Are you still running some horribly antiquated non-Exposé-enabled operating system like that decrepit old Mac OS X 10.2? Sheesh, what does it take, people? After all, Apple had been running a promo for months now by which you could have paid bought Panther and Apple would have given you-- absolutely free of charge-- a copy of iLife '04 and a crisp, new dollar bill (or the eight-weeks-later reimbursive retroactive financial equivalent thereof). So not only could you have been fast-user-switching between redundant accounts just to see that spinny cube-thing for the past few months, but you could also have been jamming in GarageBand, talking on the phone to anywhere in the U.S. for up to fifteen solid minutes, and putting the remaining penny on some train tracks to make Honest Abe all smeared out and deformed-looking. That's a whole heapin' pile of entertainment for a great, great price, and you missed it.

Or did you? Well, no, or we probably wouldn't be rambling on about it like this. As it turns out, Apple has renewed the "Add more life to your Mac" promo for another few months, so now you've got until January 10th to buy Panther and iLife together in order to qualify for a $50 check by mail. (Crassly self-serving tip: you can save an additional $20.00 over retail by buying them both through our Amazon.com link.) And while that's exciting news all on its lonesome (well, as exciting as Apple-related news gets on a Sunday, anyway), apparently the timing of the promo is kicking up a little speculative dust about a potential release date for Panther's Tiggeriffic successor, Mac OS X 10.4.

See, according to MacMinute, some people are smiling and nodding knowingly when they clue in to the fact that Apple's Panther-plus-iLife promo was extended through January 10th, which just happens to be the first day of Macworld Expo. (You know, the real one, in San Francisco. The one that Apple actually bothers to show up for. That one.) So here's the gist of the speculation: since the promo is for Panther, and Tiger is slated to ship in "the first half of 2005," and the Panther promo now ends on the first day of the Expo which just happens to be in the first half of 2005, isn't it blindingly obvious that Apple plans to release Tiger at Steve's keynote at the Expo? It's not like you need a deerstalker cap and a magnifying glass to see the connection (although that's a really classy look for you).

The thing is, though, we've played the "hey, look, this promo's been extended until such-and-such a date so that must be when new stuff is coming out" game before, and we can't recall when it's ever actually paid off. There's a good chance that Apple just renewed the promo through the Stevenote because that's the earliest that Tiger could possibly surface, and the company will just keep extending it each quarter until Tiger actually ships. And let's not forget that this is a Panther-plus-iLife '04 promotion. Remember when iLife '04 premiered? Yup, at the last January Stevenote. So maybe the promo ends on January 10th not because of Tiger, but because of iLife '05.

Not to step on your buzz with the Big, Clunky Boots of Logic, mind you; if you're riding a happy over some perceived "evidence" that you'll be Tigering up in less than four months' time, please, don't let us stop you. It's just that we tend to feel a little rational on Mondays. We know, it's ugly. We'll go away now.

Tiger in January!! Wooooooooo!!

"Hey, AtAT, what the heck's happened to Apple's quality control over the past few years?" Yeah, we get that question more often than we'd like, usually from people who aren't really expecting an answer. They're just frustrated because they're the unlucky saps who keep buying Apple's Insanely-Great new products, and every time they do, they wind up with merchandise that has some sort of soul-killing defect. As you might imagine, this experience hits them in much the same way as Lucy pulling away the football. Cube "cracks," faulty iBook motherboards, PowerBook Leprosy, eMacs missing 1/3 of their screen space, crackling iPods, hair-dryer-quiet iMac G5s-- these poor luckless bums have been bitten by it all.

Well, collectively, we mean. They haven't all been cursed with every one of those issues. There's one guy who has, but he's also been struck by lightning 37 times (once while inside an underground fallout shelter and wearing a beard of bees), so we just consider him to be a bit of an anomaly all around.

Anyway, the point is, while no product release can be flawless, any problems that creep into Apple's gear is magnified a zillionfold because the products themselves are just so freakin' cool. If you buy a $600 Dell system and a plastic front panel spontaneously falls off, you slap it back on with an "I'M A TOOL" bumper sticker and get right on with your merry virus-deleting, because that's precisely what you'd expect to happen. But when you buy a sleek and divine "quiet as a whisper" iMac G5 only to find that it sounds like Apple managed to wedge a small but powerful pair of electric hedge clippers into that two-inch-thick case, that feels like the final incontrovertible proof that God is dead and mankind is but an infinitesimal meaningless smear on the inky black infinity of space.

So how do we deal? Anecdotal therapy, of course! And faithful viewer Ian Hornby forwarded us a doozy: according to MacBidouille (at least, as far as we can make out with three years of high school French and the ever-dubious, always-entertaining help of a Google autotranslation), some hapless owner of a dual 1.42 GHz Power Mac G4 has had a world of trouble with what should have been a hassle-free machine. (After all, those came out after Apple had fixed the "Wind Tunnel" problem.) All MacBidouille says is that this G4 "always presented problems," so we don't know what the nature of the ickiness was, but whatever it was, it was tenacious, because it clung to the system despite two-- yes, two-- complete motherboard replacements.

But here's the kicker: "Applecare has just solved definitively its problem with plume" (plume?) by swapping out the "chronically broken-down machine" with a brand spankin' new dual 2.5 GHz Power Mac G5!

Actually, it's probably not brand new; more likely it's a refurbed service replacement. Regardless, though, getting Apple's current (and tough-to-find) top-of-the-line system in exchange for a two-year-old dual G4 with "issues" is the sort of trade-up whose nits you just don't pick. Assuming this is all true, kudos to Apple for taking an ugly situation and turning it into the service equivalent of a group hug and a plate of fresh-baked brownies. It's not as nice as all Apple equipment being bug-free in the first place, but given those pesky laws of thermodynamics, it's probably the best we could hope for.

We seem to recall having heard at some point recently that an Apple rep referred to the iPod as a "platform" unto itself, and boy howdy, he or she wasn't kidding. iPod accessories used to be limited just to a multitude of cases, car chargers, and the same 1/8" minijack headphones that you could buy for any portable music player. Over time, though, we started seeing actual iPod-specific peripherals-- docking portable speaker systems, voice recorders, battery packs, digital photo card readers, FM transmitters, remote controls; all kinds of nifty stuff to plug into your 'Pod or plug your 'Pod into. And apparently we're just getting into the phase where we're starting to see more iPod peripherals that are somewhat... off-topic.

Take, for example, the latest little bundle o' fun from those wacky wizards at Griffin Technology. These are the guys who brought us the iTrip, certainly the most versatile iPod FM transmitter and probably the best; they were also working on a deliriously off-topic and cool add-on called the PodMate, which was to have turned an iPod into a universal remote control. Word has it that Apple objected for some reason, and the product was eventually released solely as the Total Remote for Pocket PC handhelds (although some people have gotten it working on the iPod anyway).

Well, faithful viewer Mikko Kaivosoja was first to inform us that Griffin has returned to the world of non-music-related iPod add-ons by announcing the iBeam, a one-two punch of effulgence that turns your recent-model iPod or mini into a flashlight and laser pointer. Not simultaneously, unfortunately, so you have to plug in the specific unit you want to use at the time, but other than the hassle of juggling two little dongly things instead of one, the iBeam looks like a great way to spend $20 to turn your $300 iPod into a $10 flashlight and laser doohickey. It's slated to ship at the end of next month and Griffin is taking preorders now.

We haven't seen the system requirements posted anywhere yet, but based on the photos, it looks like first-gen iPod owners like ourselves aren't invited to the party. That's okay, though; personally, we don't have much of a need to turn our iPods into directed light sources. The diffuse glow of the backlighting is plenty bright enough to let us pick our way down dark hallways, and if a laser isn't a death ray we don't really have much use for it. With luck, though, the iBeam will open the door for a flood of inventive non-musical iPod attachments and we'll eventually be able to take advantage of a 'Pod-mounted breathalyzer or stun gun. And when the iBeam 2 ships and comes with a flashlight, a laser pointer, and a lightsaber attachment, then we'll talk about replacing our aging 'Pods with compatible models. Gee, how much battery juice do you suppose that'll suck down? Just to vanquish a foe or two, we mean.