Holy cats-- and boy, do we mean it! You know how Apple has seen fit to code-name its various releases of Mac OS X after assorted species of large cats? For example, right now everyone's salivating over Panther, which will be 10.3, and the current release is Jaguar (10.2). And before Steve embraced this wacky scheme to turn internal code names into marketing campaigns that lend themselves to the overuse of faux fur Xs, 10.1 was known internally as Puma and 10.0 was Cheetah. (We're not sure if the Public Beta had a cat-themed code name; is there a big cat that's really slow, panics a lot, and has virtually no application support?)

Well, we hope you're not a hardcore dog person, because apparently the cat thing isn't going away anytime soon. The eagle-eyed sleuths over at MacRumors just noticed that Apple filed for a handful of new trademarks a few weeks ago-- including Cougar, Tiger, Leopard, and Lynx. (Isn't that a law firm?) If you're the incurably skeptical type, you can see for yourself by searching for "apple" over at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. All four are categorized for use for "computers; computer software; computer operating system software," so all that remains is figuring out which feline corresponds to which OS release, and buying new drapes to match.

Viewers skilled in the esoteric practice known as "counting" may have noticed that Apple's four new trademarks only carry the company through Mac OS X 10.7; who knew that Apple's biggest marketing predicament in the 21st century would turn out to be running out of big cats? There's still "Ocelot," of course, and "Lion" (although that one seems a little too obvious even for Apple), but beyond that, Apple may eventually have to settle for naming its operating systems after somewhat smaller beasts. The good news is, there are hundreds of smaller cats from which Apple may choose; the bad news is, people may be slightly less excited about buying an operating system named "Pig-Faced Persian," "British Tick," or "Munchkin Polydactyl."

By the way, this breeds list contains what may well be one of the greatest and most profound quotes of all time: "Attempts to breed hairless tailless cats have not been generally welcomed." Learn it, live it, put it on a bumper sticker.

You just gotta love the schizoid relationships between big companies, especially in high tech. Take Apple and Microsoft, for example: bitter enemies when it comes to Mac OS vs. Windows or QuickTime vs. Windows Media, right? But whenever they talk to the press about Microsoft Office for the Mac everything's all grins and buddy-buddy. If you've been with the Mac for a while, you may recall Steve Jobs presenting Bill Gates's Big Giant Head (live via satellite) to a Macworld Expo keynote audience and pretty much calling him the savior of the Macintosh. Of course, in the same time frame, Microsoft tried to coerce Apple into killing QuickTime, and threatened to deep-six Mac Office unless Apple made Internet Explorer our default browser; meanwhile, Steve Jobs allegedly bankrolled the Justice Department's "Redmond Justice" case with $10 million in seed money. Gee, with friends like these, who needs a bullet in the head?

That's a pretty extreme example of the corporate love/hate phenomenon, of course, but you get the point. Now, while IBM may once have been The Enemy as far as Mac users were concerned, those days are long gone, right? After all, Big Blue formed one leg of the PowerPC AIM alliance and hasn't really been the biggest name in personal computers for a while, now-- and what with producing the PowerPC 970 that sits at the heart of Apple's new Power Mac G5, IBM may well be a major force in the Mac's new Golden Age. So as far as anyone can tell, everything's all puppies, sunshine, and big sloppy kisses between Apple and IBM.

But maybe not for long. USA Today reports that IBM is sinking a largish wad of cash into an outfit called Threshold Digital Research Labs, which probably wouldn't be a problem if Threshold's digital research had to do with, say, traffic patterns or coffeemakers or orbiting death ray satellites; unfortunately, Threshold makes movies. Animated movies. Computer-animated movies, kinda like those made by a certain other company whose name sounds a lot like "Pixar" and who just happens to share a mercurial CEO with none other than Apple. As the article puts it, "IBM and Threshold plan to challenge Pixar Animation Studios... the undisputed king of computer-generated films." "We want to be the next-generation Pixar," says Threshold's top dog. Time for a little IBM-Steve friction, perhaps?

Only time will tell if IBM and Threshold have the goods to challenge Pixar's spot at the top, but technologically, at least, it sounds like they're in the running: Threshold's first film, Food Fight, is already slated for completion in another year and a half, and apparently it boasts "138 main characters" and "6,254 secondary characters." That's, uh, a lot of characters, all right. Who the heck wrote the script, David Foster Wallace? We obviously can't judge the film until we can see it, of course, but we can't help but think that just because one can make a movie with 6,392 characters doesn't necessarily mean one should, as there's just the slightest chance that doing so might prove a hindrance to telling the story. So maybe Steve has no reason to get all uppity just yet.

Speaking of "undisputed kings," few people are going to deny that the iPod owns that title in the portable digital music space. It's the player that everybody wants, and (if "they" are correct, since we've often heard "them" say that the iPod recently captured 50% market share, though we've yet to find any numbers to back that up) it's the one that half the shoppers actually buy; as for its Deadly Sin Ratio, it inspires lust, envy, pride, and possibly gluttony among people who get just a little too taken by its utter scrumptiousness. So what, if anything, can possibly usurp the iPod from its throne?

Well, according to Mike Langberg of the San Jose Mercury News, it'll be one of the players made by Creative, because "products that are adequate and inexpensive often triumph over products that are better and cost more." (This, we know, comes as a major shock, especially to people who follow the Mac's market share numbers.) Mike agrees that the iPod is a best-of-breed product, but insists that when he finally buys a hard disk-based player, he's "not going to spend $300 or $400 or $500" because Creative's boat-sized $249 Nomad Jukebox 10 GB is good enough to "meet his needs." Apparently his needs don't include easy song management or a player he can actually carry around with him without a back brace and having special reinforced pockets sewn into all his clothes. Oh, wait, scratch that; even though it's about the size of three iPods glued together, it "fits in the palm of your hand"-- Creative says so, so it must be true. Way to save $50, Mike.

For the record, Mike is also betting that hard disk-based portable music players "will become very popular." Man, this guy's good. Somebody ask him for lottery numbers, quick!

No, we're not saying that his "cheap but mediocre often beats good but expensive" rule isn't valid, we're just saying that the iPod's accelerating sales figures (over 300,000 of the million units sold since launch were sold last quarter) seem to indicate that what's "good enough" for Mike isn't nearly good enough for many buyers, and they're quite willing to spend $300 or $400 or $500 for quality, elegance, and ease of use. That said, there is a player out there that really might be "good enough" for a lot more people; The Register reports that the iRiver iHP-100, currently only available in Japan, is coming to the UK, and may soon be landing here in the states.

Now, we're not really sure we'd agree with mp3players.co.uk that it "has to be the best looking hard drive-based player your money can buy," but at least it's not ugly enough to turn your hair white. Meanwhile, this is finally an iPod competitor that we can't immediately write off due to size; it's "a little taller but the same width and fractionally thinner than the 10 GB iPod" and about the same weight. Considering that it includes a built-in FM tuner and digital optical audio output and input (yes, it can record), that's quite a feat. It also comes with a remote with an LCD display. Assuming the iHP-100 works on the Mac in the first place, since it doesn't support AAC, you'd have to lose 30 IQ points and get your downloadable tunes through BuyMusic.com instead of the iTunes Music Store, but we imagine there are some people who would make the sacrifice.

Of course, since the iHP-100 costs $120 more than an iPod with the same storage capacity, it really isn't a candidate for the "cheap but adequate" end of the equation. Funny how somebody finally comes up with a player that's more expensive than the iPod, and it still apparently lags in crucial features like auto-synchronization of playlists. Does anybody know if this thing has put a dent in iPod sales in Japan? We almost hope it does ship soon in the U.S., just so the iPod can be the cheaper option for once.

Meanwhile, we wish Mike a speedy recovery from the hernia he'll get the first time he goes jogging with his Nomad. Get well soon, Mike!