Happy WWDC Day! Did everyone enjoy the Stevenote? Sadly, your friendly neighborhood AtAT staff had to abort our tentative outing to catch the festivities live via satellite at the Apple Store Northshore, because one of us was all cranky and needed a nap (and Anya was a little tired, too). No worries, though; between the live updates from MacMinute and MacRumors, we managed to get a pretty clear picture of what was happening-- even from the swingset at the playground via a Treo. (Wheeeee!) We figure we'll catch the delayed webcast later when it's not so crowded.

So, okay, first things first: yes, the leaked specs were, as you all know by now, completely real. And for the many, many among you who insisted that it was an intentional leak designed to churn the fans into a rabid, teeth-gnashing mob over the weekend (man, you guys are paranoid!), well, Steve Himself insists that it was a mistake. (And Steve would never lie to us. Right? Right?) So, based on said specs, we shouldn't have been all that surprised to hear that, yes, the Power Mac G5 debuted today, in 1.6 GHz, 1.8 GHz, and dual 2.0 GHz configurations. Yes, there's a 1 GHz frontside bus in the top model. It does, indeed, support up to 8 GB of RAM, it does have AGP 8x Pro, it does have PCI-X slots. All the stuff that appeared in that brief glimpse of Future Heaven at the Apple Store on Thursday night, it has. But that's not to say there weren't some, shall we say, little surprises.

First of all, there's the question, "what does this thing look like?" Answer: kinda like an industrial-size cheese grater made by Sharper Image, but, you know, in a good way. (And yes, those alleged spy photos were both fake, like we figured.) To be honest, the G5's design seems to us to be a fairly conventional and logical progression from the previous Power Mac enclosure to Apple's latest love affair with rounded right angles and aircraft aluminum. Personally, we're not entirely sure how we feel about those holes all over the front panel, but we're willing to learn to love them what with the chip(s) lurking underneath; given how fast these things move, we assume that they're "speed holes." (Note: do not attempt to add speed holes to your existing Power Mac with a handgun, as this is expressly counterindicated in the usage and care manual.)

Then there's the question, "how much will this thing set me back?" Answer: a hair short of two grand for the entry-level 1.6 GHz model, which is a fair sight pricier than the entry-level G4 was. Guess we were right about Apple charging a premium-- and why not? We're 100% sure that the market will bear it, what with professional Mac users having starved for raw performance for so long. Seriously, what graphics pro wouldn't pay $2999 for a dual 2.0 GHz G5 that allegedly kicks the ugly Windows-using pants off a $4000 dual 3.06 GHz Xeon? Still, though, if you were budgeting for a G5, the bottom line is that you may have to scare up a few hundred extra clams.

The biggest surprise, though, may well be the answer to the question, "when can I get my sweaty little mitts on one?" According to Steve, none of the three Power Mac G5 models will ship until August. August?! So then what were in those Big, Mysterious Boxes that got shipped to resellers and Apple retail stores? Well, you're not gonna believe this, but it turns out they were filled with mimes. Yes, mimes. Celebratory mimes. They are even now walking against the wind in Apple resellers all over the world, commemorating the coming of the G5. No, we don't get it either. (shrug)

And don't go making irate phone calls to People for the Ethical Treatment of Mimes. Those little fellas are used to being trapped in boxes.

The fact that Steve spent a chunk of time leading his flock through the intricacies of Mac OS X 10.3, code-named "Panther," came as no surprise, given that Apple itself has been hyping that aspect of WWDC for ages, now. Still, there were a few curveballs in the Panther demo-- not the least of which was Panther's logo. (What, no furry black X? Apparently panthers are metallic, grey, and angular. Who knew?) Overall, the speculation about what might be included in Panther seems to have been pretty much hit and miss.

For one thing, the rumors were right: the Finder now has that brushed-metal look that spontaneously popped into being a few years back with the QuickTime Player and has been slowly infecting just about every application that Apple has seen fit to ship-- and since the Finder is just another application, really, we suppose it's not terribly surprising to find that the contagion has spread once again. Luckily for us, we're pretty neutral on the Brushed Metal Outbreak, but we know there are some Mac users out there who hate the look so much, we're convinced that Brushed Metal killed their brother and shot their dog. Will the Finder's new ultra-fast searching, support for labels (woo-hoo!!), and improved iTunes-like "user-centric" layout allow them to see past their hatred of all things brushed and metal? Only time will tell. For our part, we're starting to think that the new screen-eating Finder layout with all the volumes and favorites on the left in every window is the pivotal element in Apple's secret plan to sell lots more 23-inch Cinema Displays.

For another thing, the (earlier) rumors were wrong: there's no sight of the alleged "Piles" feature that always struck us as a little superfluous anyway. (We admit it, we just put stuff in folders. We feel so 20th-century.) But there is something we don't recall having heard anything about, albeit in our extremely out-of-touch status: Xcode. Apparently Apple has completely revamped the nifty but aging Project Builder development environment and slapped in all sorts of nifty features like quicker builds, the ability to fix bugs while compiled code is running and continue without recompiling, linkless builds for faster debugging, predictive compiling (which gets a head start on compiling code even before you request it), the ability to distribute build tasks across multiple Macs, and lots more. If you aren't a programmer, this probably means nothing to you, but hey, it is a developers conference, ya know.

Now, we're not going to delve into all 100-odd new features in Panther, like built-in faxing and that cube-spinny implementation of fast user switching-- heck, you can do that on your own time-- but we will say this: Exposé is the single coolest thing we've ever seen, anywhere, in any context, period. On the one hand, Apple's new "pick a window, any window" feature is insanely practical; AtAT's primary production Mac has, for instance, forty applications running on it at once, and finding the exact window we're looking for occasionally takes upwards of an hour and a half. On the other hand, Exposé also sends windows scurrying in all directions like a big mess o' coachroaches scattering when you turn on the light, and that amuses us to no end. Literally. We've been playing with the QuickTime demo of Exposé for the past six hours in a Homer Simpson-like "bed goes up, bed goes down" sort of fashion, and we don't plan on stopping until Panther is installed and we can use the real thing instead.

Aaaaand while we didn't get a new 15-inch PowerBook today (what's up with that, kiddies?), we did get the sequel to last year's smash hit iChat. The marketing bigwigs missed a golden opportunity when they utterly failed to name the new version "iChat 2: I Still Know What You Did Last iChat" and instead went with the relatively blah and relevantly descriptive "iChat AV." Why AV, you ask? Because the latest incarnation of iChat is all audiovisual and stuff, and hence gets constantly stuffed into lockers by all the cooler apps between classes.

Yup, as expected, in addition to standard text-based instant messaging, iChat AV supports voice chats and one-to-one videoconferencing. All you need is a 'net connection wide enough through which to stuff all the bits (56 Kbps for voice, lots lots more for video) and a compatible microphone and/or video camera. And while any FireWire-based video camera will apparently do (for example, any DV camcorder you can use with iMovie), Apple's banking on people going so ga-ga over iChat-based videoconferencing that they'll rush right out and pick up an iSight to complete the experience.

That's right, folks, the iSight. Apple's first digital lifestyle device since the iPod is a decidedly different beast; it's a webcam that's not actually a webcam (or not meant to be, though we're reasonably confident there's no law against using it as such). Billed as "the eyes and ears of iChat AV," the iSight is a FireWire-based and -powered 640x480 auto-focus digital video camera and a dual-element noise-suppressing microphone all rolled into a single lipstick-sized barrel made of-- try to contain your shock, here-- aluminum. Plug it in and twist open the lens cap, and iChat AV fires right up. Ooooo, slick.

Apple claims that the iSight provides far superior video quality, audio clarity, and user experience than competing camera devices, and hey, who are we to argue? After all, they're pretty much always right about that sort of thing. However, we really have to wonder how many people are actually going to pony up $149 just for the ability to let people see what they look like when they chat online. We, personally, do everything in our power to prevent people from seeing what we look like when we're online, because we find that most folks are put off by big blue sombreros and Wonder Woman Underoos. It's a bitter, close-minded world, people. Here's hoping Apple did its market research.