No issue has divided the Macintosh community as bitterly as Apple's latest product color, Key Lime. Reactions to the glowing green hue are typically polar in nature; people either love it or hate it. Or love to hate it. Or love it because other people hate it. In any event, right now Apple's only offering Key Lime products via the Apple Store, both to play it safe on the inventory front (since a warehouse filled with unsold Key Lime iBooks constitutes a hazardous materials containment facility, and the paperwork on those things is just murder), and to prevent the untold number of seizures and heart attacks that would undoubtedly result if customers with weak constitutions were suddenly and unexpectedly exposed to a Key Lime display model in a retail store.

That said, we at AtAT now strongly suspect that Key Lime will catch on in a huge way. Not only have we heard from scads of Mac fans who are in love with the new color, but we're also starting to develop our own appreciation for it. (We'd say that it's growing on us, but you'd be amazed how many people can misinterpret a simple statement like "this glowing green color is starting to grow on us." The last thing we need right now is to be thrown into quarantine.) For one thing, based on Apple's streaming-on-demand QuickTime footage of Key Lime's introduction, the color isn't really the toxic green that Apple's iBook page implies. Don't get us wrong-- it's still bright, it's still pretty obnoxious, and it'll still make those suited businessmen with their boxy black Wintel laptops frown and shake their heads in disapproval. But the shade is somehow a bit less physically painful to look at than Apple's web photos imply.

More importantly, though, faithful viewer Dan revealed a feature of Key Lime that we've long suspected but never been able to confirm-- until now. Dan pointed out that Studio Web has posted a streaming QuickTime interview with Dave Russell, Apple's Product Manager of Consumer Portable Devices. In it, Dave reveals that, yes indeedy, Key Lime luminesces in ultraviolet light. So if you think the color glows now, wait 'til you see it under a black light. Groovy, baby. Longtime viewers will recall that a Blueberry iBook under black light is less spectacular-- the handle glows, and the keys sort of do, but that's about it. So for those of you who need a portable that'll really knock your friends dead at your next black light party, Key Lime is here to save the day.

This latest discovery about Key Lime's hidden capacities reveals that the color is already taking certain markets by storm-- such as artists and genetic engineers. A faithful viewer who wishes to remain anonymous sent us over to an ABC News story about Alba, a mutant rabbit whose normally white fur glows bright green under black light. In other words, yes, in the right conditions, Alba is basically a Key Lime bunny. Coincidence? Ha! Clearly Apple's market research team really has its finger on the pulse of today's movers and shakers. Just you wait; Key Lime iBooks may seem a little weird now, but soon every frivolously-gene-splicing friend of an artist will own one.

At first, Mike Dell's apparent fascination with Steve Jobs was amusing; less than two years after his public comment about how Apple should be shut down, the guy sort of recanted when he gave the public a sneak peek of what would turn out to be the ill-fated, iMac-inspired WebPC. Not long after, he introduced a consumer portable available in two colors, and made a push for wireless networking. Isn't hero worship cute? Later on, though, Mike's obsession with being just like Steve reached scary new depths when he went so far as to ape Apple's infamous earnings warning (due to G4 shortages) by issuing one of his own. Still, "scary" and "psychotic" is at least as entertaining as "cute," so we weren't complaining.

These days, though, since it's been done so often for so long, the Steve emulation is mostly just a yawn-fest. In fact, we wouldn't even mention Mike's latest wannabe tactics, except that things are pretty slow in the Apple world right now (the post-Expo lull is always a trial), and Dell's Apple leanings are becoming ever more blatant. Faithful viewer Russell Maggio pointed out that Dell has finally introduced its new notebook with built-in antennas for wireless networking-- you know, the one we ranted about in June? Anyway, that little copycat move has finally come to fruition, according to a CNET article-- which, in itself perhaps wouldn't be all that notable, except that at the same time, a different CNET article discusses Dell's new "shot at design innovation."

What design innovation, you ask? Well, let's see... for one thing, Mike's made the incredibly original decision to retire beige-- next August. In the meantime, Dell's new OptiPlex GX 150 comes in a much more stylish, daring hue: grey. Jump back and slap on the Ray-Bans! But more importantly, these new OptiPlex systems "open like a suitcase, rather than forcing customers to slide off a panel to access the system's innards." Does that sound, perhaps, a bit familiar? So let's see... after trying to dupe the iMac's spirit (if not its form), poaching the iBook "consumer portable" concept, and sticking wireless antennas into its professional-grade laptop just like the PowerBook, now Dell has copped a huge feature of the Power Mac. (At least this time CNET acknowledges that Dell's easy-open case hails from "an Apple innovation introduced with the Power Mac G3.") Wow. Mike's almost out of things to copy-- all that's left is the Cube. Any bets on when Dell will get around to that?

We know, we know-- Friday rolls around and all you people want to do is turn off your brains and log some quality goofing-off time. But while rest and relaxation does you good, it's not in your best interests to go totally slack, intellectually speaking. So here's some quickie food for thought to chew on over the weekend: what if there's already a PowerPC G5 processor out there in some Motorola testing lab? Furthermore, what if the three top-secret engineers with access to it aren't the brightest crayons in the box, and figured no harm would come from donating its unused processor cycles to the SETI@home project?

See, faithful viewer Matthew Reed and his friend Micah Horwith were poking around the site for the SETI@home initiative (which enlists the help of computer users the world over to process radio telescope data in hopes of discovering signs of alien intelligence), and found this stats page which lists the processing performance donated by various CPU types. Entry number 25 reads "PPC G5." So has Motorola accidentally let the cat out of the bag? Will this affect Apple's future product plans? Will Blake see through Alexis's cunning plan and refuse to sign over his power of attorney before the twins wake up from their coma?

Okay, so other reported CPUs on the page include the "AMD Athlonm," the "Intel Puntium," the "entium," the "Elwro 800junr," and the "gaga." Perhaps that diminishes the believability of the PPC G5 listing somewhat. Hey, we just wanted to keep you from slipping into a state of complete intellectual atrophy, not have you prove the theory of relativity or anything-- we never said it was a brain teaser. Still, it's nice to dream about some lonely G5 out there, crunching away on SETI blocks (at a rate approximately twice that of the main "PowerPC" listing, by the way) until it's allowed to see the light of day...