Stand back-- Apple's "refining the timetable and feature sets" for its upcoming operating system releases, according to a MacWEEK article, and I think we all know what that means. A year ago Apple committed to a rigid release timetable for both the Mac OS and Rhapsody, and so far they've managed to stick to their guns pretty well. However, now that things are starting to slip a little, Apple's coming up with some creative ways of keeping "on time."

First of all, there's Allegro, the next Mac OS release slated for this summer. According to MacWEEK's sources, Allegro is now being renamed "Allegro Lite" and several features originally planned for the release are being cut in order to make the release date; if all features were kept (such as Navigation Services, the long-overdue overhaul of the Open and Save dialogs), the system wouldn't ship until October. Hmmm, jettisoning features in order to meet a ship date... Sound familiar to anyone? Reminiscent of a certain "fenestrative operating system" released a few years ago?

As for Rhapsody, Apple ditched the "Premiere" and "Unified" concept a while ago; Premiere was to be the first customer release, and it was originally due last month. Now, Rhapsody's release is set for a second developer release next month, and the first customer release early this summer, or hopefully an unveiling at May's Developer Conference. Customer Release 2 takes the place of Unified, and now will appear in 1999. On the plus side, CR1 will include the Blue Box Mac OS compatibility layer, which means that customers receive that technology in about the same time frame as originally planned.

We're not too worried about the schedule shifts. At least, not until Allegro is officially named "Mac OS 98."

Apparently nobody's too sad about Apple's recent pullout of all non-CompUSA national reseller chains. According to MacCentral, those retailers who were cut from the Mac business don't expect to see any change in their bottom lines. Big surprise; we honestly wonder if anyone in history has ever bought a Mac from Sears, given how poorly they displayed and maintained the floor models. So there's certainly no more than a mild shrug over the spilt milk from that side of the fence.

On the other hand, CompUSA and the regional resellers who still sell Macs are reporting that their Mac-selling activity is gathering steam, which isn't a huge surprise. A Computer City spokesperson (didn't they get canned??) reports that his store is seeing "a lot more activity" on the Mac side these days. Most people who are still buying Macs at this point in time aren't first-time buyers who don't know what kind of computer to get; they're probably existing Mac users who want another Mac, so they'll take their business wherever Macs are available.

And, of course, there's the CompUSA store-within-a-store success story, which boosted its Mac sales percentage from 3% to 14% in a recent month. Whether that kind of increased business can be sustained (or if it's just due to the Christmas buying season) remains to be seen, but all CompUSA Superstores are apparently now outfitted with the salon stores. We eagerly await the numbers for subsequent months.

As the AtAT staff is sadly too exhausted to bring you a decent conspiracy theory right now (our paranoia muscles are overworked), we are grateful in the extreme for My Mac Magazine, whose "Mac Factor" column this month draws back the veil of obfuscation and reveals all. If you read it, don't forget to do a low-level reformat of the hard disk containing your browser cache when you're through...

In his dizzying exposé, Mick O'Neil describes a terrifying scenario in which the otherwise-inexplicable omnipresence of Windows is attributable to a conspiracy by the computer press, who wanted to squelch Apple's proprietary architecture in order to gain more advertising revenue from the intense competition arising from open systems. In addition, O'Neil postulates that the motive behind the spread of Windows is its hidden ability to secretly upload information about the user's software choices, usage habits, and even document content, not to mention the way it allows the storage of a massive central "keyboarding fingerprint" database that can track users no matter where they connect to the 'net. Oh yeah, and aliens run Microsoft, as is plain to see by their leader's telltale choice in eyewear.

Hey, it's no less believable than seeing a woman hit herself in the forehead with the claw end of a hammer six or seven times and retain consciousness, let alone life. Sometimes the X-Files takes the "willing suspension of disbelief" thing a tad too far...