So it's Labor Day here in the States-- a day on which we honor the American work ethic by sitting on our butts and watching TV until our brains start to run out our ears, at which point most of us adjourn to the back yard to apply heat to food in the open air. The upshot is, for a day with "Labor" in the title, not a whole lot of work gets done. And since Labor Day effectively paralyzes the country's work force with a much-appreciated three-day weekend, not much is kickin' in the world of Apple, either, which explains the sluggish state of the Mac-oriented Web right now.

But even though nothing's happening and we should probably just shut down AtAT Studios for a nice, relaxing day of Deus Ex, apparently the glands responsible for our atrophied work ethic took a direct hit of gamma radiation last night when we tried strapping two TVs directly to each of our heads in our scientific bid to introduce the world to 3D television. The experiment was a dismal failure, and our glowing skulls made it a bit tricky to fall asleep last night, but this morning we discovered much to our horror that ignoring our AtATly duties (even on Labor Day) produced a weird sensation that we have since determined to be "guilt." Oh, the price we pay for the advancement of science...

Thus, we find ourselves compelled to leap upon the only thing even remotely resembling an interesting plot twist in the ongoing Apple saga, and present it to you with the appropriate dramatic license. MacCentral is reporting that Apple has discovered a dangerous design flaw in its new Pro Keyboard, and has thus contacted every single customer who placed an order for said keyboard at the Apple Store. Is it an ergonomics problem that causes users' wrists to explode if their words-per-minute count drops below fifty? No, it's far worse than that. Are the keys made of a cheap but mutagenically hazardous radioactive by-product? Worse. Brace yourself for the true horror: Apple admits that the four new keys on the Pro Keyboard (Volume Up, Volume Down, Mute, and Disk Eject) DO NOT WORK on older Macs! Someone alert FEMA!

It's true; Apple has actually sent email to everyone who ordered one of those spiffy new keyboards which admits that the four new keys currently only work on Apple's latest and greatest Macs-- in other words, the ones that already come with a Pro Keyboard anyway. Customers are given the option of either cancelling their orders (which they can do by simply choosing not to reply to the email), or buying the keyboard anyway and waiting until "early 2001" for a software patch to become available that will wake up those four keys on older systems. (And by "older" we mean "over two months old.") Early 2001? That seems like an awful long time for Apple to whip out a software patch that just binds four simple functions to four keys. Perhaps they're projecting the release date assuming a steady Labor Day development rate, which must account for extensive amounts of sleep, frisbee, and the torpid consumption of vast quantities of grilled foodstuffs.

The good news is, the Keyboard Liberation Front has taken the law into its own hands in its struggle to bring full key functionality to the people. According to MacNN, some people seem to be having no trouble enabling the new keys on older USB-based Mac systems simply by copying the file "USB Device Driver 1.4.3" from a new Mac and throwing it into the Extensions folder. Sounds like "early 2001" came a lot earlier than most people expected...

For those of you who have been following the byzantine twists and turns of the ATI Radeon Saga lately, the story may soon be winding to a close. Whether you believe that Steve yanked all references to the Radeon from his Expo keynote as retaliation for ATI blabbing about the new Macs before he had a chance to unveil them, or you're of the less-paranoid camp who thinks a last-minute stow-stopper bug prompted the Radeon ban, one thing's for certain: there's still no Radeon build-to-order option at the Apple Store. Or is there?

The Mac Junkie reports that the UK Apple Store kinda jumped the gun a little; apparently customers who went to configure a Power Mac G4 or G4 Cube were presented with a marketing spiel about the Radeon. "For ultimate graphics performance," said spiel states, "choose the ATI Radeon graphics card... a quantum leap forward in 3D acceleration... the most powerful graphics card for the Macintosh... perfect for both high-end gamers and the most demanding creative professional." At production time, our own tour through the UK Apple Store (oooh, look-- things are spelled funny, and all the prices have these weird-looking "L"-type-things in front of them!) revealed that the Radeon blurb is still up there for the world to see; click the "Learn More" link next to the Graphics Support option to see for yourself. And Steve blamed ATI for not being able to keep a secret?

So, whatever the reason for the delay, it seems safe to say that the Radeon's coming to a build-to-order Mac near you-- and fairly soon. ATI, for its part, claims that the Mac AGP Radeon will finally be available towards the end of this month, so that'd be our guess for a release date. Actually, what do you want to bet that the Radeon demo mercilessly cut from Steve's Expo keynote will be salvaged from the cutting-room floor and pasted into his Apple Expo presentation on September 13th? And the build-to-order option may show up online right then and there. After all, the Apple Store hasn't exactly been averse to offering items well in advance of their actual availability dates in the past... Pro Keyboard, anyone?