Two days! Can you believe it? In less than forty-eight hours, the first public version of Mac OS X will burst forth from Steve Jobs's head, fully-armored and ready for abuse by legions of Mac geeks the world over. And we know this to be true, because this is the first time ever that Apple's committed to a real, solid, honest-to-goodness release date for the operating system: September 13th, a specific square on the calendar, as opposed to those wonderfully vague "this summer" or "early next year" generalities that have been bandied about in the past. Apple has finally pinpointed the release of the Mac OS X public beta to a single twenty-four hour chunk of time, and that chunk is fast approaching.

Let's see, here... Steve's Apple Expo keynote is scheduled to start at 10 AM Paris time. That's what-- six hours ahead of our own Eastern Daylight Time? So at about four o' clock on Wednesday morning, Apple's iCEO will stroll out on stage and start distorting reality in the time-honored tradition-- and at some point between, say, 4 and 6 AM EDT, he'll announce the immediate availability of the Mac OS X public beta. The sky will open up, choirs of heavenly angels will sing, and a new era of cosmic peace and enlightenment will envelop the earth. And then it'll be a mere four to six weeks before you receive your copy. (Cue needle-dragged-across-record sound effect here.)

Okay, okay... probably not four to six weeks. But if Apple goes the snail-mail-only distro route, you've got to figure that it'll be at least a few days from the time you place your order to the time a CD shows up in your mailbox. So much for "immediate availability." We here at AtAT have been pretty publicly skeptical that Apple would release the beta as a free download, for several reasons. For one thing, as far as we've heard, every developer release of the OS to date has shipped on a bootable CD-ROM, and the installation process reportedly does some pretty hairy things with Open Firmware settings and multiple restarts. If one assumes that the public beta requires a similarly hairy installation procedure, then we doubt Apple would post a CD-ROM image that requires a user to own a CD-R drive just to get the download into an installable state.

Then there's the issue of bandwidth. Imagine the sound of a million mouse buttons clicking in unison. Assuming that the Mac OS X public beta is several hundred megabytes in size, and that every Mac user with a fast connection would be trying to download that puppy mere milliseconds after it gets posted, we envision the Internet equivalent of flushing every toilet in Grand Central Station at the same time. We've never actually seen a router explode (a few probably started smoldering when Victoria's Secret tried that lingerie show webcast), but we bet it's pretty darn cool.

Anyway, we hope we're wrong about this, because you're not the only ones who'd love to be able to download the beta on Wednesday morning. There's at least one indication that a free download is in the cards: Mac OS Rumors hints that the beta "will not require the traditional CD-boot installation necessary for all previous versions of OS X," and thus Apple "intends to offer a downloadable installer." We're keeping our fingers crossed; we figure that if anyone can make it happen, Apple can. Browsers at the ready!

Holy Bad Timing, Batman! Apple's issuing lawsuits like they're free samples of Calvin Klein's "Litigation." While this hasn't been confirmed, it would appear that mere days before disgruntled Mac users are expected to protest Apple's overzealous lawyers (who have shut down fan sites such as MacCards with a zest tantamount to manic glee), said legal team may be at it again. Remember last May, when a mysterious Power Mac G4 commercial called "Espionage" showed up at AdCritic? The Mac community wondered whether that commercial was a real, unreleased Apple ad, or if it was just a really professionally-produced fake. Well, as it turned out, it was a fake-- a "speculation ad" made to attract attention, presumably from companies looking to hire a couple of hotshot commercial makers. Unfortunately, it attracted a less welcome kind of attention instead. Lawsuit, anyone?

See, AtAT just received email from Karl Larsen, the producer of "Espionage." He claims that "Apple Computer now has a huge lawsuit pending against the commercial's creators, for use of the Apple logo." Again, this is still unsubstantiated, but given Apple's initial response to the "Espionage" clip (it demanded that AdCritic remove all official Apple ads and, according to MacCentral, ominously stated that it would address trademark infringement issues in "Espionage" directly with "the spot's creators"), it doesn't seem unlikely. It's widely-known that Apple-- particularly Apple in the second Steve Dynasty-- jealously guards its logo and considers all unauthorized use a crime on par with kidnapping, arson, and kicking small dogs while jabbing sleeping babies with straight pins. As such, whenever a non-Apple entity blatantly uses the Apple logo in a way that might lead to customer confusion, the lawyers are let off their leashes.

Sadly, we received Karl's email too late to grant his request-- namely, that we ask all viewers to vote for "Espionage" in AdMine's upcoming "Gold Rush Awards." (The registration deadline was yesterday.) Karl's hope is that the $100,000 first-place prize money could help defray his legal costs as the lawsuit progresses. Perhaps he'll win even without our help. In any case, if what he says about Apple's latest legal smackdown turns out to be true, then we wonder whether this info will further boost the Expo protesters' resolve. Fasten your seatbelts on Wednesday, because it could turn out to be a pretty bumpy ride.

Speaking of lawsuits, suppose Apple could file one against Gateway for trade dress infringement? The initial wave of cheap iMac copycats has long since died out, but the iBook knockoffs just keep on coming. To be fair, the Wintel manufacturers learned their lesson when Apple's lawyers started getting involved: make a knockoff look too much like the original product, and you're just begging for a savage legal beatdown. That's why the new invasion of consumer portables consists not of direct ripoffs, but rather of "iBook-inspired" products. Nevertheless, Dell's Inspiron 3800 touts "design and affordability" and comes in a choice of colors, while IBM's recently-announced ThinkPad i Series is a low-cost laptop with integrated wireless networking. It's not hard to guess where these guys got their inspiration.

But with the Solo 5300, Gateway might be pushing the design similarity barrier just a little too far. As faithful viewer Patrick Winter puts it, "if this doesn't look like a gleaming graphite iBook, I'll eat a bug." Truth be told, at first glance, the likeness is striking, to say the least-- white cover with curved grey accent at the bottom edge, company logo large and in charge. Take a look at a similar photo of a Graphite iBook for comparison. It's not exactly a "separated at birth" moment, but you can't help wondering if the Solo 5300 is the iBook's ugly cousin. Add in the fact that Gateway's offering starts at the same $1599 price as the iBook (albeit not the Graphite version) and includes a familiar-sounding 12.1-inch TFT screen and 6 GB hard drive, and you've got to wonder if Apple's lawyers are straining at the leash.

Granted, the differences are pretty severe, too; whereas the iBook is delicately curved and sports a convenient handle, the Solo 5300 is boxy and emphasizes its screen hinges as design accents. If Gateway is indeed dragged into court over this, we expect its defense to be something along the lines of "there's no chance of customer confusion because our product is far too gross-looking to be an iBook." Then again, maybe the Solo 5300 will live up to its number and ship with batteries that decide to burst into flame at inopportune moments; did Apple patent flammable laptop technology when it had the chance? (Disclaimer: no PowerBook 5300 ever caught fire in the field yadda yadda yadda.)