You know, there was a long-standing "rumor" that we had originally pegged as a shoe-in for the January Stevenote, but it never showed... and the "wow factor" of the other announcements (that 733 MHz G4, the Superdrive, the titanium PowerBook, etc.) was so high we didn't even notice. In fact, the official word didn't come during the recent Tokyo keynote either, but Flower Power and Blue Dalmatian threw us for such a loop, we didn't notice its absence then, either. No, we're not talking about the mythical Apple handheld-- that's not going to be introduced until after the Disney-Apple merger is complete later this spring. We're talking about those brick-and-mortar Apple Stores that we've been hearing about for so long.

See, the thing about the Apple Stores is that they can't really be classified as a rumor; the fact that Apple has bought or leased retail space in several locations (such as Palo Alto and Chicago) is a matter of public record, thanks to the bureaucratic necessity of zoning commissions, architectural review boards, and various related paper-fed beasts. Okay, sure, it's possible that we've jumped to conclusions in thinking that Apple's going to sell Macs in these stores (perhaps the company's getting into the discount auto parts business-- getcher titanium wiper blades and iCarburetors here!), but in any event, Apple's original plan was to open the first of these stores in April of 2001. In case you haven't checked a calendar recently, we can now officially refer to that projected opening date as "next month." We really thought we'd have heard an official announcement of Apple's plans by now.

We suppose it's possible that Apple scrapped the plan in light of its current financial situation, not to mention the general state of the personal computer market right now; maybe it just seems like too much of a risk to take. But as faithful viewer Steve Pissocra pointed out, the latest evidence indicates that Apple's retail plans are still marching ahead-- an "exclusive" article in Shopping Centers Today (honestly!) reveals that our beloved Mac-maker is indeed still planning "to roll out a chain of stores that will sell its own brand of computer equipment" (instead of, say, someone else's brand of computer equipment; well, that's a blessing, at any rate). Joining Palo Alto and Chicago as the latest confirmed location for one of these nifty little boutiques is none other than Littleton, Colorado, which will boast an Apple retail presence in a new mall-- er, "lifestyle center"-- dubbed "Aspen Grove" in November.

In addition, "executives of one large New York City area mall say they are also close to signing a deal with Apple." Oooh, maybe they should have kept their traps shut until the signatures were on paper; as we all know, Steve doesn't like it when people let his cats out of the proverbial bag. If no Apple Store appears in New York, we'll know why. Regardless, an honest-to-goodness Apple Store may soon be opening at a mall near you-- and hopefully near us. Considering we already spend more than enough time at the mall to qualify as characters in a commercially-nonviable Kevin Smith flick, if an Apple Store moves in where the Warner Bros. store just closed up shop, we'll probably never leave, surviving entirely on food court Indian fare and nesting in the elaborate maze of air ducts after hours. Snoochie-boochies!

Here's a brain-teaser for you: what would happen, rhetorically speaking, if a widely-read weekly Mac-centric print magazine decided to move to an entirely online presence as its print incarnation first went cross-platform and then died amid a million yawns? And what would happen if it then lost its single remaining entertaining columnist, adopted a responsible "no rumors" policy, and finally posted articles that typically read like corporate press releases sans insight or analysis? It's an interesting thought experiment.

In completely unrelated news, faithful viewer Robert Fernando informs us that Mac media mainstay MacWEEK is finally calling it quits. Those of you who have been with the Mac platform for more than a few years may recall the giddy thrill of receiving a free copy of MacWEEK in the mail every seven days, scanning the headlines for the latest juice on Apple's future plans, flipping to the back page to see what sort of drug-addled rumorological magic Mac The Knife was weaving, and finally settling down and reading the publication cover-to-cover. When you were finished, you felt as up to date with the world of Apple as was humanly possible without infiltrating One Infinite Loop itself. (Of course, eventually the immediacy of the Internet would change all that.)

So there you have it; as of today, MacWEEK's content has been "absorbed" into MacCentral. We're a little sad to see MacWEEK finally silenced, but we'd be far sadder if the publication hadn't actually died ages ago-- it just took some time to realize it had croaked. We don't think this is entirely a case of "Internet Killed The Magazine Star," since MacWEEK had a second chance as a purely digital creature and basically blew it, in our opinion. Placing the time of death is a tricky task; some, we're sure, would say that MacWEEK has been an empty husk ever since the print edition went the way of all paper. Personally, we stopped checking the site regularly once Mac the Knife departed. But whenever the spirit that was MacWEEK really kicked its little legs in the air, the death certificate reads March 2nd, 2001.

Ironically, in Andrew Gore's requiem for the publication, he first claims that he'll "set the record straight" about Mac the Knife's identity "once and for all," and then does nothing of the sort; instead he reveals that, yes, the Knife's "voice" belonged to a single person, but instead of revealing who that person is/was, he just says that "Mac the Knife is MacWEEK." Well, given that the Knife left many moons ago, that might help us place MacWEEK's time of death a little closer to the mark. In any case, we miss what MacWEEK was; we're not particularly mourning the loss of what MacWEEK eventually turned out to be. It's still a sad occasion, though.

What's a Monday without a little extra unfounded angst? Far be it from us to start any nasty rumors-- spreading them, on the other hand is pretty much our whole raison d'être. So, in the spirit of Monday and the post-Expo news lull, we'd like to add to your existing load of Mac OS X anxiety by passing along a vaguely worrisome tale which, if you use your imagination, may just hint at a possible delay in the release of Apple's next-generation operating system.

It used to be that word of yet another Mac OS X delay wasn't even news-- it was just par for the course. After all, we've been waiting for a modern Mac operating system for a decade or so; even if you only start the clock when Apple bought NeXT, we're still talking about more than four years. Things have changed, though; ever since Uncle Steve committed to a firm March 24th, 2001 ship date, we've just generally assumed that Apple really would ship the first copies on that date and no later. Surely the threat of Steve's wrath would give new meaning to the word "deadline." But what's this? Faithful viewer Scott Learmonth wrote in to tell us that he just got email from the Apple Store informing him that Mac OS X is "backordered" and may not ship when anticipated.

Was it just an Apple Store bug? Yeah, probably, since we completely fail to understand how a product that isn't shipping yet can be "backordered." There's also the fact that we preordered Mac OS X, and we didn't receive any such word of a backorder. In fact, while automated email messages announcing demand-incurred delays of PowerBooks, Power Macs, iMacs, and Cubes have become commonplace, Scott is the only one who reported getting the dreaded Apple Store backorder email referring to a Mac OS X order. That's not to say that he's lying (perish forbid!), but hopefully his Mac OS X backorder notice was just yet another Apple Store hiccup. But if it wasn't, well, heads are going to roll in Cupertino...