For those of you who just bought a new iBook, we have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you now own what is arguably the coolest, friendliest, and most useful laptop ever to grace this earth. The bad news is that you may be considering it obsolete in as little as six weeks' time. For you see, Brian Freeman was the first of many faithful viewers to tip us off to the gabbiness of Alpha-Top, Apple's Taiwanese laptop manufacturer; according to a CNET article, the contractor has publicly stated that it's about to start cranking out even newer iBooks in July, featuring a "wider screen" and coming in "a variety of colors." (Listen! Hear that? That moist pop was the sound of Steve Jobs' head exploding.)

Now, before you start engaging in premature buyer's remorse, think for a second: is it just us, or does July seem way too soon for Apple to ship yet another iBook? By the time Macworld Expo rolls around, the current iBook will only have been shipping for just over two months. Does it really seem likely that Apple would roll out an upgrade that soon? Not that it couldn't happen, of course, but remember, we're not just talking about new color choices, here, which is a fairly minor change to implement; we're talking about a wider screen, which would probably require at least a small alteration to the iBook's chassis. (Okay, sure, the current iBook still has a little room to accommodate a bigger screen, but we still think it sounds a little fishy.) So before you panic, ask yourself this: when was the last time that Apple changed the actual physical design (not just the colors, or hard disk size, or processor speed) of a single product family twice in less than three months?

The only reason we can't dismiss this rumor outright is this: if you accept the theory that the current iBook is actually a "CubeBook" renamed in order to avoid any association with Apple's gorgeous but disastrously slow-selling Cube, then obviously Apple must have been working on a real new iBook, too-- and the odds are good that the real iBook would boast a slightly larger screen and different color choices. So maybe there's something to this after all, but we're not betting the house on it. We seem to recall having heard reports from loose-lipped Taiwanese contractors long ago-- about Apple-branded Palm OS devices rolling off the assembly lines. In other words, we're keeping open minds, but our hearts won't stop out of shock if Macworld Expo comes and goes without new iBooks gracing the stage.

Uh-oh, it sounds like Uncle Steve's master plan to eradicate the cathode ray tube from the face of this troubled planet could run into a teensy little snag next year. For those of you who aren't quite up to speed, it still should come as no surprise that Steve isn't the CRT's biggest fan; as a display technology, it's bulky, it's hot, and it sucks down power like Kool-Aid on a summer day. And we don't know if all CRTs do this, but certainly our own 17-incher from NEC emits a loud scary buzz every time we turn it on. Oh, yeah-- that's real classy.

So Steve, ever mindful of ways in which he can rid the world of offensively inelegant technology, announced earlier this week that Apple was moving to an all-LCD display line-up. Clearly he would have mandated this move years ago, if not for the exorbitant prices of flat-panel LCDs; it seems he may have learned a thing or two when his NeXT Cube met with critical acclaim, but mysteriously failed in the marketplace-- possibly, just possibly due to its $10,000 price tag. (Sadly, he didn't learn that lesson quite well enough to ship Apple's Cube at its current $1299 price point right off the bat.)

Now, it's worth noting that Steve's all-LCD initiative is a bit of a risk, seeing as Apple's cheapest display is now a fairly hefty $599, whereas larger CRT-based monitors are available for a third that price. But considering what you get for that $599 (a crystal-clear 1024x768 15-inch display that's less than seven inches deep and doesn't pump your skull full of radiation for eight to twelve hours each day), we think LCDs have finally slipped into a price zone where Apple might actually be able to pull this off. Unless, of course, instead of continuing to fall, LCD prices start to rise again. Gee, what would happen in that situation?

Well, according to The Register, we may soon get to find out. According to market research firm DisplaySearch, the component prices of LCDs will allegedly "cease falling" by the end of this year and actually start rising sometime early in 2002. The realities of the market being what they are, Apple couldn't exactly raise its display prices to follow suit without suffering (at best) a mass customer defection or (at worst) rampaging lynch mobs running amuck and sticking the severed heads of Mac Geniuses on pikes outside the fiery ruins of Apple Stores across the nation. Instead, Apple would have to eat the difference by watching its gross margin tumble earthward, which wouldn't be good for that all-important bottom line.

Still, isn't a profit reduction and the ensuing stock price hit worth it to strike a blow against mediocre and outdated technology? (Don't answer that.)

Oh, my my my... It seems that good ol' Gil Amelio has settled on a wonderfully effective defense mechanism to help deal with his failure to restore Apple to glory. It's no secret that the man was kicked in the head pretty hard when Apple's board gave him the boot, but in recent years, his strategy has been simple: he points to whatever successes that Apple may have accomplished in recent months, and then says it was all his idea. That may sound simple and painfully transparent, but hey, it seems to be working. Whatever gets him through the night, you know?

For instance, we just stumbled across a recent BusinessWeek interview with The Gilster (courtesy of MacCentral), and when asked for his "thoughts on Apple Computer these days," the man replied, "I can say that the strategy that we put in place during my term there seems to still be the guiding strategy for the company. I would have to say I'm proud that they've followed through. To the extent that they continue to stay focused on that plan, they will continue to do just fine." Gee, Gil, what plan was that? The one you put together about mustering the guts to end cloning despite such a move's short-term unpopularity, putting some shine and pride back into the existing Mac OS instead of hanging everyone's hopes on an operating system four years away, reversing your own trend towards more PC-like Macs (that must have been just to lull the competition into a false sense of security, huh?) by designing and shipping distinctive and innovative hardware, and actually advertising for a change? Or was it the plan that you scrawled on the back of an envelope that said "MAK APPLE PROFITUBLE AGIN"? The lack of detail is so convenient, isn't it? When Apple stumbles, Gil can just say, "oh, they stopped using my plan," and when it recovers, it's all about "see, they're using my plan again."

Now, we know there are some of you who do believe that Gil did most of the work engineering Apple's turnaround and Steve just came in and stole all the credit, but even if there's any truth to that, try to picture how Apple would be today if Gil were still running things and Steve were mostly out of the picture. Personally, we just see a big smoking crater where One Infinite Loop used to be-- because Gil's Apple would have continued to bleed a billion dollars a year (with small "profits" in each December quarter so Gil could collect his yearly bonus). Mac cloners would have kept sucking away sales from Apple because under Gil's regime Macs became increasingly cheaply-constructed and Wintel-like in nature, and were plagued by performance and stability nightmares. Apple's brand would mean nothing, or less than nothing. And retail stores? Yeah, right. No one can know what might have been, but our crystal ball says that two more years with Gil at the helm and Apple would have collapsed completely. But he can believe whatever he likes, just as long as he's happy...