Hardcore geeks rejoice-- and the rest of you should feel pretty good, too. While the full, honest-to-goodness, 1.0 shipping version of Mac OS X isn't slated to arrive until next year (assuming that Apple doesn't decide to delay it again for the umpteenth time), the public beta of this lickable new operating system is scheduled for a release "this summer." Those of you northern hemisphere denizens who actually set foot outdoors occasionally are well aware that it's summer now; the rest of us climate-controlled, junk-food-swilling, 200-channels-and-a-Mac couch jockeys know it because of all the reruns and the way that MTV keeps showing the "House of Style Sexy Summer Layout." The point is, a publicly available preview of Mac OS X is no more than three months away. If Apple can pull its bits together, the beta may even be handed out on CD-ROM at Macworld Expo in just a few short weeks-- though we'd consider a live Steve Jobs/Larry Ellison karaoke duet of "I Got You Babe" during the keynote a marginally more likely occurrence. (This Scary Visual™ brought to you by the International Order of Release Date Pessimists and the number 6.)

Now, some of you may be somewhat shocked by how soon we all might be messing with Mac OS X betas; we know we are. After all, it's been a long and rocky haul since Apple first announced its acquisition of NeXT and the plan to use NeXTSTEP as the foundation for a modern Mac OS. We've been waiting for this thing for so long, we can scarcely remember how not to wait for it. And while lots of basic Mac OS X questions have been answered by NDA-flouting scofflaws and their more-than-welcome web reviews of Developer Previews, there are just certain things about the final version that can't be addressed accurately by anyone other than Apple itself. So the eternal question of whether or not Mac OS X would reveal its Unixy guts by retaining a command line interface, even in the consumer version, remained unanswered-- until now.

According to MacWEEK, Apple has finally come clean on the subject; Steve Glass, the veep of Mac OS 9 and Software Services, just announced to the assembled geeks at MacHack that the company indeed "plans to add a Unix-style command line to Mac OS X, but does not want the average consumer to see anything but the Aqua interface." With that statement, Mac OS X officially gains the best of both interface paradigms-- the GUI for the average user more comfortable with point-and-click, and the CLI for power users who occasionally want or need more direct control. (For those poor Windows users among you, it's sort of like being able to slip into DOS mode, only hopefully without sucking.) Sacrilege? Hardly. Despite what Apple may or may not have been saying for the past sixteen years, a command line interface is by no means useless, and for certain tasks it's faster and more flexible than a GUI. That's not sacrilege, that's just good sense. So here's hoping that the wait is drawing to a close, and that soon those of us who blithely and recklessly endanger our computing routines via the imprudent use of beta software will be able to bathe in Mac OS X's glory. Beta glory, sure, but glory nonetheless.

Remember how stunned we all were each time that Apple listened to us customers over the past few years? Consumer outrage can bring about many positive things. There was the upgrade of the original iMac's internal modem from 33.6 to 56K, the reduction in price of the AppleShare IP 6.2 upgrade from $499 to totally free, the reinstatement of the cancelled backorders during the "G4 Speed Dump" fiasco, etc. The company's even shown occasional signs of listening to developers, like when it rewrote its QuickTime license in a less boneheaded manner. Sure, these examples are all instances in which Apple made a really stupid move and then fixed the problem after people screamed at them, but it's a step in the right direction. It means that one day Apple might not make such goofy mistakes, and instead may have time to listen to customers' suggestions instead of their complaints. (Hey, we can dream.)

Now, here's something interesting; it appears that Apple's even listening to complaints from its service providers. Remember a couple of weeks back, when word came down that Apple Authorized Service Providers were no longer allowed to repair 1999 and 2000 model PowerBooks themselves? The rationale was that too many service centers were misdiagnosing systems and sending them back to Apple for major hardware repairs, when all they needed was a software tweak or two. Eventually Apple decided it would just be better for all new PowerBooks needing service to be sent in for "depot repair," which is apparently how all iBook service is handled. This, predictably, led to a bit of an uproar from competent service providers who would have to irritate customers with a minimum three-day wait for something as simple as a keyboard repair-- and they'd also lose the revenue from performing the repair themselves.

Well, according to Go2Mac, the protests paid off. Apple has reversed its earlier decision due to "overwhelming opposition from service providers," and now will allow providers designated as official "Apple Specialists" to continue repairing newer PowerBooks. That's good news for competent service providers, and for PowerBook owners who'd like to minimize their downtime when their systems go kablooie. So let's see, here-- Apple's listening to (and acting on) complaints from customers, developers, and service providers. The next thing you know, Apple will be listening to stockholders and resellers, too, and then the Mac media-- at which point pigs will sprout wings, hell will get a skating rink, and we'll all be bunkering in for the apocalypse. But it'll be a fun ride getting there.

Things are heating up in the world of the Palm these days. Handspring, the Palm OS licensee started up by the original Palm founders, just IPOd last week, and word has it that its Visor PDA is rapidly chewing up market share-- primarily due, we surmise, to its distinctly iMacesque translucent color scheme. That means that there's definitely room to compete in the world of Palm compatibles, but despite widespread rumors and inside reports to the contrary, Apple has publicly stated that it's not working on its own Palm-based PDA. However, a new entrant in the Palm race gives us new hope that someday we'll indeed see Apple's interpretation of the Palm.

According to The Register, the newest horse in the Palm derby is none other than consumer electronics megagiant Sony. Now, that's not news; the fact that Sony's working on its own Palm OS-based PDA has long been a matter of public record. But it seems that the company just gave the Wall Street Journal a sneak preview of its new toy, and that publication was impressed-- impressed enough to gush like a schoolgirl. Reportedly this SonyPalm will be "5.3 ounces," narrower than the Palm V (which currently wins the sleekness awards, in our book), and "thinner than the Palm III." There's also "JogDial" one-handed scrolling, some unspecified multimedia capabilities, Memory Stick storage, and both black-and-white and color models-- and it's all wrapped up in what's reported to be a "blue and silver" color scheme, suggesting that whenever this thing ships, it'll be marketed as a PocketVaio or something like that.

So why does this give us hope for a brighter PDA future? Well, for one thing, Sony's Palm sounds like a very attractive alternative to the offerings from Palm and Handspring, and more choice is always good. But more importantly, remember which company Steve Jobs is always talking about? Yup-- he's constantly saying that he wants to make Apple into "the Sony of the computer industry." Guess what, Steve? To do that, you're going to have to keep that promise made so long ago: the promise to ship an Apple handheld to replace the Newton. While we're not holding our breath, we're cautiously optimistic that something's in the works, no matter what Phil Schiller said in an unguarded moment. Of course, if Apple wants a piece of the pie, it'd better hurry, because these things are all selling like mad, and the market won't stay unsaturated forever...