As anyone who notices AtAT's occasional, er, "broadcast glitches" is surely aware, no one understands the occasionally vast gulf between intent and reality as well as your friendly neighborhood AtAT staff. Between a Viewer Mail segment that's nearly three weeks old and the total absence of a new episode yesterday (whoopsie!), we are fully aware that things often don't turn out the way we plan them. In fact, if we had to choose a single appropriate phrase to grace our tombstones when we shuffle off these mortal coils, we'd probably go with "DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES BEYOND OUR CONTROL, AtAT IS INDEFINITELY DELAYED; WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE." They charge by the letter, though, so we figure we'll opt for something more like "NO DELL COMMERCIALS IN HEAVEN" instead.

But we digress. The relevance, here, is that we really don't blame Apple for the delays in getting flat-panel iMacs onto store shelves; clearly it wasn't the company's intent to coordinate the product's introduction with a Time Magazine cover story that would provide unprecedented levels of free publicity and then let all that buzz evaporate into the heartbreak of unrealized potential by not having enough gear to go around. C'mon, even Apple understands that the public's memory has a shelf life shorter than a bag full of warm ham; Jobs may work in mysterious ways, but not that mysterious. There was a ball. For whatever reason, it got dropped. It happens.

The good news, though, is that the whole iMac mess will give Steve Jobs something to yap about when he addresses his adoring throngs come Thursday at Macworld Tokyo. Apple has already been rather forthcoming in admitting that there won't be any new Macs unveiled this time around, which means that Steve may be hurting for material; an exact replay of last January's hootenanny probably wouldn't go over terribly well, since the question on showgoers' minds has presumably changed from "what will the new iMac look like?" to "when can we frickin' buy one, already?" Therefore, Steve will likely be making some tweaks to the material-- and according to Think Secret, that includes working in an explanation, of sorts, if not necessarily an apology.

Don't expect a full-blown "mea culpa," since we probably used up our allotment of those following the Great Cube Debacle. Instead, word has it that Steve will at least clear up some of the goofier rumors floating around regarding the iMac drought ("radiation problems," "firmware bugs," etc.) and offer an explanation of just what the heck those "production issues" really are. Think Secret feels that it all boils down to nothing more than a couple of scarce parts: the SuperDrive and "power transistors used in the LCD display." Not to criticize, or anything, but we feel that rationale lacks a certain sense of drama. Steve, if you're watching, you might want to consider playing up the radiation angle, instead-- we think it might be more of a crowd pleaser, especially considering the longstanding Godzilla franchise that resonates with your Tokyo audience. Heck, we know that we would sure find it a lot more exciting.

Anyway, whatever the problem is or was, according to Think Secret, Steve will most likely tell us that iMac availability will "improve dramatically in the next few weeks" and then announce some sort of unspecified promotion intended to rekindle the iMac fever that has cooled due to Empty Shelf Syndrome. Our own sources reveal that Steve will then engage in a fight to the death with a heavily-armed mechanical version of himself, to the undisguised delight of the fans. Too bad there won't be a webcast, hmmmm?

Thank your lucky stars that, while television is a highly visual medium, it's customary for the production staff to stay behind the scenes-- because if we were on camera right now, you'd be subjected to the ocular horror of seeing the AtAT staff performing our patented (and banned in twelve states) Spontaneous Funky Victory Butt-Dance of Joy and Exultance™. And while we imagine that the mere mention that such a thing exists may prompt some of our more obsessive and intrepid fans to demand actual video footage of the SFVBDJE™, please be aware that any such requests will be summarily denied for the sake of public safety and in the interests of mental health. Let's put it this way: you'd be begging for Ballmer instead.

But at least we can tell you why we're dancing for joy with the curtains pulled: there's a whole lotta Apple retail action churning across this great land. For example, MacNN dug up an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which reveals that a renovated mall called West County Center will be reopening this September-- and that Apple is numbered among its tenants. Furthermore, MacNN also recently reported that additional Apple stores are coming to The Grove in L.A. and the Knox-Henderson Avenue area of Dallas. And Apple's own list of retail job opportunities lists plenty of otherwise-unannounced stores in Edina, Minnesota; Garden City, New York; Denver, Colorado; and many more. They're sproutin' up like weeds, folks, and for us, that's reason enough to shake our booties in unbridled jubilation.

Well, almost, anyway. Actually, what really pushed us over the edge and prompted our joyful terpsichorean indulgences was the fact that Apple's retail page once more has a "Coming Soon" section-- and the next store slated to throw open its doors is none other than the one at Biltmore Fashion Park in Phoenix, Arizona. Not that we have any particular reason to celebrate the arrival of an Apple store in a city a couple of thousand miles away from the AtAT Compound, mind you, but regular viewers will recall that a couple of weeks ago, we here at AtAT made a prediction that the Biltmore store would indeed be the next one to throw a grand opening shindig-- and we were completely, totally, and utterly correct. Hence, the Butt-Dance.

Of course, we'd have still more reason to be gettin' down and funky with our bad selves if there had been some kind of office pool or something providing some sort of financial reward for our perspicacity, but unfortunately we'll just have to be happy with a smug sense of predictive infallibility in all matters retail. Meanwhile, all of you Phoenix-area Mac fans should start gearing up for next Saturday (that's the 30th)'s big throwdown-- especially if you missed the Chandler opening, you slackers. And when you file into the store to the funky beat of "Love Shack," feel free to do a butt-dance of your own.

Okay, it's been over six full weeks since Steve took the wraps off the first Mac ever with a processor (or two) that broke the gigahertz barrier; that should be plenty of time for even the most charitable Mac fan to have gotten over the novelty and have started getting antsy for even more performance, right? Nobody's still getting rug-burn on their chins and leaving a visible path of drool behind them over the dual-gigahertz Power Mac, are they? Because if any of you are still floored by that, we can wait until the effect wears off, but seeing as there were plenty of rumor hounds who were so jaded that the prospect of two 1 GHz G4s purring under the hood actually left them disappointed last January, we figured this was a safe time to broach the subject of the next big performance leap.

Ah, nuts to the laggards; if they're still going ga-ga over gig-gig, they won't mind if we plow ahead anyway. So here's the spiel: according to Mac OS Rumors, Apple is planning another incremental Power Mac revision this summer, and it's a doozy: rumor has it that the upcoming PowerPC 7500 G4 chip will let Apple ship a dual 1.4 GHz system, thus achieving a 40% increase in raw clock speed in just half a year. Better yet, though, these mid-year Power Macs also allegedly pack "400 MHz RapidIO-compatible memory," which would finally open up one of the Mac's worst remaining bottlenecks: memory throughput. If all of this is even remotely true, the platform's looking at a serious speed boost on the high end come this July's Expo or thereabouts. We here at AtAT are especially looking forward to seeing our dual 800 MHz rig look like a drunken slug once these alleged 1.4 GHz units hit the streets some seven or eight months after our cripplingly expensive purchase. It'll be painful, but it'll hurt so good.

Now, we're absolutely certain that there are at least a handful of you out there whose reaction to these unsubstantiated rumors of dual 1.4 GHz G4 / RapidIO bliss was little more than an eye-roll and a twitchy demand to know why, come this summer, Apple still won't have a Power Mac G5 ready to roll. Hey, c'mon, people, we've been telling you for ages that we don't expect a G5 until early next year; don't blame us if your expectations are a little out of whack. Geez. We should lock you in a room with the people who are still in awe over the dual-gigahertz systems; maybe there will be some kind of "expectation osmosis" or something, and you'll all come out with reasonable Mac-predictive perspectives. We can but dream.