Whoops! Remember yesterday when we pointed out that Palm Desktop for Mac OS X was "sort of" out-- in the form of a public beta version that would be quicker to obtain by typing in sequences of 1's and 0's read to you over the phone than to download? Well, apparently it's not even "sort of" out; it's only sort of "sort of" out. MacNN managed to ferret out the reason why software that was destined to be a hot download was hosted on a server evidently sitting on a 'net connection with the bandwidth of two tin cans and a piece of string... but the explanation leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

Here's the official party line: according to Brian Cantoni of Palm, that public beta wasn't actually a public beta after all. Or, at least, it wasn't supposed to be-- it was "intended only for Palm employees initially." But word leaked out, as word is wont to do, and suddenly demand for the file notched up a couple of degrees of magnitude. That presumably explains why the FTP server on which the software resided proved to be woefully inadequate for a mass-market download frenzy; it was only supposed to be able to handle a handful of Palmfolk, not every slavering Mac OS X fan with a Palm OS-based handheld and a loathing for Classic.

Of course, it doesn't explain why an allegedly private beta was posted for Internet download with no password required to access the installer. Nor does it explain why just anyone can sign up to get the software; the download link is emailed to anyone who fills out a form, and one would think it'd be an easy matter for Palm to reject any email addresses that aren't those of Palm employees. And here's the real kicker: if this software was intended only for internal beta testers, why does the term public beta appear no fewer than seven times on one web page, not including the URL of the page itself ("http://www.palm.com/macintosh/publicbeta/")?

In fact, if it weren't for a total lack of links to the "Public Beta" page on Palm's site, we'd be inclined to suspect that the whole "it was supposed to be a private public beta" excuse was just a convenient job-saving cover story for someone who ordered a lot less bandwidth than he or she probably should have. But then, we're also inclined to suspect that fluoride in the country's water supply is part of a plot by an international consortium of shadowy evildoers who are chemically driving the population to seemingly voluntary Windows use, so you really can't go by us. In any event, stay tuned for the real Palm public beta sometime next month, and keep watching the skies...

[NOTE: the "Power Mac G5" lot referenced below has since been "corrected." We figured that might happen once we broadcast this episode, but the scene will remain unchanged as a monument to entertaining typos. Thanks to faithful viewers Chris McCue and Franklin Maurer for pointing this out.]

Sorry, folks; the bad news is that we now have incontrovertible proof that the Power Mac G5 will not debut a week from Monday at the Macworld Expo super-special day-early Stevenote. Sorry to disappoint you-- we know it must be a crushing blow. But get happy, because the good news is that the very same evidence indicates that if you act fast and you've got money to burn, you can buy not one, but two G5s-- and not ten days from now, but today. Yes, sports fans, the "bleeding edge" just got bloodier.

Here's the scoop: faithful viewer MarkTheNarnian just informed us that Apple is auctioning off a slew of older products today, and if you're in the market for, say, thirty-seven 15-inch Studio Displays, this is your time to shine. Most of this appears to be new-in-box or refurbished equipment, so if you don't suffer from that unfortunate malady known as "Latest And Greatest Syndrome" and therefore don't mind buying some slightly older equipment, you can make out like a bandit with this stuff. Bid like a foaming eBay addict on crystal meth, and good luck!

So what does this have to do with the G5, you ask? Well, take a gander at auction lot #3. That's right, kids-- Apple evidently threw a couple of "POWER MAC G5 466" systems in the pile, and bidding starts at just $750.00 per unit. Don't expect to be wowed by the specs, though; we assume that "466" designates the G5s' clock speed, and they only come with 128 MB of RAM and a plain CD-ROM drive. Considering how much hype has been floating around the rumor mill, we don't mind telling you that we're a little underwhelmed by what Apple apparently stuck into the long-awaited G5. This is progress?

Still, a "POWER MAC G5" is a "POWER MAC G5," and barring a particularly meaningful and embarrassing typographical error (nahhhh...), this is your chance to own the Mac of the future. Or do we mean a piece of history? Because these two units (which, strangely enough, appear to share the same Apple part number with an older Power Mac G4 model) are listed as being "DISCONTINUED NEW UNITS." Holy cats, we've been waiting for the G5 all this time and now it turns out we totally missed it! It's already been discontinued? Yeesh-- sounds like this product was on the market for less time than Out Cold was in the theaters. Oh, well-- that's what we get for blinking.

Since it's one painfully slow news week-- both MacMinute and MacCentral are on vacation, neither Mac OS Rumors nor AppleInsider has stirred since last week, and our Christmas wish for reports of a nude Steve Jobs wearing nothing but a pair of plush reindeer antlers running through the streets of downtown Cupertino while belting out the dirty version of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" remains sadly ungranted-- we figured we'd just drop you folks a line about the new addition to our Mac family. As some of you may recall, two weeks ago we drove for four hours in the rain to pick up a custom-configured Power Mac G4 from our friends at Diversified Computers. We then promptly left it boxed up in the AtAT basement for a week while holiday responsibilities monopolized our time.

Well, last Friday we had finally sent out all the cards and wrapped and shipped all the presents-- all the ones that had even a ghost of a chance of arriving in time for Christmas, at any rate. Toss in a four-day weekend and the fact that seven days in the box after being purchased is precisely the right amount of fermentation for a high-end Mac to reach its optimal flavor, and we knew it was time to set that puppy up. We're just here to let you know that, in our experience, at least, the Apple out-of-box experience is still tops. We pulled everything out of the cartons, carried it to the main production studio, plugged it all in, and with a minimum of fuss, we were soon off and running.

And let's be clear about this: when we say "running," we're not talking about a leisurely jog or a modest canter-- we're talking about Flash-style, around-the-world-in-eight-seconds, super-human sprinting. After living for almost five years with a PowerTower Pro (whose 200 MHz 604e admittedly seemed pretty darn fast way back in early '97), we feel it's worth mentioning that piloting two 800 MHz G4s under Mac OS X 10.1.2 feels like riding a bullet train with a warp drive strapped to its butt-- especially since the new AtAT production system also has 1.5 GB of RAM and a GeForce 3 graphics card. (Are we gloating? Well, yes. But you should let us, because in just over a week, this Mac will utterly cease to be the fastest one out there. For the money we paid, we figure we're allowed a couple of weeks' worth of bragging rights.)

On a serious note, though, now that we've used a dual-800 MHz G4 with a Cinema Display for a week, we finally "get" what Apple's doing with Mac OS X. We found the operating system nice but quirky and kind of clunky on our 400 MHz Pismo PowerBook; our new G4, on the other hand, fits Mac OS X like a glove. Everything responds instantly. The Genie Effect actually works, and smoothly, too. Stuff that looked slightly cramped even on a 1024x768 screen suddenly look just right at 1600x1024. In other words, Mac OS X is very much an operating system of the future-- a future when even the $799 iMac ships with a couple of G4s and a 22-inch screen. And we've no doubt it'll grow into itself soon enough.

Oh, and by the way-- while getting actual work done on a fast, modern system is sheer joy, we'd like to add that running the Cocoa version of Oni at 1600x1024 with all options turned on and nary a performance stutter ranks right up there on the giggle scale, too...