Not that we're seriously suggesting that Apple crafted a massive PR letdown on purpose, but man, can you think of a better way to kill the rumors trade? Think about it: suppose that all that hype about an LCD iMac prior to last July's Macworld Expo was deliberately leaked from One Infinite Loop when the company knew full well that it wouldn't be unveiling that long-awaited product until October at the earliest. Heading into that keynote address, everybody (well, everybody who doesn't keep up with AtAT, anyway) expected a revolutionary new iMac that would take the world by storm. Instead, we got slightly updated Power Macs, a "shipping in two months" demo of Mac OS X 10.1, a preview of iDVD 2, and ho-hum iMacs in the same old chassis. The fans were shellshocked as they filed out of that hall-- and the community backlash against the rumors sites probably had Steve Jobs giggling like a schoolgirl on nitrous.

Again, we want to stress that we're not saying that's what actually happened, but honestly, have you noticed how gunshy people have been about predicting Apple hardware rollouts for the past couple of months? Worker Bee, Shmorker Bee; last July's Big Nothing cast a darker pall over the prognostication game than a mere employee dismissal and intellectual property lawsuit could ever create. These days, on those rare occasions when we do find a rumor about a new Mac intro date, there are so many qualifiers we find ourselves flashing back to Pee-Wee Baseball tryouts. (See, because a qualifier can be a limiting phrase like "if this happens" and "providing that doesn't change," but it can also mean "one who qualifies for something," and it's really easy to qualify for Pee-Wee Ba... Ah, never mind.)

Anyway, despite our continued reminders that AtAT is most definitely not a rumors outlet, we get an awful lot of mail from viewers looking for insight on Apple's future product plans. The subject du jour is the PowerBook G4, whose titanium exterior is just as "now" today as it was on day one, but whose innards are starting to smell a little stale. After all, it's been over nine months since Uncle Steve first took the wraps off that particular mix of power and sex, so the PowerBook's guts could use a bit of an overhaul. We've already passed on the mysterious message we found on our car hinting at 500/667 MHz processors and a CD-RW option due sometime this month; as of yet, we've since received no indication that those plans have changed, despite Steve's insistence that there will be "no new hardware products" at the upcoming Apple Expo in Paris.

On the other hand, maybe we should leave this to the pros. Mac OS Rumors dishes the dirt as a career instead of as a mild distraction when nothing good's on TV-- and as faithful viewer The M@d H@tter points out, MOSR is now downplaying the likelihood of a new PowerBook surfacing this month, stating that it definitely won't show up at in Paris and that a rollout "in October or perhaps even early November" is more probable. The site does admit, however, that "it's still possible" that the unit would make its debut "the week previous [to Apple Expo] at Seybold." For our money, we rate that last scenario as extremely unlikely-- but only because Seybold is the same week as Apple Expo, and not the week before. It'd be a neat trick, though.

Ah, what the heck... see this limb, here? See how we're going out on it? That's because we still have a strong feeling that the new PowerBook is indeed just weeks away, and that it'll be here before the month is out. Maybe it's the emergence of some latent psychic ability, maybe it's the alignment of the stars and planets, and maybe it's Apple's various frenzied attempts to clear the channel of PowerBooks over the course of the past several weeks; whatever the reason, something in our gut still says "September." But if you place any bets based on that prediction, don't blame us if you lose all your chips...

Remember when an Apple retail store grand opening used to be news? When the first two stores opened way back in May, the press couldn't get enough; there were photos, videos, editorials, in-depth interviews with the mall janitorial staff-- the works. When the second wave of stores started to open last month, the enthusiasm was back; the Plano and Mall of America openings both got good coverage, and the Woodfield opening caused a decent stir as well. But by that time, Apple was opening literally a store every week, so when the Northshore store opened a week ago, there was definitely some media fatigue setting in. Once store number seven opened its doors last Friday at the Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio, most pundits were yawning and reaching for the remote to see if that night's episode of The Love Boat was a "Charo."

Basically, it's going to get harder and harder for these Apple store openings to pull in the press, because after a while all the articles (like all the stores) start to look alike-- "hundreds of people in line hours before the doors opened, mall staff amazed at the turnout, some fans drove hundreds of miles," yadda yadda yadda. There needs to be a hook, something to grab the media's attention. If Apple were really on the stick, it'd be providing those hooks itself by seeding the crowd with agents who can inject a little extra drama into the occasion. Twins born in line, the heroic defusing of a terrorist explosive device using nothing but a stick of gum and an iBook, a legal wedding ceremony performed inside just after the doors open-- this is the stuff of which national headlines (and free advertising) are made.

But until Apple clues in and starts milking these grand openings for their maximum media potential, it's up to the customers to give the press something to write about. And no, we're not suggesting that you stage an emergency appendectomy while you're in line, so put that thought out of your head this instant or we're turning this car around and taking you all home right now. No, we were thinking of something a little less life-threatening. For instance, according to MacCentral, Mac fans Kevin Holland and Jennifer Wojcik have raised the bar for this whole "showing up early" thing; these two wacky kids actually showed up to wait in line at 9 PM the night before. Is it safe for us to assume they were first in line? Indeed, they were so early, mall security kicked them out and the couple had to resort to "moving their car from place to place and ducking under the dashboard when the security vehicles came near them."

Now that's a story! Granted, it may not be zany enough to be picked up by the newswires, but it was something that made that the Columbus store opening stand out from the crowd-- and Apple liked it enough to list Kevin and Jennifer on their main Retail web page. So what's in store for the International Plaza opening in Tampa this Friday? Is anyone in Florida game to camping out three days early? C'mon, Floridians, don't let Columbus show you up; those Star Wars fans camped out for longer to get Episode I tickets, and we think we can guarantee that this experience will be a lot more rewarding. Bring a tent!

Speaking of retail, if you've been paying attention for the past six months or so, you may have noticed that things are none too pleasant out there right now. Even as Apple is opening its own stores, several other longtime Mac dealers have been closing theirs. One of the most recent and tragic victims of the "economic slowdown" was longtime Mac-only retailer ComputerWare, a ten-store chain in Northern California that had been selling Macs for seventeen years when it reluctantly shut its doors last April. While we're on the wrong coast ever to have visited ComputerWare, the outpouring of grief that hit our inbox when local residents heard the news of the chain's demise tells us that the Mac community lost a valuable asset that day.

Worse yet, just last week it looked like ComputerWare's corpse was being picked over-- by none other than Elite Computers & Software, the Mac retailer across the street from Apple's Cupertino headquarters. Last Wednesday, Elite announced that it had "purchased the rights to the name 'ComputerWare,' along with other certain trademarks and assets associated with the Mac-only chain." Said Thomas Armes, Elite's President and CEO, "I'm quite sure we can put the name ComputerWare to good use in the near future." By that, we pretty much just figured that Elite was looking to change the name of its single store to something perhaps a little more recognizable, if not necessarily more distinctive.

Instead, we got a pleasant surprise; in Armes's own words, "basically, ComputerWare is back." Faithful viewer avirr tipped us off to a CNET article which reports that Elite is actually planning to reopen several of the original ComputerWare locations, starting with the San Rafael store, which will rise from the dead this Saturday. In addition, Armes is "considering reopening more of the stores and perhaps venturing into new locales." And since Elite also hired several of ComputerWare's "top executives," the odds seem decent that the new ComputerWare will retain much of its original personality. And there was much rejoicing.

Customers familiar with ComputerWare probably recall the chain's motto: "We live Mac. We eat Mac. We sleep Mac. We dream Mac. All we do is Mac." Perhaps that should now be extended with "We died Mac. And we live Mac again." Now let's see if the new ComputerWare can make it another seventeen years...