It's now semi-officially official: there is an Apple retail store headed for Minneapolis, and it is destined to make its home in the glorious Mall of America. As faithful viewer John Gettler pointed out, a Mall spokesperson went blabbing to the PioneerPlanet, though details are practically nonexistent: "Apple Computer Inc. will be opening a retail store at the Mall of America" is pretty much all we get. And, of course, Apple is still refusing to comment on any and all rumors. (Given the mile-high mountain of evidence, we think the whole "Apple retail stores" thing has transcended the "rumor" classification; we'd call it a "trumor," but that sounds too much like "tumor." C'est la vie.)

While it's nice to get confirmation that Apple's Minneapolis boutique will indeed be in the Mall of America, we can't imagine that the company would have settled for anything less. These stores are as much about mind share as market share (more, even), and what better place to erect a monument to Apple's greatness than in the largest mall in the country? It's not a mall, it's the mall; show some respect. It's the Mecca of consumerism. Tourists from all over the world descend upon Minneapolis just to visit the Mall of America and bask in its holy neon glow. Legend has it that the fries at Corn Dogs Plus can restore sight, cure leprosy, and repair damaged credit ratings. Perhaps in keeping with that whole spirit, you can even get married there. The place is that cool.

The AtAT staff was lucky enough to make a pilgrimage to the Mall of America once a couple of years ago, and we can only say this: you haven't lived, capitalistically speaking, until you've visited a mall with four, count 'em, four Sunglass Huts. Oh, the excess! It was like we had died and gone to heaven-- or a reasonable consumer-grade facsimile thereof. Whatever your religious beliefs, you'll never convince us that heaven doesn't have at least two climate-controlled food courts, a fourteen-screen cinema, and a log ride.

So congrats to Apple for securing a spot in the Mall to End All Malls. Even if you ignore the quasi-religious aspect of the endeavor, we can't think of a better way to get Apple's name, logo, and butt-kicking products live and in-person in front of as many friendly eyeballs as possible. The Mall of America claims to get an average of 30 million visitors each year. That's 82,000 each and every single day-- and they're all in a shopping frame of mind. Oh, this is gonna be good.

If you're one of those people so obsessed about Apple's technologies that you can't sleep at night because you're constantly worried about whether Apple's 400 Mbps FireWire technology will survive the threat of the 480 Mbps USB 2.0 standard, we have a couple of things to say. First of all, get a life. Seriously. Otherwise you might wind up so far gone you'll spend all your time producing an Apple-themed online soap opera or something equally absurd. Secondly, even if you don't get a life, at least you can breathe a little easier now, because Apple has a powerful new ally in the fight for widespread FireWire support. Here's the weird thing, though: that ally is none other than Microsoft.

'Strue! Faithful viewer Nina Tovish could have knocked us over with a feather when she told us, but she chose to knock us over with a CNET article instead. Apparently when Windows XP surfaces later this year as the company's consumer operating system du jour, it'll support the existing USB 1.1 standard out of the box, but the higher-bandwidth USB 2.0 (which the industry formulated as an alternative to FireWire during those pesky licensing tussles a few years back) will be persona non grata. Instead, Microsoft will "throw its support" behind FireWire as Windows XP's high-speed peripheral interconnect bus of choice.

So you can probably stop worrying about FireWire going away anytime soon. With Microsoft's chunk of the desktop market, it's a pretty safe bet that USB 2.0 peripherals aren't going to catch on very quickly. It's a story that we Mac users have lived through time and time again: why build the goods if 90% of the market won't be able to use it unless you write custom drivers? It's sort of nice being on the winning side of that paradigm for once; the selection of FireWire-based peripherals has been increasing nicely in the past year or so, but we imagine that Windows XP will send FireWire peripheral development through the roof.

As for why Microsoft bailed on USB 2.0 in Windows XP, the company claims that "there is not a sufficient array of production-quality devices to test against." Fair enough. On the other hand, the company's statement that "Microsoft will not ship support for a standard that they can't guarantee a great user experience on" strikes us as both awkwardly constructed and, you know, pretty funny. But far be it from us to look a gift monopoly in the mouth.

Is Microsoft's decision to back Apple's FireWire technology instead of USB 2.0 a sign that the Redmond Giant is getting-- dare we say it-- less execrable? We know, we know, it's a brain-twister even to consider the possibility. We're naturally inclined to consider the FireWire thing an accident, a massive fluke, a datum way off the bell curve... but in light of another recent move, now we're not so sure. For you see, in a startling display of lucidity and attention to customer sentiment, Microsoft has axed Clippy.

Those of you blessed with a primarily Wintel-free lifestyle may not even know who Clippy is, and you should number yourselves among the fortunate few. Clippy is that appalling animated paper clip with eyes that is supposed to be your "friendly and engaging" assistant in recent versions of Office for Windows. You can barely type the letters W-H-I without Clippy popping up and saying, "It looks like you're typing 'whippet.' Would you like me to finish that for you?" If you've used Office 98 on the Mac, think of that little Mac Classic with legs in the help system and then multiply its annoyance factor by, say, thirty. That's Clippy.

But what's this? According to the New York Times, Microsoft has killed Clippy in the upcoming Office XP-- or at least stuffed him under the hood, only to be called forth when the user is in the mood for a little pain. What's more, the company has launched a $500,000 online advertising campaign for Office XP based entirely upon how annoying the character is. In a series of Flash-based animations (and yes, there are even Mac downloads-- spooky!) Clippy is voiced by none other than Gilbert Gottfried. If that's not the ultimate acknowledgment that Clippy inspires annoyance and rage, we don't know what is-- except for maybe the bit where Clippy claims to be friends with Microsoft Bob.

We hate to admit it, but we felt ourselves slipping. Has Microsoft finally created something that the AtAT staff likes, even if it's an ad campaign slamming the company's own lame and mediocre products? Something is clearly amiss. The self-denigrating attitude over at the official Clippy web site has us wondering if Bill Gates has finally come up with his own artificial Reality Distortion Field. Don't worry, though-- we're hard at work on an antidote. So far revisiting the whole "Redmond Justice" antitrust saga seems to be a fairly effective treatment...