"Okay, what did I miss today?" asks faithful viewer Paul Greatbatch. "Why is Apple heading south while Microsoft is heading north?" Well, Paul, we're going to assume you're referring to the stock prices of those two companies, and not to some grand scheme of mass physical migration to which we're not privy that involves Apple pulling up stakes and relocating from Cupertino to Tijuana even as Bill and the gang bail on Redmond and plunge across the border into Salmon Arm, British Columbia. Either that, or NAFTA's about to wreak total havoc with our knowledge of high-tech geography.

We can't say much about MSFT, but AAPL definitely did take a nasty dip today-- down $1.71, which is almost enough to make skittish investors such as ourselves start nervously eyeing the window hasps on the upper floors of tall buildings. We, too, were puzzled, as we hadn't heard any nasty news that might send Apple's stock price sharply lower, so we went digging around for the dirt that just nuked our paper gain as our mind reeled with the possibilities. Did Steve Jobs just quit his post at Apple to go raise sheep in the heartland? Has he been extradited to Peru to face trial for rude public actions with a melon? Did he wake up with a tummy ache after ingesting one too many Tofutti Cuties? What?

And then we saw it: a CNET article reporting that Merrill Lynch opened its big yap about how "shipments of new flat-panel iMacs could fall short of estimates" due to alleged "production problems in Taiwan." It seems that Lynch's sources are claiming that Apple's iMac production numbers for February will be "between 5,000 and 10,000 units," which, when combined with the estimated 5,000 iMacs that Apple cranked out in January, leaves a biiiiiig gap to fill in March if Apple plans to meet Lynch's forecast of 200,000 units by the end of next month. Here's another way to think about it: if Apple will really only have produced at most 15,000 iMacs by the end of this month, it will have filled only 10% of the preorders it had hauled in by the end of January. Wuh-oh.

So what's the hold-up? More messed-up Apple logos? Not so, says Lynch: "We are hearing that there could be some radiation problem with the product, which we think could partially be the reason for manufacturing issues." A radiation problem. Great. Now there's a QA problem for the record books. So, what, now Apple's getting all squeamish about shipping Macs that may slowly turn their owners into drooling, puffy-fleshed mutants with weeping sores and eyes on stalks? Man, talk about your classic overconcern for your customers; ask any poor shmoe still waiting for the iMac he ordered early last month whether he'd rather have his system now or if he'd prefer to wait until Apple can make one that won't turn him into a giant flying turtle beast, and we'll bet you ten to one he'll say "Gamera me!" C'mon, Apple, ship those puppies; what's a few extra limbs between friends?

Wow, could we ever really have been so glass-half-full as to think that Apple's mammoth Manhattan retail store in SoHo would have opened in time for us to have been able to visit it during last summer's Macworld Expo? Sure, strategically it would have made excellent sense for Apple to have coordinated its first big push into retail with one of its biggest trade shows of the year, but looking back on it now, we can't help wondering who slipped a couple of Unbridled Optimism tablets into our morning coffee back then. We bet it was the busboy in that diner. He had shifty eyes.

Anyway, as any New York-dwelling Apple fanatic knows, it's seven months later and that prime hunk o' Prince Street storefront still looks no more like an Apple store than Steve Jobs resembles Whoopi Goldberg wearing an interesting hat-- a fact which is perfectly excusable given certain extenuating circumstances that presented themselves last September. Still, everyone says we need to move forward and resume our lives, and what better sign of a "return to normalcy" than Big Apple Mac fans bemoaning the fact that, from an Apple retail perspective, they're still storeless? So the question of the hour is, when's that former post office-turned-Restoration Hardware finally going to fulfill its destiny of offering up Macs of all shapes and sizes in a distinctly Gappish setting?

Well, according to Think Secret, Apple's certainly not going to hit its original "spring 2002" target, and understandably so-- but fret not, because despite the fact that there's apparently still a ton of construction to be done, Apple is now aiming to open the doors of its SoHo store this July. As in, right around the next New York Macworld Expo. Well, whaddaya know-- we weren't overly optimistic, we were just off by a year. How 'bout that?

So, with a little luck, maybe the next time we're in New York to catch a keynote, we'll have a better way to spend our evenings than staking out HanGawi for hours at a stretch in hopes of cornering Steve and making off with his shoes. Well, okay, maybe not a better way, but a evening or two hanging out in what promises to be one huge and nifty Apple store sure beats a kick in the head-- shoeless or otherwise.

Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, and Microsoft's gotta try to own every market under the sun. Why blame them for trying to take over? It's simply the nature of the Beast. Give them five more years, and we won't be at all surprised if they've cornered the market on PDAs, e-commerce middleware, bowling shoes, plastic coat hangers, disposable ballpoint pens, square fruit, frozen potato products, and those little novelty wall hooks that look like human fingers. From there, of course, it's just three short steps to total global domination. But hey, what can ya do, right?

So we're almost alarmingly unsurprised to hear that the Bill Gates XPerience is now out to conquer the mobile phone market. According to a Time article pointed out by faithful viewer Frank Jones, Microsoft has teamed up with Intel to license out a new mobile phone hardware reference design to manufacturers who want to build devices that are less like a phone and more like a "mini-PC." That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the Wintel experience is coming soon to a telephone near you! Gee, which three keypad buttons do you think we'll have to press to reboot the things when they crash right in the middle of a 911 call? Too bad there's only one "6" button instead of three.

But here's the really creepy bit: Juha Christensen of Microsoft's "mobility group" is quoted as saying, "we want to help people create the iMac of cell phones." Now, what does that mean, exactly? We can't shake the image of some guy walking through a parking lot gripping a 22-pound phone by its central stainless steel arm and holding its 15-inch panel against his head as he shouts into the white hemispherical base, "I'm on my way in right now-- did you want 2% or skim?" We imagine we might be taking that comment a little bit too literally, however.

Our concern, of course, is that anyone who would actually try to make the "iMac of cell phones" (compact, elegant, powerful, exquisitely well-designed and easy to use) out of Intel and Microsoft guts is going to be the same type of entity who comes up with crap like this and thinks it's the epitome of brilliant industrial design. Here's a suggestion: how about Microsoft leaves it to Apple to create the "iMac of cell phones," and instead instructs its licensees to aim a little lower-- say, the "eTower of cell phones"?