When you play the Apple prediction game, you have to decide just how far out on the limb you're willing to climb. Those who play it safe and stay lashed to the tree's trunk are content with sticking to the obvious and the general, stating, for example, that "the iMac will be revised at some point in the future." Well, duh-- that's right up there in difficulty with predicting that "within a week these bananas will go bad." Way to go, Criswell. A broad foretelling of future happenings based solely on repeated past events may technically qualify as a prediction, but it's about as exciting as listening to paint peel.

Those who are willing to crawl out a bit further might tackle the issue of when this inevitable iMac revision is going to surface. This is only tricky because Apple has a tendency to buck the conventional wisdom and either introduce new products a bit earlier than most people expect (e.g. the Power Mac G4) or, in most cases, much later (e.g. Pismo, Lombard, Wall Street, iBook, the legendary and still vaporous Apple-Palm, etc.). However, even picking a release date for the new iMac is a pretty safe bet these days-- it's long overdue already, and all indications show that Apple's trying to clear the channel of the current iMacs ASAP. Add in the fact that Apple likes to introduce new products at large media gatherings and consider that the biggest East Coast consumer-oriented Mac convention is happening next month, and voilà: you've got a date of mid-to-late July, 2000. We wouldn't bet our first-born on it if we were you, but all things considered, there are far worse things to put your money on.

Those who will go way out on that limb will actually try their hand at predicting just what the new iMac will be. AppleInsider is one site that's always willing to give it a shot, bolstered by illicit data smuggled out through Cupertino's Silicon Curtain; its sources not only "confirm" such predictable advances as larger hard disks ("up to and beyond 20 GB") and more RAM, but also continue to claim that the new iMac DV Special Edition will have a 400 MHz G4 processor thumping at its core-- though the standard iMac and iMac DV will merely get a G3 speed boost to 450 MHz. We were a bit surprised to read that these new iMacs reportedly have a new motherboard under the hood, adding support for mysterious and unspecified "new technologies that will debut" on the revised systems. Anyone want to venture a guess as to what these "new technologies" might be? We hardly think the rumored new full-size keyboard would necessitate something as drastic as severe changes to the motherboard design-- though it sure would explain why Apple's been shipping the teeny models for the past two years.

Any further mention of the earlier "17-inch screen" prediction is conspicuously absent, so you may want to adjust your bets accordingly. But the buzz about the "iBox" architecture (which allegedly will allow customers to choose what kind of display-- 15-inch CRT, 17-inch CRT, or 15-inch LCD-- they want on their iMacs) has shaken loose a few interesting rumors here at AtAT. Several viewers wrote in claiming that when the iBox iMacs ship (whether next month or further down the line), the 15-inch flat-panel LCD option will be the standard. Bestill our wildly palpitating hearts! Could it be true? Will the iMac owner of the future compute merrily away without an electron gun pumping away at his or her frontal lobe? Now that's a prediction that's way out on the edge.

Who would have thought that yesterday's throwaway reference to the Newton's unlikely return would actually generate some discussion? We took a highly suspicious online claim-- somebody said that Apple was having new Newton boxes printed at his place of business-- and tacked it on to the long list of fun but deliriously sketchy tidbits that collectively make up the Apple Handheld Apocrypha. The idea that Apple would actually revive the Newton, a product it publicly put to death, is so ludicrous we hardly thought it worth mentioning. But is it so wacky after all? Remember, even after Apple shut down the project, the company stubbornly refused to sell the technology to any interested parties. Plus, consider Apple's less-than-zero marketing efforts throughout the Newton's last few years of life; every time a new device shipped, there'd be a deafening advertising silence, and stories would filter out of Cupertino indicating that this latest Newton would be the last ever because Apple was nixing the project. Heck, the Newton was clinically dead to Apple numerous times, and then revived only to be kept on life support. So why not again? Granted, shipping Newtons again after a two-and-a-half-year death would be more extreme, but it's not exactly out of character.

Faithful viewer Steven Weyhrich, however, had a more likely explanation for Apple printing more Newton boxes (assuming the claim is true in the first place). Apparently Apple has contracts with at least a few huge companies to keep supplying them with Newton MessagePads for an unspecified length of time. And that makes a good deal of sense; if you're an enormous corporation and you're about to rely on a single-source technology like the Newton to power crucial business tasks, you'd better ensure that the manufacturer is contractually obligated to provide you with new units when your existing ones die. We seem to recall that Intel is still making 386 and 486 processors for the federal government under the same kind of agreement.

But faithful viewer Paul Langley had what we consider to be the best explanation of all. So this guy claims that the printer where he works just got an order for new Newton boxes, huh? Says Paul: "What the author failed to mention was the pictures of cookies on the box... the Newton boxes will hold Apple brand Fig Newtons." Well, Paul, we only have one criticism with that scenario-- cookies on the box? Tsk, tsk-- everybody knows that a cookie is just a cookie, but Newtons are fruit and cake!

Summer reruns? We scoff at their futile attempts to bore us into submission; the new episodes of "Redmond Justice" are providing us with more than enough excitement in these summer months. The recent scrummage for control following Judge Jackson's breakup ruling was more intrigue than we could handle-- the government and the judge wanting to punt the case to the Supreme Court, and Microsoft trying to wrestle the case into the willing and friendly hands of the Appeals Court instead. And when the dust cleared? Stand back, because here come the Big Guys.

Yes, as faithful viewer Tony Misasi was first to point out, Judge Jackson has officially kicked the case upstairs; a Reuters article has more details. Microsoft must be fuming; the Appeals Court, after all, hasn't exactly been subtle about its pro-Redmond leanings. We imagine that the Supreme Court is far less likely to play Bill Gates's lap dog. But don't count the Appeals Court out just yet; the judge hit the ball to the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court might whack the ball right back if it decides that the Appeals Court should hear the case first. Heck, as far as we know, the Supreme Court could conceivably decline to hear the case at all-- though, of course, that's not terribly likely.

And just when you were thinking that Judge Jackson's irredeemably grumpy, he goes and does something sweet. When he sent the case to the Supreme Court, he also agreed to suspend those conduct restrictions he imposed on Microsoft. The Redmond Giant is free to conduct business as it pleases until the appeal is resolved. Our guess is, since forcing Microsoft to operate within those conduct restrictions would likely have been impossible, he decided not to waste anyone's time with them. Of course, we have to admit we're a little suspicious to see the judge do something so nice; the other distinct possibility is that the judge is handing Microsoft just enough rope to hang itself. Without being forced to modify its business practices by an outside entity, odds are it'll be business as usual at Microsoft-- meaning that other "questionable" practices may well come to light even as the company tries to win its appeal. Too devious? Hey, not for prime time it isn't.