Wow, when we filler-ized a slow news day yesterday by passing along a French report of Apple having outright replaced a chronically-ailing Power Mac G4 with an honest-to-goshness dual 2.5 GHz Power Mac G5, we fully expected to get some mail-- but we thought it'd be split between people calling us gullible dorks for believing the Apple equivalent of an urban legend and folks spitting venom because Apple never did anything that cool for them when they had chronically-ailing Macs that required motherboard replacements every twenty minutes. We certainly didn't expect to hear from a significant number of people saying that, yes, Apple had done similar things for them, as well. If these anecdotes are any indication, the "Mea Culpa" Upgrade Path might not be nearly as rare (or, frankly, nonexistent) as we might have suspected.

We're not mentioning any names (even those of the people who said we could) just in case Apple told them to keep this all hush-hush and that little condition utterly slipped their minds, but one faithful viewer vouches for the likely truth of the French swapout because he claims to have experienced the equivalent trade-up on the consumer side of the fence; his "very sick" 15-inch iMac G4 was eventually replaced with a brand new 17-inch iMac G5. And a few faithful viewers claim that when Apple support had eventually concluded that their Macs were irreparable lemons, instead of being given refurbs of the same model, Apple bought the wonky machines back and extended almost laughably generous offers on the purchase of brand new systems.

Reportedly it's not just people with defective Macs getting special treatment from Apple, either; we're hearing that some customers who have suffered unusually long shipment delays are feeling the love, too. One faithful viewer notes that a friend waited for such an interminably long time to receive her dual 2.5 GHz Power Mac G5 and 23-inch Cinema Display that, when the gear finally arrived, it came with a free iPod. We're assuming that the iPod was in fact a gift from Apple as an apology for the long wait, although we suppose it's not inconceivable that the iPod was actually the offspring of the Power Mac and display who got lonely in transit. (We'd be more inclined to believe that if the equipment in transit had been, say, an iMac G5 and a 14-inch iBook, but maybe the looks skip a generation.)

Keep in mind that we have no earthly way of verifying that any of these reports are true (and our unearthly way is currently out being cleaned), but being the trusting souls we are, we're just going to take people at their word. After all, why would anyone lie to us? We're all cuddly and huggable and stuff. So the next time you're fuming about the downward spiral of Apple's quality control or its habitual inability to ship in-demand products in a reasonably timely manner, smile-- if you should be inconvenienced by a Mac that's broken more than fixed for a year and a half, you just might score a free upgrade. And if you're still waiting for that high-end G5 that you ordered back when people had ridgy foreheads, dragged their knuckles on the ground, and cleaned up their caves with baby elephant vacuum cleaners, maybe-- just maybe-- Apple will throw a little surprise in the box. But don't hold us to it.

Pssst, hey buddy-- wake up! It's time to check in on the latest developments in the field of the iTunes Music Store's competition. We know, we know: it's usually about as exciting as watching C-SPAN, or maybe watching someone watching C-SPAN-- with C-SPAN 2 in Picture-in-Picture. But that's only because so far the only "competition" that looks to be any sort of threat is Microsoft's offering, which is so lame in its current incarnation that its threat is due entirely to Microsoft's built-in captive audience. (By the way, were we the only ones who mistook the picture of Phil Collins on the MSN Music site to be a snapshot of a grumpy Steve Ballmer? Eeeek!)

Anyway, here's the latest challenger to step into the ring: Virgin. Faithful viewer jens pointed us to the Virgin Digital Megastore, which is now running in an "open beta" state, and it looks like it may be the closest thing that the iTMS has to competition based on actual merit. While most of those other stores run in a web browser, CNET reports that Virgin is taking a more iTunesy route by "jumping into the market with a full-featured music jukebox written from scratch." The download store runs inside the jukebox itself, which implies that Virgin offers something approaching the seamlessness of the iTunes/iTMS experience.

(We know, Microsoft's store will apparently run in Windows Media Player, but somehow that doesn't sound as integrated. It'd be like if the iTMS ran in QuickTime Player or something.)

As far as other similarities go, there's a million-song catalog and a 99 cents-per-song price, but that's pretty much it. In fact, in most ways the Virgin service smells an awful lot like all of its other non-iTMS brethren, so you may want to crack a window. First of all, it's Windows-only. (Surprise, surprise.) Downloaded music is in Windows Media format and DRMed to the hilt; so far, you can only play a purchased song on the computer you actually used to buy it in the first place, which just screams "2003." Virgin Digital also boasts the semiubiquitous subscription service, albeit at a cheaper price; $7.99 a month gives subscribers to the store's "club" unlimited listening access to the entire catalog, although if you want to burn a song to CD or stick it on a portable player, you have to buy it anyway.

So if this service is like all the other Windows-only offerings except with its own dedicated jukebox software, what will set Virgin's offering apart from the competition? Easy, says Virgin Digital's prez Zack "This IS My Real Name" Zalon: "(Our rivals) are technology companies developing music services. We are a music company developing technology." Which is an interesting way to pitch it, because really, do you want a music company developing this technology? An online music store requires that its developers build tech; as far as we can fathom, it doesn't require them to write and record a catchy pop chart-topper. In other words, which would you rather have, a music download service built by engineers with a thorough grasp of Internet protocols, secure transactions, and database optimization and retrieval, or one slapped together by Keith Richards and the Spice Girls?

Whatever. Virgin Digital's also singing a tune so familiar that Napster can probably sue for copyright infringement: it plans to emerge from the battle successful by leveraging "the powerful Virgin Megastore brand." And okay, it's a pretty powerful brand, well-known among music-buyers, etc. But when it comes to digital music, is it stronger than Napster's? Because look how far Napster's brand got it: just about as far as the curb in time for trash day. And honestly, at this point we really think that Apple is a stronger and better-known brand among tech-savvy music-lovers because of a little thing called the iPod (and a littler thing called the mini). So the more we think about it, the more we have trouble believing that Virgin's going to do the iTMS much damage.

In other words, you can go back to sleep now. Sorry to wake you.

If you happened to buy any Apple stock since the last presidential election, you're probably feeling pretty good about it now; after all, AAPL has been trending higher for ages, and in the past couple of weeks it's been reaching new four-year highs every other day or so. True, it's still got a long way to climb before it scales that cliff it drove off of when the bubble popped, but think of it this way: AAPL has had a higher return than the stocks of both Microsoft and Dell for the past five years. It's also been a better investment over two years (vs. MSFT; vs. DELL), over one year (vs. MSFT; vs. DELL), or over any shorter interval you'd care to try. Throw that in the faces of the Windoids the next time they taunt your platform choice. (And if you want to see something really funny, check Apple's stock performance against Gateway's.)

The good news is that some analysts just see things getting better and better. Forbes reports that Piper Jaffray expects Apple to "grow its market share ahead of expectations" over the next couple of years, "which will be a catalyst to its stock." The idea here is that Apple's "hey, everybody, look-- it's a computer that looks like a giant iPod" iMac G5 marketing campaign will be a roaring success, as "greater-than-expected adoption of iPods" (including the new Hewlett-Packard models) translates into "acceleration in sales of Macintosh computers," which is where the real money is. Indeed, reportedly "40% of resellers surveyed said PowerBook sales are 'tracking above plan,' while 30% said iBooks are selling better than expected." Stick it all in a blender and hit "FRAPPE," and the firm officially rates AAPL as "Outperform" (that's analystspeak for "Thumbs Up, Baby") with a $40 price target. Nice.

But hold the phone, there, Betty-Lou-- not all the analysts agree. CBS MarketWatch reports that Credit Suisse First Boston has cast itself as the party pooper, here. The firm does agree that Apple's "strong product lineup and new product introductions" put it in a good position for growth, but insists that "Apple's lofty valuation" will prevent investors from reaping the benefits. In other words, CSFB thinks that AAPL is already trading at a price higher than the company's prospects warrant, and it figures that the price won't be any higher than $35 in a year's time, regardless of how many more iPods and Macs the company manages to sell before then. Furthermore, the firm figures that since the stock is currently "trading near its 52-week high point," "we can infer that the outlook for Apple shares have become more uncertain as they soared this year."

Wait a minute. Are we understanding this correctly? Are they saying that, because the stock is as high as its been all year, that implies it's about to go down? Because it's been near its 52-week high for going on two years, now, and it just keeps going up. By CSFB's logic, shouldn't the stock have crashed well over a year ago?

Whatever. The main point here is that AAPL's doing well, and everyone seems to agree that Apple's in a good position to grow. And even if the stock price doesn't budge another cent next year, wouldn't you rather have, say, a 4% market share anyway?