Let the word go forth: this past Saturday, Apple officially met an original deadline-- without moving the finish line, and without sneakily changing the specifics of what would be delivered. (Those of you who remember when the Premiere release of "Rhapsody" was supposed to ship back in early 1998 should feel free to take a moment to be appropriately stunned.) You see, last May Uncle Steve officially took the wraps off one leg of his elaborate scheme for world domination-- namely, the bit about opening retail stores. At that time, Steve indicated that Apple would have no fewer than twenty-five locations with cash registers a-ringin' by year's end.

Color us suitably impressed, then, that on Saturday, less than seven months after the official announcement of that lofty goal, Apple hit its deadline: the Rockingham Park location is Magic Number Twenty-Five, and Apple beat its deadline by over three full weeks. The AtAT staff feels blessed to have been present at such a momentous occasion. As proof of our attendance, we'd like to point out that faithful viewers Dundee and Macintech both spotted us in several photos published over at MacCentral; we'll leave it to you to pick our various body parts out of the crowd. (Figuratively speaking, of course. Eeeeww.)

But wait, there's more: on the same exact day-- indeed, just minutes after meeting its original twenty-five-store goal-- Apple exceeded its target and opened its twenty-sixth store at Palisades in West Nyack, New York. We noticed over at MacNN that a gentleman named Brian Burton has posted photos of that grand opening, but as far as we can tell, the AtAT staff doesn't appear in any of them. Curse the laws of time, space, and dimension. (But we think we spot an AtAT t-shirt in this shot.) In any case, congrats to Apple on overdelivering; does this mean that the company's true calling is neither software development nor hardware design-- but retail? A question for the ages.

While you're chewing on that one, Apple isn't standing still; faithful viewer Luke pointed out that the CambridgeSide store is now in the on-deck circle on Apple's retail page. As usual, no date is given, but the odds are good that the grand opening will take place this Saturday morning. Yes, the AtAT staff will be there (this'll be our fifth), and we're hoping for a better crowd than at the Rockingham Park opening, which was fun, but a little on the light side. Boston area Mac fans, come on down and say hi to us there-- we'll be hanging around for the first couple of hours, handing out stickers and hawking shirts as usual. Like you have anything better to do on a Saturday...

You know the old adage, "it ain't really shipped 'til the first bug fix is out"? Well, digital music fans, rejoice-- for the iPod has finally "really shipped." Last Friday Apple posted the iPod Software Updater 1.0.2, and while it's true that the 1.0 version appeared a month earlier, we seem to recall that it didn't actually do anything except restore an iPod to its from-the-factory minty-fresh condition. 1.0.2, on the other hand, actually fixes an "issue" and adds new capabilities, thus making it an honest-to-goodness "updater" (as opposed to the last release, which was more of a "do-nothinger.")

The "issue" in question is a sleep bug "that can cause a small percentage of iPods to temporarily not wake from sleep when the battery reaches a low charge level." Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first officially acknowledged iPod bug! So if you've occasionally found your iPod so sleepy you can't even wake it up after plugging it into the wall and only a hard reset will snap it back to life, this firmware update is just the kick in the scroll-wheel your iPod has been waiting for.

Even if your iPod isn't particularly narcoleptic, you should apply the 1.0.2 update anyway, because it also functions as a sort of Matrix-style set of instantaneous night school classes. Give it a spin and you'll find that your iPod has suddenly gained additional linguistic capabilities; out of the box it spoke English, French, German, and Japanese, but after the language crash-course included in the 1.0.2 update, it'll be able to handle Spanish, Italian, and Dutch as well. Now, we can already hear the cries of outrage from the non-English/French/German/Japanese/Spanish/Italian/Dutch-speakers in the crowd: "What, no Swahili? No Klingon?" Keep your pants on, Chuckles; they had to save something for 1.0.3.

Those of you who have unselfishly purchased iPods for others as holiday gifts and have them stashed away in the closet, we imagine that right about now you're wondering whether it's kosher to take them out and play with th-- uh, update their firmware. Indeed it is; in fact, it's practically your responsibility. After all, you don't want to be the one who gave someone a crashing iPod, right? So pop open those boxes and update away. Feel free to test the devices under actual battle conditions for a few days before returning them to their original packaging, just to verify that they work properly. Handy tip: fingerprints wipe off easily with a soft, lint-free cloth.

A couple of weeks ago we told you about an Australian Power Mac G4 that, despite having been horribly disfigured by intense heat, managed to survive a fire that killed a slew of lesser Wintels. Once the unit had been literally sawn open, all three of its hard disks were found to be in perfect working order with zero data loss; the RAM and SCSI cards worked; and once a display had been plugged into the charred monitor port, the owners discovered to their astonishment that the system still booted up just fine. At the time we suggested that this UberMac be sent back to Apple for breeding purposes, because it clearly possessed some sort of super powers to have withstood a blaze that melted its enclosure almost beyond recognition.

Well, now we've got to retract that suggestion-- not because the survival of that Power Mac was anything short of miraculous, but rather because all Power Macs with the Yosemite-style enclosure might possess the same miraculous fireproof characteristics. Faithful viewer Blondie tipped us off to a Spanish article which we gather (thanks to a heaping helping of Babelfish translation) describes a blue-and-white Power Mac G3 that emerged from another inferno similarly intact. (WARNING: there are photos of the charred G3, and while the unit is basically fine in every way except aesthetically, viewers with more sensitive constitutions may find the graphic images upsetting.)

Two fires, two Power Macs, and two survivors (despite the ugly scarring) while all around, PCs choked and died. Coincidence? We think not. Now, we are by no means telling you that your Power Mac is magically fireproof, or anything, and we certainly don't want to get any irate mail from viewers who chucked their Macs in the fireplace because we told you they'd be fine. Nor do we need the AtAT compound to be surrounded by angry villagers wielding torches and pitchforks who had all decided to throw their Macs into a huge pile, douse them with lighter fluid, and toss in a match, expecting that after the bonfire they'd all be able to plug into a hub and have a big ol' Quake 3 LAN party. In short, kiddies, do not try this at home. For all we know these two fireproof Macs were anomalies.

Betcha they weren't, though.