Hmmm... we're not about to quit our day jobs and go into the "fortune telling through imitation goat innards" business full-time anytime soon, but our first foray into that potentially lucrative field sounds startlingly on-target-- provided you believe that a letter just posted to Mac OS Rumors is indeed from a well-informed Apple employee, as it purports to be. Regular viewers will recall yesterday's revelation that our initial gut-gazing attempts had yielded a prediction of a serious speed boost due for Apple's Power Mac line in three weeks, with the current top-of-the-line 733 MHz dropping to the low end, and the new high water mark hitting the elusive (well, to Motorola, anyway) holy grail of 1 GHz. And yes, we were as skeptical as you are.

Which brings us to today. After faithful viewer The M@d H@tter tipped us off to MOSR's latest update, we eagerly devoured the report on Apple's plans for future PowerPCs, which flatly contradicts those worrisome hints dropped earlier in the week that Motorola's commitment to development of future desktop-suitable PowerPCs may be flagging. Word has it that work on both the G4 variant code-named "Apollo" and the mythical G5 (code-named "Goldfish") is progressing nicely, with Apollo G4s destined to fuel Apple's consumer Macs and portables once Power Macs go G5. When, you ask? Allegedly the G5 is targeted for "volume production" late this year "in order to have systems ready for release at the January Macworld show."

More interesting from an immediate-future perspective, however, is the claim that "recent yields are good on G4 processors greater than 733 MHz, with 5-6 chips per wafer testing at 1 GHz." We were gratified (and more than just a little creeped out) to discover that, according to this alleged Apple employee, come Macworld Expo, "733 MHz may become the bottom end, with 800 MHz and 933 available now, and 1 GHz ship[ping] come Seybold [in September]." Yowza! If this does come true, maybe we can get a cushy gig as the official White House soothsayers. Or perhaps we'll just start a call-in business, shoot our own TV commercials, and take on that cocky Miss Cleo; she needs to be taken down a peg or two. (Which incredibly fake accent should we use as a lame gimmick-- Swedish or Italian?)

Of course, there's always the possibility that the "letter from an Apple employee" was actually written by an AtAT fan who chose to incorporate portions of our hieromantic ramblings into what is one smashingly well-done hoax-- either as an homage to our happy little show, or simply to mess with our heads. In any case, we're just stoked to see the drama flowing again-- and now we're more anxious than ever to see what Steve will have up his sleeves come July 18th. Bring in da noise, bring in da funk!

If you're currently sticking to the theory that the letter from an "Apple employee" posted to Mac OS Rumors is an elaborate hoax, allow us to donate an extra piece of supporting evidence: there's a second connection to recent AtAT ponderings, which some people might consider far too much alignment to be a mere coincidence. In addition to echoing our own prediction of 733 MHz - 1 GHz Power Macs at Macworld Expo, that missive also raised a ton of fascinating issues related to the future of the PowerPC, through the development of Apollo G4s, the G5, and beyond. It's the "beyond" part where things get a bit sketchy on the Motorola side-- and incredibly interesting to Mac fans looking for water cooler rumor fodder, as well as those trying to unearth proof of an AtAT connection.

See, while Motorola is reportedly keeping up on the G4/G5 development thanks to Uncle Steve's constant prodding, the company has essentially no desire to continue forward to the G6, since that chip doesn't mesh with Motorola's focus on the embedded processor market. (Given the company's money troubles, it's hard to blame them.) So for now, Apple "is turning its focus to IBM" when it comes to getting the G6 cobbled together, but that's not the really interesting bit. There's so much good stuff crammed into that "employee letter" that we almost missed the best part of all: as faithful viewer Paul Ferro pointed out, the letter claims that "Apple has the option in 2002 of buying the entire PowerPC assets from Motorola for $500 million."

There are little light bulbs popping into existence over the heads of regular viewers across the globe right about now; those people recall that just two days ago we declared that Apple's struggles with the PowerPC stem from the same lack of control that led to the ickiness in retail sales-- and we all know how Apple is fixing the latter problem. Then we pointed out the company's $4 billion in cash, noted Motorola's thoroughly unpleasant financial situation, and asked "how much a chunk of a semiconductor business goes for these days." Well, now we have our answer: half a billion simoleons and another year of waiting, and Apple can take over Motorola's PowerPC business altogether. Allegedly.

So you can either interpret this as more evidence that the MOSR letter is a hoax cobbled together by someone who watches too much AtAT, or you can bow before our awesome psychic ability that is unparalleled in this plane of existence. All we know is that the prospect of Apple making its own chips for its own Macs-- controlling the software and the hardware all the way down to the processor level-- would be a huge step forward in Steve's "we make the whole widget" philosophy. Next year could turn out to be mighty interesting indeed...

See, we told you that "Redmond Justice" would be heating up soon! Our mailbox is currently choking on all the mail from people rushing to tell us that a decision has been issued; faithful viewer Tom Gunter was first out of the gate to inform us that, as reported by CNN, the appeals court has "reversed a lower court's ruling that Microsoft be broken into two companies as a remedy for anticompetitive practices." So much for the prospect of a couple of Minisofts tearing up the joint...

But is this really a win for Bill and his minions? Not so fast, Sparky! If you put the gun down and read the details of what the appeals court decided, you'll find that Redmond didn't fare nearly as well as most people first thought. In fact, the CNN story originally referred to the ruling as a "major victory" for Microsoft, but that phrase has since been removed. As faithful viewer Rod Meza confirms (and the man is a lawyer, you know), the appeals court only vacated Judge Jackson's remedy, but the judges upheld both his findings of fact and his conclusions of law. In other words, Jackson's order that the company be split in two has been overturned-- but the appeals court agreed with Jackson's ruling that Microsoft is a monopoly and violated antitrust law. In other other words, GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!!

Interestingly enough, based on our quick glimpse at the 125-page ruling, it looks to us like the only real reason why the court overturned the breakup order is because of Jackson's penchant of blabbing to the press, "leaving himself open to the appearance he was biased against Microsoft." Ah, that pesky judicial misconduct... So what's next? Well, the appeals court kicked the case back to the District Court, "for reassignment to a different trial judge for further proceedings consistent with this opinion."

So Judge Jackson is now officially out of the loop, and another judge is going to have to decide not whether, but how Microsoft will be punished. From our perspective, that's a good thing; we never really believed that splitting the company in two would actually fix the problem anyway. When the new district judge joins the cast, with luck he or she will come up with a remedy that might actually change things for the better. And with more luck, it won't take another two years to happen.