Gee, do we detect an uncharacteristic amount of patience surrounding next month's arrival of a G5-based iMac? Normally we'd expect everyone to be swapping guesses about the new product's specs and intro date with a giddiness of an almost unseemly nature. Maybe it's because it's not a rumor, but cold, hard fact: Apple itself stated publicly that a G5 iMac is slated for a September introduction back when it had to admit that it had run out of G4-based models too far in advance. Faced with that level of certainty, apparently your average rumor hound backs off and goes sniffing around topics that are less cut-and-dried, nosing out tidbits about Disney buyouts and the return of the Newton and an imminent invasion by a war fleet from Steve's home planet. You know, topics with a little more breathing room, speculationally speaking.

That still doesn't explain the dearth of speculation about the G5 iMac's feature set, however, although now that point may be moot: faithful viewer Richard Plotkin was first to inform us that Think Secret has spilled much beanage about the upcoming third-generation systems, which, based on the specs pulled from "incontrovertible evidence," sound like a solid leap forward for anyone in the market for a powerful all-in-one system. Reportedly there will be four configurations-- two 17-inch models running at 1.6 GHz, and two 20-inchers at 1.8 GHz. Each has a full complement of the ports 'n' goodies of the iMac G4, plus an optical digital audio output and "an eye catcher" of a new all-in-one design, with "the logic board, optical drive, and other components housed on the back of the flat-panel display." Sources describe the physical design as kinda like a Sony VAIO W700G, only, you know, not ugly.

Now, usually we put a lot of faith in Think Secret reports on upcoming hardware specs, because the site's track record has been solid over the years. Allow us the briefest moment of skepticism, though, about the claim that the lowest-end G5 iMac, designed primarily for education use, lacks both a modem and any sort of optical drive whatsoever. No modem? No problem, and it makes perfect sense, since who needs a modem in every Mac in a school lab? But the optical drive thing strikes us as stretching credulity a bit; sure, it'd keep costs down, and schools have no doubt "experienced increased security problems" with kids burning illegal copies of software and the like, but what's wrong with throwing in a cheap and read-only CD-ROM drive? Because without one, installing software could only happen via the network, and reinstalling the operating system or performing a system restore would be problematic at best. It just sounds like more trouble than it's worth.

[ADDENDUM: faithful viewer Charles Gaba notes that Apple already sells a "Without Optical" low-end eMac to education purchasers. So the answer to the next question is "not a lot."]

Still, what the heck do we know? Maybe schools have been clamoring for a Mac with no removable media drive and they'll eat these things up like deep-fried Mars bars dipped in liquid crack. And if these specs are fake, kudos to the hoaxer for getting those little details correct; who else but Apple would introduce machines as butt-kicking as these and then hobble them all with 256 MB of RAM? So, fingers crossed until Apple Expo kicks off on the 31st; here's hoping that Steve will be feeling well enough to keynote and that he really does have some iMac-y goodness to share with the class.

Wouldn't you know it? Just minutes after we bite the bullet, ignore that paranoid little voice in our heads, and install the twelve zillion version patches that Software Update is impatiently thrusting upon us (including Mac OS X 10.3.5, of course), we finally start hearing about the problems Apple's latest OS point release can cause. Don't get all riled up, though, because the issues are neither as widespread nor as heinous as, say, the plague of ickiness that descended upon some users of the original 10.2.8; still, we thought we'd pass 'em along just in case any of you fellow Update Paranoaics need something extra to mess with your heads. We're that thoughtful.

So AppleInsider reports that the most common 10.3.5-based affliction reported so far is insomnia; apparently several customers now find themselves "with a computer that will no longer properly put itself to sleep." Most afflicted systems seem to be single-processor 1.8 GHz models, whose "displays turn off, but the system fan refuses to do the same and continues to spin at full blast"-- and we all know how uncomfortable that can be. Some of these systems eventually crash and require a hard restart, which is similar to the sleep-related difficulties allegedly bedeviling some 15-inch PowerBook users as well: when trying to sleep one of these PowerBooks by closing the lid, affected users report that "the sleep light will refuse to turn on and the computer will eventually lock up and cease to respond."

Users attempting AtAT's suggested remedy of using Text-to-Speech to make their insomniMacs read aloud from Apple's latest 10-Q filing report zero success-- so you know it's serious.

We've since done some more thinking on the matter, and it's now clear to us that Mac OS X 10.3.5 is obviously a "cosmic leveler," dishing out karmic adjustment for those people who have the sheer unmitigated gall to own a G5 or a widescreen PowerBook when we, your friendly neighborhood AtAT staff, do not. So, short of pooling their cash and buying us new pro Macs in atonement, we suppose there isn't much for them to do except wait for Apple to issue a fix.

As for us, the only weirdness we encountered on our G4 after installing 10.3.5 was that all our sound was stuffed into the right channel of our headphones and there was no balance control in System Preferences anymore, which instead displayed the cheerful message, "Selected output device has no controls." As it turns out, though, this is a documented phenomenon that can affect USB audio devices under 10.3.4 as well, and a quick unplug/replug of our iMic cleared the problem right up, so we're not entirely sure we can attribute it to our 10.3.5 upgrade (although the timing was suspicious).

And believe us when we tell you that the only thing in the house that ever has trouble falling asleep is a certain two-year-old with an iron will and an insatiable drive to instigate mayhem. And we hardly think we can blame 10.3.5 for that.

Oh, for a return to the glory days of the Apple retail grand opening! Back when the concept was all shiny and new, Mac fans were so pumped full of adrenaline that they thought nothing of hitchhiking 900 miles with an escaped felon transporting leaky barrels of nuclear waste just for the honor of camping out in front of a store for three straight days with no available food or water, doing battle with hostile mall security guards and wandering grizzlies, and finally crawling across the threshold on opening day (to the dulcet strains of the B-52s' "Love Shack" and the polite applause of the staff) with a great, big grin on their emaciated faces. It was a magical time to be alive. Mostly alive. Whatever.

These days, of course, Apple stores are old news; they're all over the map, everyone's been to a dozen or more, and we're lucky even to hear about the openings before they happen. Indeed, it wasn't until after we got back from our recent non-AtAT-related trip to Minneapolis-St. Paul that we were informed that the Apple Store Rosedale Center celebrated its grand opening while we were sitting in a donut shop less than five miles away, totally oblivious to the occurrence. Pretty much the only unbridled enthusiasm left for the whole "grand opening" hoo-haa rests overseas, where Apple retail stores are still few and far between. That said, we wonder if even the grand opening of the Apple Store Shinsaibashi in two weeks in Osaka will produce even half the turnout of Apple's first store in the country, the Apple Store Ginza. Apple really needs to find a way to rekindle interest in the grand opening dynamic, or else the Japanese are going to wind up as jaded as we are, and probably twice as quickly.

And guess what? Maybe it has. As usual, "the first 1500 people to visit the store receive a free Apple t-shirt"-- but the teensy picture next to this announcement implies that the commemorative garments will not be white, but a far classier black. Now, we haven't been to an Apple store grand opening in a while, and certainly never one overseas, but we've got about two dozen t-shirts from similar past events scattered hither and thither throughout the AtAT compound, and we can tell you in no uncertain terms that each and every one of them is white. In fact, if we knew for certain that the free shirts at the Osaka opening were going to be black, we might actually have to figure out a way to haul our behinds down there and pit our waiting-in-line skills against the legendary queue-up talents of the Japanese. (You have seen the video of the Tokyo line-up, right?)

Black t-shirts. Can it be true? Has Apple stumbled upon the ultimate secret to continued grand opening craziness? If so, here's hoping we can snag one of those puppies on eBay.

In local retail news, as it turns out, Jack has been asked to accompany an eMac-wanting friend to the Apple Store CambridgeSide to take advantage of Massachusetts's first "no sales tax" day; since this is a fella who usually does sleep at semi-reasonable hours, we're now planning on getting there right at midnight when the store opens, and not at threeish as we'd originally kindasorta planned. On the plus side, the earlier start means that, depending on circumstances, Jack might be able to squeeze in a quick middle-of-the-night visit to the Northshore store, too, and maybe even Chestnut Hill, assuming he doesn't collapse in a heap first. If you happen to spot him at any or all of the stores, please say hi and then do something strange to keep him awake. There's a free sticker in it for you if you do.

Oh-- and he'll be wearing a black t-shirt. Natch.