Have you ever wondered how long "soon" is? Well, according to AppleInsider, it's about 216 days-- sort of. See, while the site underwent a spiffy new redesign perhaps about a week ago, the most recent actual report was still dated April 27th, and contained details on Apple's "slimmer Titanium-like iBook due next week." Until the redesign, the last change since April was a note that popped up sometime in June, maybe, stating that the site would be resuming publication "soon." (Actually, since the note didn't appear until June, maybe we should knock a couple of months off that "216 days" figure.)

Anyway, the reason we note this is because last night AppleInsider finally broke its seven-month radio silence and posted some real, honest-to-goodness dirt-- the kind we all know, love, and miss. However, if you go racing over there now to see what we're talking about, just like us, you're only going to feel your head turn into a giant sucker like in the cartoons... because as of now, AppleInsider is sitting right back in April 27thville. But faithful viewer mslee swears that AI really and truly posted a new update last night at "9:38 PM Arizona time." Unfortunately, AI also yanked that story so quickly four out of five theoretical physicists agree that it never actually existed at all in a quantum sense, and even the fifth admits-- and we quote-- that "it disappeared faster than my self-respect on prom night." (He refused to elaborate.)

So unless you just happened to be checking out AppleInsider at the precise microsecond when this alleged "posting event" took place, you missed it-- there isn't even a notice explaining why the report had been pulled, or indeed any evidence that it had ever been there in the first place. (Four out of five physicists just said, "See? Told you so!") Luckily, we happen to have an individual with impeccable timing in the audience; faithful viewer Zifnab is the man with the faster-than-light eyeballs, and he managed to catch most of what AI had posted. Apparently it was all about that long-rumored flat-panel iMac, and its upcoming introduction at Macworld Expo San Francisco in January. Or maybe at Macworld Expo Tokyo in February. Or, um, perhaps at a "special event" in March. In other words, "sometime kinda soon."

As for what this long-awaited puppy's going to look like, AI reported that it'll "closely resemble the current 15-inch Apple Studio Display," but with a "considerably beefier" enclosure. Guts-wise, we're talking a near-gigahertz G3; a 32 MB GeForce 2 video subsystem; 128 MB of RAM; and optical drive options including DVD-ROM, combo drive, and possibly even SuperDrive. They'll boot into Mac OS X by default. And the kicker? Prices are said to range from $999 to $1299.

Now, there are two likely scenarios to explain why AI might have pulled this story quickly enough to give its server whiplash. The first is that it's so close to the truth that Apple, who's been monitoring AppleInsider 24-7 for the past seven months just waiting for something like this to happen, immediately leaped in with a cease-and-desist, thus preventing the site from spoiling the surprise. The second is that, immediately after posting, AppleInsider realized just how unlikely a $1299 gigahertz iMac with a 15-inch LCD display and a SuperDrive really sounds, and decided that its comeback should probably lean slightly more towards the credible side. Interpret as your hearts desire. Personally, we're just glad that AI's back; maybe the next update will exist long enough that we'll actually get to read it.

Okay, so we were roundly tongue-lashed for complaining about a lack of Mac-related drama even as the whole MacFixit 10.1 update ruckus is swinging, but personally, we don't find the whole thing terribly exciting for some reason. We're actually a little surprised that people are getting as worked up over it as they appear to be. If you're not up to speed, here's the Soap Opera Digest version: Many Mac users bought and installed Mac OS X 10.0.x, updated to 10.1 via Apple's update-only CD-ROM, and then updated to 10.1.1 via Software Update. Some of them discovered that, if problems occurred, there was no way to downgrade back to 10.1 without going all the way back to square one and installing 10.0.x first-- that's a hassle. Well, MacFixIt did a little poking around and discovered to its surprise that the 10.1 upgrade CD can be converted to a full 10.1 installer just by burning a copy with one file deleted. Apple demanded that the instructions for doing so be removed. MacFixit complied.

Now, here's where the controversy comes in: apparently a lot of people (at least judging by the twelve zillion posts on this subject over at Slashdot) are now miffed at Apple for putting the legal squeeze on MacFixIt. Granted, it was probably "Not A Good Idea" for Apple to ship an updater CD that was, in fact, a full installer CD with one extra file labelling it as an updater; indeed, we're kind of surprised that no one figured out how to do this sooner. Still, despite the fact that it was Apple's doozy of a mistake, we still think the company was probably wise to request that a site as popular as MacFixIt stop telling people how they can effectively turn a $19.95 update CD (heck, maybe it even works on the free discs doled out in retail outlets, we don't know) into a complete $129.95 Mac OS X 10.1 installer, albeit an unlicensed one.

Note that we're not necessarily saying we think that MacFixIt violated any laws or even the Mac OS X license agreement (as Apple contends in its "hey, cut that out" letter, which has since also disappeared from MacFixIt). We're just saying that, having already screwed up pretty badly by choosing to make upgrade CDs in a fundamentally brain-damaged fashion, the only thing worse would be for Apple to lend tacit approval to the practice of obtaining and converting said CDs in lieu of purchasing fully licensed copies of Mac OS X. Well, okay, that's not quite true; it might be worse still if Apple were to post the instructions on its own home page and then advertise that fact with commercials starring Jeff Goldblum in heavy rotation during Must-See TV. But you get our drift; we consider it to have been a sane response to Apple having dug itself into a nasty hole.

It doesn't seem to us that MacFixIt is going to be any the worse for having yanked the report. In fact, we wouldn't be surprised if all this controversy (and coverage by WIRED, who calls the whole situation a "fiasco") was increasing the site's traffic significantly. So hey, MacFixIt's okay, Apple's as good as can be expected under the circumstances, and anyone who really wants to know how to convert a 10.1 upgrade CD into a full installer will always be able to find the instructions floating around out there on the 'net. Everybody wins, sort of. And we're a sucker for a happyish ending.