Well, all we can say is that if we were lucky enough to be in Steve Jobs's tennis shoes right now, we'd be wondering just what it takes to keep you prima donna Mac fans happy. We're talking about the grumbling coming from some PowerBook G4 owners. Here the iCEO has introduced the coolest laptop computer ever to grace the surface of your home planet, shipped it on time (to at least six of you!), and what do you do? Sure, you ooh and aah over the kickin' titanium enclosure, you marvel at the thinness of the design, your hair is blown back by the speed of the G4 that was somehow shoehorned into such a tight package, and you drool like a puppy over the super-huge widescreen display-- for about ten minutes. And then the complaints start rolling in. Ingrates!

Look, we don't care what you say; Apple's market research clearly indicated that the computer-using public at large liked to stick DVDs into a slot-loading drive, so that's what Apple included in the PowerBook G4. The respondents polled never said anything about those DVDs coming back out again. So is it Apple's fault that you lot are unhappy because you can't get your disks out of their new permanent titanium home? Why, we can only imagine the shock over at Apple headquarters as the PowerBook's chief designers consider this bizarre reaction from customers who seem obsessed with being able to get their DVDs back out their laptops. Does the marketing department know about this?

Anyway, no matter how wrong he or she may be, the customer is always right-- so Apple has agreed to help those picky PowerBook G4 owners who want a drive that both accepts and ejects media. According to the PowerBook Zone, just to keep people happy, Apple has decided to claim that the specified non-eject DVD-ROM drive shipped in several units is actually misbehaving: the official explanation is that "the DVD drive slot on the actual case can become misaligned from the actual DVD mechanism inside the machine," causing the ejection difficulty. (This, of course, is an obviously fake cover story, since with only one inch of thickness at work, there's no room for anything to become "misaligned"-- but hey, whatever makes the customer feel better.)

So, if you're one of those goobers lucky enough to own a titanium PowerBook G4 and you're conceited enough to think you know better than Apple's market research-- i.e., you think you want a DVD-ROM drive that can eject your disks-- then listen up: under the guise of repairing this fictional "misalignment issue," Apple will replace your non-eject drive with one that is capable of giving you your disks back. All you have to do is contact Apple's support people and start whining like a spoiled brat. And don't forget to throw a little tantrum when you hear that you'll have to do without your PowerBook for a few days while Apple works on it and ships it back to you. Serves you right, crybaby.

Wow, now that takes us back a bit! It's been quite a while since Larry "Me And Steve Jobs Are Bestest Buddies" Ellison last mouthed off to the press-- not about his own little venture known as Oracle, but about that other little company on whose board of directors he sits. (That's, uh, "Apple" for those of you keeping score at home.) What's it been, over three years since he let slip that Apple would be focusing on "client-server NC-style architectures"? (Whatever happened to that, anyway? For a while, there, you couldn't spit with your eyes closed without hitting Blabby Larry chatting up some reporter about the "top secret" Apple Network Computer...)

Anyway, in an apparent fit of nostalgia, Larry's at it again. According to The Register, the topic of our favorite Mac-maker came up when Larry addressed BusinessWeek's "Captains of Industry" conference, and he still thinks that Apple's future success will rely upon "digital appliances." And while the man clearly has appliances on the brain, if he keeps this up long enough, he just might turn out to be right. After all, that's what this whole "digital hub" hoo-haa boils down to, right? Says Larry: "I think Apple can be the greatest provider of digital appliances in this market... I think Apple's biggest competitor is going to be Sony."

Sony? So, by "appliances," Mr. Ellison evidently doesn't just mean those "Internet appliances" we always hear are going to take over the world-- you know, those cheap things with the little screens, no hard disks, proprietary software, and required monthly subscription fees that are going to be all the rage any minute now. Nor, apparently, does he mean that Apple's future lies with washing machines, refrigerators, and coffee-makers, or else he would have listed, say, Maytag as the enemy in this fight. No, he specifically mentions Sony-- which means that Apple is going to be a provider of computers, stereo equipment, digital cameras, home theater equipment, game consoles, and camcorders-- and, perhaps one day, country music and movie theaters. A sounder strategy for Apple's long-term growth we've yet to encounter. Bring it on, Larry!

Heads up-- the SuperDrives are a-comin'! Just as Apple shipped its first PowerBook G4 by the end of January as Steve promised during his last keynote, today the company issued a press release confirming that the first SuperDrive-equipped 733 MHz Power Mac G4 has rolled off the line, been slapped in a box, and is now winging its merry way to some lucky customer somewhere out there in the wild blue yonder. A quick peek at the calendar will confirm that, yes, it's still February-- which means that Steve's "shipping next month" announcement held true. The man's two for two!

However, if you've got a SuperDrive-equipped Power Mac on order from the Apple Store, you might not want to start your anticipatory dance of joy just yet. Take a lesson from the PowerBook customers; the first titanium PowerBooks shipped three weeks ago, but plenty of customers are still waiting for theirs to arrive. Heck, several of them recently got email advising them of a March 3rd ship date, which is still a couple of weeks away. And given that we just have to assume that Motorola can't crank out more than, say, six 733 MHz G4 processors a week (especially after the 4000-job layoff in the semiconductor division, which means that the secretarial temps and the janitorial staff are probably running the plants right now), we imagine that the wait for your DVD-burning tower of power might be a smidge longer.

On the other hand, all good things come to those who wait, so eventually you'll be cranking out your own DVDs at ten bucks a pop-- you can abandon that nagging feeling that this whole iDVD/SuperDrive thing was a big, fat, vaporous hoax. The drives are real, the 733 MHz chip is real, the software is real-- and any minute now, the first few customers are going to be able to confirm those happy facts first-hand. So don the pretentious director's beret, grab your big, cartoony megaphone, and get cracking on that hour-long digital epic; soon you'll be able to slap it onto a DVD and beg your local video store to buy a few copies to rent out. Ah, life in the 21st century; no flying cars yet, but desktop video's at least as good.