You say you're just about convinced that this is finally going to be the week that we'll see new PowerBooks, and that even one teensy sliver more of evidence will land you squarely in the camp of the believers? Well, grab a tent, a sleeping bag, and one of those cans of blue burny stuff, 'cause it's time to go camping: the PowerPage reports that a "reliable source" has actually laid eyes on both the long-fabled aluminum 15-inch PowerBook and its box, and it's a safe bet that Apple wouldn't have the custom box done unless the product were ready to be placed in said box and sent winging its way off to store shelves, right?

(Incidentally, this strategy departs drastically from product design during the Amelio era, when Apple engineers were ordered first to pump out 200,000 shipping boxes and then to design something that might fit in them.)

The PowerPage's source describes the 15-incher as "looking just like a 17-inch except smaller," which, when you think about it a bit, is probably one of the most profound statements of this or any other era in human history and deserves immortalization as a bumper sticker-- or at the very least as Apple's official marketing slogan for the new model. (We are unavoidably reminded of the classified ad that read, "PONY FOR SALE: looks like small horse.") Reportedly the new 15-incher boasts a 1.25 GHz processor; FireWire 800; and some form of nVIDIA graphics subsystem, which will apparently be used across the Poppa, Momma, and Baby PowerBooks, at least for a while. The 15-incher is explicitly listed by the PowerPage as having the 17-incher's killer auto-illuminating keyboard, but there's no word on whether the feature made it down into the 12-inch model. Fingers crossed.

But the big question, of course, is "when?" Well, according to other PowerPage sources, "Apple plans to announce four new products this week." Waitaminnit, four? We've been watching enough Sesame Street to be reasonably confident in our under-20 counting abilities, and as far as our fingers can tell, there are only three new PowerBooks, three, ah ah ah (all brought to you by the letter Q and the number 9). So what, exactly, is the Mystery Product? Dadadadadummmmmmmm!!!!

The PowerPage reports rumors of "an iBook revision, tablet Mac, or (more likely) a new audio application." Wow, now there's a mixed bag o' rumorocity, hmmmm? Given how lousy sales of Microsoft's Tablet PCs have been-- not to mention the distinct aroma of "Eau de Disney Buys Apple/Mac OS X for Intel" hanging in the air-- we're going to have to classify the middle one as too unlikely even for us to consider. As for an iBook revision, well, that's a pretty conservative guess, so it's not going to merit much discussion. But what's this new audio application? In order for it to do something that iTunes doesn't, it'd probably have to be some sort of composition program. Perhaps iSoundtrack for the iMovie set? Intriguing.

Of course, it really could be anything, which is what's so exciting. Whatever it is, we'll find out soon enough. (We bet it's a home dental hygiene system, ourselves.)

Spooooky! A month ago, back when the pundits were kicking around the fact that IBM's new (at the time soon-to-be-) G5-producing East Fishkill plant had already lost $110 million last quarter, we mulled the possibility of a PowerPC curse that brought misfortune and ruin to any company who dared design and produce chips for high-end Macs. After all, Motorola had been shoveled more than its share of woe during the G4 years, what with tens of thousands of layoffs and eight plant closures over the course of about ten minutes. Still, we tentatively categorized IBM's little tenth-of-a-billion-dollar-loss as a mere anomaly, with the caveat that "if we start hearing about copious layoffs... we'll know something supernatural is at work."

So does anyone know if Shout removes stubborn stains from auras as well as clothing? We don't see "Curses" listed on the Stain Solver page, but maybe IBM should give it a whirl.

Okay, it may not exactly qualify as "copious," but as faithful viewer Sam Beard points out, Bloomberg does report that IBM is firing 600 employees from its chipmaking business. There's a world of difference between 600 firings and 48,000 pink slips, granted, but we can't help worrying that this is just the beginning. In addition to the firings (500 of which will take place at IBM's Vermont plant, which, at least, doesn't make G5s), IBM also plans to furlough another 3,000 workers for a week without pay to cut costs still further-- a move that's vaguely reminiscent of that time that Motorola forced all of its employees to use a week of vacation at some point during a specified three-month period, although at least Motofolk got paid for their time off.

About the only thing that gives us hope that these aren't the effects of some curse that'll dog Apple for all eternity is the fact that IBM's chipmaking business has reportedly been struggling a bit for a while, now; apparently it canned 1,500 employees last year and lost over a billion smackers anyway. Considering that IBM and Apple must have been secretly collaborating on the G5 design for a good while, now, that doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility of some sort of voodoo whammy, but it's the only thing keeping us out of a deep, dark pit of despair. (Well, that and an IBM spokesperson insisting to MacMinute that "PowerPC G5 production will be unaffected" by the firings and furloughs.)

So there isn't a ton of evidence either way on this whole curse scenario, but there's more than there was a month ago, which might make you skittish. Weigh the available facts and make up your own mind-- or reserve judgement until IBM, say, torches the Fishkill plant for the insurance money. By the way, if you do manage to convince yourself that IBM's chipmaking division is losing money all on its own and without a helping hand from the netherworld, you get the coveted Relativistic Optimism award for seeing the bright side of "it's not a curse; the business just sucks!"

And if IBM does indeed wind up laying off a hundred thousand workers, closing half its plants, and seeing its stock price fall through the floor, evidence of a curse against Apple's hired chipmakers will be all but incontrovertible. At that point, we can finally get behind the idea of Apple switching to Intel-- just to watch those insufferable Pentium-pushers subsequently collapse in fiery ruin. See? There's an upside to everything.

So now that the Power Mac G5 is officially shipping (mostly), new information about the production models is starting to pop up here and there. Mostly there. "There," you may have guessed, is Apple's own happy little farm of web servers-- and more specifically, the support servers, which now hold all sorts of just-updated fun stuff about Apple's latest pro desktops. So if you were wondering just what the deal is with the G5's new optical digital audio ports, now you can read all about 'em. Wondering what happens if you yank out that nifty clear airflow baffle and try to run your G5 anyway? Turns out it'll automatically run at a "reduced speed" to prevent the unit from bursting into flames. And then, of course, there's the burning question that's kept Mac fans awake at night ever since the G5 was first unveiled in June: where's the serial number? (Wouldja believe you have to pop the cover to see it? Thank heavens for Apple System Profiler.)

But here's the info we found most interesting of all: apparently in order to use AirPort with one of these monsters, you actually need to connect an external antenna. Same goes for Bluetooth. Gone are the days of antennas for wireless networking being seamlessly integrated into the Mac's chassis; we can only surmise that the G5's aluminum enclosure acts as shielding and makes internal antennas impractical because they'd have a range of about three feet. (Many titanium and aluminum PowerBook owners know all too well what we're talking about, here.)

So, unfortunately, Apple had to run with external AirPort and Bluetooth antennas that plug into special ports on the rear of the machine, which is a decidedly unMaclike sort of thing for the customer to need to worry about. Okay, fine, plugging in an antenna or two isn't exactly rocket science, but once you do, you've got a thing or two hanging out of the back of your otherwise sleek and nifty G5: the Bluetooth antenna is just a little nubby-lookin' thing, which might be all right, but the AirPort one is a big T-shaped wedge, and it's going to look about as elegant as all those 802.11 PC cards with the built-in antennas you see jutting out of Wintel laptops all the time. Geez. We haven't seen one up close and personal yet, but we get the uneasy feeling that sticking an AirPort antenna onto the back of a G5 is the style equivalent of wearing a $10,000 exquisitely tailored Armani suit and then accessorizing with one of those giant foam cowboy hats and stuffing your pockets full of as many bricks as you can jam in there and doing the chicken dance in traffic.

Okay, we're not sure what that means, either. But it's a hell of a mental picture.

So, possibly ugly and obtrusive plug-in antennas. Still, that's the price we pay for progress, we suppose. And on the bright side, geeky Wintel IT people will probably eat this kind of thing right up (the more complex, unintegrated, and kludgy-looking the better), thus removing one more barrier from the Mac's invasion of enterprise computing. And look at it this way: an external antenna is probably still going to look nicer than another freakin' cable snaking out of the rear of your nice new G5...