has it that he tried to buy Handspring too. So with that in mind, we can't help but think there's more to the story of Phil's exasperated denial than its face value.

Now, for a highly-ranked marketing suit, Phil is remarkably guileless-- or, at least, he seems to be. Some would say he's got that "I'm far too cuddly to lie" vibe about him; others might replace the word "cuddly" with "simple," or even "dumb." The tricky bit is trying to determine whether that vibe is genuine, or all part of the act. If it's genuine, then we still consider it possible that Steve knew Phil would crack under the pressure, and intentionally kept him in the dark about Apple's top secret handheld development, figuring that sooner or later he'd spill the beans to the press. If the vibe is just a highly-effective front, then we figure Steve told Phil to put on his clueless face and go tell the press that there's no handheld in the works. (Steve couldn't pull it off himself, because people know him far too well; there are some things even a Reality Distortion Field can't smooth away.) Either way, the rumors get squelched, the rumormongers turn their attention to other things, and all the while Apple's lab gnomes tinker merrily away on some translucent PDA with full Palm compatibility, integrated Newton handwriting recognition, AirPort functionality, a built-in corkscrew, the requisite tweezers and toothpick, and a Columbus anti-gravity unit thrown in for good measure.

In the final analysis, what really pushes our conspiracy buttons is the way in which Phil-- not some nameless, faceless, junior "spokesperson," but Phil Schiller himself-- blatantly disregarded Apple's official policy of never commenting on rumors or unannounced products. This wasn't a rookie mistake; it's either a public relations blunder of fairly sizeable proportions, or a diabolical plan to draw attention away from Apple's real efforts. Frankly, at this point we're equally inclined to believe either scenario, but the latter is lots more fun, isn't it?

Oh, the games people play... or don't play, as the case may be. The latest word from WWDC doesn't sound very pleasant as far as the future of games on the Mac is concerned. According to a ZDNet article, Apple quietly announced that support for Game Sprockets in Mac OS X may not live up to earlier expectations; certain Sprockets will only be partially integrated, and others won't make the cut at all. That doesn't bode well for developers who wrote their existing Mac games with Game Sprockets assuming that, as hinted earlier, the APIs would be supported under Carbon, thus making a Mac OS X-native "tuning" much easier. Worse yet, there's some concern that the Sprockets-reliant games of today might not even function properly in Mac OS X's Classic environment.

Game Sprockets, for the uninitiated, are Apple's guts-level APIs that do lots of the heavy lifting for game programmers. By using them, a developer can spend less time figuring out how to integrate network play or add 3D stereo sound and more time crafting the perfect spurting arterial blood effect when a character's head gets torn off. Mark Adams, the one-man wrecking crew at Westlake Interactive responsible for single-handedly bringing dozens of games to the Mac, is "very disappointed and worried" about Apple's change of direction. "We were told Sprockets would be in Carbon," says Mark. "That would have made our lives a lot easier." Indeed, Apple's spent the last couple of years trying to convince games developers that the company is now striving to become the premiere gaming platform-- but actions like axing Sprockets are speaking louder than words.

On the other hand, it's not unlikely that ZDNet is playing a game of its own, and kicking up panic and angst unnecessarily. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) An article at X Appeal paints a far less dire picture: "while Game Sprockets was some kind of add-on (or a kind of wart) to the real OS, the facilities that Game Sprockets provided in OS 9 will just be built into Mac OS X and available to everyone, not just for gamers." So everything that Sprockets does will somehow be addressed in Mac OS X; for instance, InputSprocket's functionality will be taken over by the HID Manager, which will allow a wider and more flexible range of input device support. So there's probably no reason to panic-- though we certainly sympathize with those developers who are now going to have to rewrite a lot of Sprockets-specific code.

You can just smell the Sweeps Month in the air! The Justice Department and the remaining seventeen states in the "Redmond Justice" trial sent shock waves thundering across the planet when they filed their latest brief on Wednesday; you could almost hear the gasps of surprise when it did not turn out to be an enthusiastic endorsement of Microsoft's remedy plan, as all signs had indicated it would be. Instead, the show's writers have thrown us another curve-- the government actually issued a strongly-worded rebuttal, which dismantles Microsoft's plan point by point. Wow! We haven't seen a plot twist that unexpected since Angel went evil in the middle of Buffy's second season.

Faithful viewer and Microsoft watchdog Jerry O'Neil referred us to the New York Times summary of this startling development. In stark contrast to our expectations of a wholehearted acceptance of Microsoft's "we promise we'll be good if you don't split us up" proposal, the government instead called the Redmond plan "a cosmetic remedy that would have virtually no competitive significance" and one that "does not address some of the most important violations found by the court." Moreover, the brief calls Microsoft's proposed seven-month remedy hearing schedule "a transparent effort to delay the determination and implementation for its illegal acts as long as possible." BURN!!

So there you have it: the government's response to Microsoft's response to the government's proposal. The show's next episode kicks off the actual hearing phase of the remedy process next Wednesday. We had expected that Microsoft and the government would do the obvious thing and settle their differences, join hands, and sing in the spirit of peace and harmony-- but after this latest plot twist, we don't know what will happen. Maybe a trial of some sort. It's anybody's guess with those wacky writers at the helm!