Keep a tight hold on those hats, folks, because the official word is out: Apple retail stores are a-comin' (we knew that already) and they're a-comin' in droves (that's the new part). Oh, sure, we suspected that Apple was going for fairly heavy coverage, but given the fact that the rumored locations thus far have all been trendy, upscale, touristy, and fairly expensive to lease, we kept wondering whether the analysts who expected no more than ten "showcase" stores were right. But as they so often are, those particular analysts were wrong, wrong, wrong-- because as an early-bird Reuters article reports from Apple's press-only tour of the first store in McLean, Virginia, Steve's retail elves plan to open twenty-five of these things by the end of the year. The invasion begins!

According to Steve, this Saturday will mark the opening of not one, but two Apple stores-- the expected one in McLean, and another in the Glendale Galleria in the Los Angeles area. Geez, what with all the McLean-area Mac fanatics risking death at the mighty hands and truncheons of Mall Security just to sneak blurry digital snapshots of the contents of the Apple store's dumpster ("Look, the construction crew had Wendy's for lunch! What does it all mean?"), we can't help but feel that the L.A. contingent has been slacking off a little. Where are all the covert recon reports about what kind of fast food the L.A. construction workers prefer? Someone's asleep on the job, here.

Meanwhile, as faithful viewer Paul Ferro points out, Apple's web site now has a whole Retail section (complete with photos) urging people to "shop different," while an Apple press release confirms that, as previously noted, each store will indeed be divided into sections. "Home" and "Pro" will showcase the appropriate product lines, as you'd expect. A subdivided "Solutions" area will focus on that whole "digital lifestyle hub" aspect of the Mac, letting customers play with iTunes and iMovie, and stocking "a wide assortment" of third-party PDAs, MP3 players, digital video/still cameras, and the like. The "Genius Bar" confirms a report that we'd first heard weeks ago-- that at all times, each store would have a staff member on duty with the lofty title of "Mac Genius." Get answers to your Mac questions, or just play Stump The Guru; if he or she can't help, there's a "hot line" to Apple HQ waiting as backup. Finally, round out your visit with a trip to the "Theater," where you can watch demos of Apple gear (there's a schedule, just like at the Expos), pick up a few of over three hundred titles in the "Software" section, and grab other peripherals and consumables in "Etc.," the junk drawer of Apple's retail experience.

Whew! There's a lot going on in there; no wonder Apple is leasing such huge spaces. According to MacCentral, the company has confirmed the first fourteen locations, and they're widely as rumored-- although the reference to "Lincoln Park" was new to us, and we're wondering if that is indeed a third Chicagoland location in addition to the Michigan Avenue and Woodfield stores. After the flagship stores open this weekend, the next ones will sprout up in six to eight weeks, and according to Steve, Apple will open a new store "every ten days" thereafter. What we don't know is when that rate will cease; as faithful viewer Mike wonders, does that means we'll have over 3500 Apple stores across the country by the end of the century? It's like some kind of beautiful dream...

While the retail stores themselves were obviously the big story at the press event in McLean, Apple's push into store-ownership wasn't the only thing on the agenda. Steve also announced that the new iBooks are now shipping in volume, and to mark that occasion, Apple has a new 60-second commercial in the vein of the popular "Concert" ad that was all the rage a few weeks back. Of course, if you're a TV junkie worthy of the name, you already know that-- because, like faithful viewers Stephen M. Sebeny and Jon Rousseau (and, of course, the AtAT staff), you've already seen it in the course of your standard Monday evening's televisual entertainment regimen.

Personally, we caught it during Boston Public-- we're not particularly crazy about the show, but on Monday nights we usually leave it on as a tube-warmer between syndicated reruns of The Simpsons and Everybody Loves Raymond. If you've been neglecting your couch potato duties, since the new 60-second spot isn't available yet from Apple's ads site, here's the gist: a Young Man In The Target Demographic (was it the guy from "Concert"? We weren't sure) is buying a plane ticket. The airline rep asks if he'd like a window or aisle seat; he replies, "Middle." She gives him a look, and books his ticket.

On the plane (which appears to be a red-eye overnight flight), the guy waits until his two neighbors are asleep, and then lowers his tray table from its full and upright position-- as well as the ones on either side. Onto his own center tray he deposits his iBook; his "overflow" trays are for the items that comprise his "digital lifestyle": a digital camera, a Handspring Visor, a DV camcorder, a portable MP3 player, and a huge stack of CDs. Soon the woman to his right wakes up, and he shows her the footage of his girlfriend that he's editing in iMovie. He's also listening to music via iTunes, and when the suit-clad gentleman to his left wakes up and stares at the pile of CDs on his tray, Demographic Guy offers to share his music and unplugs his headphones. The soulful strains of "Who Let The Dogs Out" then wakes the entire plane, Demographic Guy flashes a smile and a roll of Mentos, the other passengers then smile and shake their heads as if to say "darn kids today" instead of beating the tar out of him, and everyone lives happily ever after. The end.

Overall, we give it two thumbs up; there's a nice shot of the iBook and its relative shrimpiness, it really underscores the whole "hub of your digital lifestyle" message, and it should appeal to kids who aspire to nothing less than one day to wake up a whole cabin full of snoozing airline passengers by using the coolest technology on the market. Minor points off for reinforcing the idea that you'll still need three tray tables and a middle seat to actually do all that cool stuff on a plane; maybe the ad could have used more emphasis on "the iBook is really small" instead of "the iBook plus all the junk you can hook up to it is really unwieldy"-- for a second we thought he was going to connect a USB printer and scanner the next aisle over. And a quick tag at the end like "iBook. Starting at $1299." might have been prudent, since Apple finally has a price worth shouting from the rooftops. But these minor quibbles aside, we hereby declare Apple's latest ad to be the feel-good hit of the summer. Now let's see if it sells.

What do you mean, we imagined the Mentos part? But it's the Freshmaker!

[Note: After we broadcast this scene, faithful viewer Shannon Hicks informed us that a CNET article reported that the Yahoo! story we mentioned (which has since vanished, by the way) was actually describing the old "Netscape engineers are weenies!" back door that actually showed up on AtAT over a year ago. Go figure. Anyway, enjoy the chaos!]

Lastly, a quickie from the "One More Reason Not To Use Windows" department: a security glitch. Hey, what day would be complete without a healthy dose of Microsoft security issues? But today's is even tastier than usual, because this time it's not about slipshod quality assurance practices or the fundamental Redmond belief that "Bugs Sell Upgrades"; nope, this time it's all about paranoia, Big Brother, and a flat-out abuse of trust. (As if you had any doubt.) What more could a drama addict need?

According to a Yahoo! Small Business article forwarded to us by faithful viewer David "scubus" Freeland, Microsoft recently admitted that its software engineers had deliberately planted a "secret password" in its Internet server software which "could be used to gain illegitimate access to hundreds of thousands of Internet sites worldwide." And since we figure it's really hard to code a backdoor password accidentally ("Whoops! I dropped a stapler on my keyboard and it entered six lines of code that just happens to bypass the entire security module when someone enters 'INEEDAREALJOB'!"), when confronted with the evidence by two "security experts" who uncovered the password, Microsoft had little choice but to own up to the sleaze.

Of course, Microsoft is predictably blaming this situation on rogue employees, since coding backdoor access into its products is "absolutely against [its] policy" (nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more). The company has even kindly explained how to disable the secret password, thus solving the problem for the roughly 0.4% of afflicted customers who might actually read about the issue and take action to fix it. Now that's heart!