They're spreading like pod people, only this time we're rooting for the pods. (Okay, we admit it-- we always root for the pods. Go, pods!) On Saturday Apple opened its fourth retail store, this time at Minnesota's scarily huge Mall of America-- and by all accounts, the grand opening was a smashing success. Rodney O. Lain's got a nifty piece on the event over at The Mac Observer, in which the now-familiar elements of any Apple store opening figure in predictable ways. There are such time-honored players as the early-birds waiting in line seven hours before the store opened; the die-hards who drove for hours across state lines to be a part of Apple history; even the emergence of flocks of customer-owned PowerBooks and iBooks all glomming onto Apple's AirPort signal while the faithful waited in line to experience Retail Nirvana first-hand. All the elements of a classic.

Seeing as we've heard this particular story three or four times before, however, we don't mind saying that it's getting a bit tiresome for us. Why? Certainly not because we begrudge Apple the right to treat every store opening as a triumph; after all, if you've ever shopped for a Mac at retail and been spit on and shot at with a BB gun, you know that every Apple store opening is a triumph. No, the factor that's got us just a little down on the recurring "Woo hoo, there's a new Apple store and it kicks major booty!" celebration is that we still haven't had a chance to be a part of it yet.

If all goes according to plan, however, in less than two weeks, that will all change. Confirming the rumors, Apple's retail web page now lists the first Chicagoland Apple store (at the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg) as "opening August 25th." Granted, Schaumburg is maybe 900 miles away from our current digs just outside of Boston, but seeing as the AtAT staff originates from the Chicago and Milwaukee areas, it's only appropriate that we fly out to welcome Apple's pod-like expansion into our original neck of the woods. It's the least we can do, right?

Well, okay, we admit it: we were actually going to be in Chicago that day anyway for a friend's Rock & Roll Wedding Extravaganza. But surely it's a staggering coincidence that said Extravaganza just happens to fall on the evening of the Apple store love-in, yes? And that we'll be in town for one full day only-- the exact day of the Woodfield store opening? Indeed, this is no mere accident of fate; this is the Divine Will of Jobs. So we've got our plane tickets, and barring some sort of horrible natural disaster, the AtAT staff should be in line with the rest of the faithful come the morning of the 25th. Maybe we'll see you there; odds are we'll be wearing the uniform. :)

Hands up, who wants a Mac server? We mean, a real Mac server? There's been literally zero public acknowledgment by Apple that the company is hard at work on crafting a Mac that even a corporate IT dweeb could love, but we've been hearing whispers about honest-to-goodness rack-mountable, fault-tolerant, hot-swappable-component server Macs for a few months, now... and the rumors just keep on coming.

We know, we know; the last time you heard about these mythical server Macs, Think Secret was getting your hopes up that they'd actually make their debut at the last Expo keynote. Needless to say, those of you who chose to put a lot of stock in that particular rumor were sorely disappointed; in fact, not only are Apple's latest G4 Servers still basically just regular Power Macs with bundled software and the word "server" slapped on the box, but they're also not even current Power Macs. Single or dual 533 MHz processors? My, how early-to-mid-2001.

But if your faith in the grand vision of enterprise-class Mac servers hasn't been totally crushed into dust, faithful viewer The M@d H@tter tells us that Think Secret is once again all abuzz with whispers about Apple's alleged progress in that area. (Yes, we're fully aware that all the info to date about these supposed servers has apparently come from Think Secret. Feel free to consider that fact suspicious if you so choose.) Reportedly Apple is "actively soliciting feedback" from IT types on "how big the unit should be, what kind of power it should have, how many expansion slots should be on-board, and what it should look like." If that's true, then Apple has moved solidly into the advanced stage of development known as "Hey, Maybe We Should Make A Server."

Clearly if Apple is just now "in the process of planning the features and functionality" of these rack-mount servers, whoever projected them to join Steve onstage during the last Stevenote was waaaay off. The revised status update is that "something is definitely up" and "a prototype appears to exist." By that we can only project that "shipping last month" has just turned into "shipping sometime before the polar ice caps melt and a mutant race of flipper-bearing porpoise people inherit the earth." Circle the date on your calendars, server fans!

Attention, UK Mac users: Apple apologizes for the way it's kicked you folks around for the past several years. That's right; Apple is sorry for all the cancelled Expo appearances, the elimination of the British-localised English Mac OS, last year's widespread layoffs, etc. and has decided to make reparations. At least, that's the way we've chosen to interpret the new software bundle that Apple has seen fit to include with new iMacs-- but only iMacs sold in the U.K. (Sorry, Tennessee!)

Check it out, friends: in addition to the usual software that Apple crams onto the hard disks of every iMac (e.g. AppleWorks, iTunes, iMovie, Bugdom, etc.), UK customers get a slew of additional titles-- and this is no sack full of aging shovelware. Some of this is A-list material; for instance, Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation is included, and that's a relatively recent helping of Croftian entertainment. You also get Escape From Monkey Island, which we think just came out last month. UK iMac buyers get this stuff for free. It's almost enough to make us Yanks regret having started all that trouble back in the mid-late 1700s. Sure, we have liberty and representation in the government that taxes us, but they get free games!

As for whether this special software bundle constitutes just the first step in a newfound policy of Anglophilia at Apple, well, that remains to be seen. Personally, we wouldn't count on it-- there's a reason they refer to Steve as "mercurial." Our advice? Take advantage of the free games offer while you can, before Apple reverts to type and starts spraying UK-bound hardware with anthrax and Agent Orange or something.