Well, we can't say we didn't expect it, but here comes the backlash. After all, when Apple cancelled all further Newton development last week, they effectively orphaned a slew of users and developers alike. That's why the Newton Developers Association is organizing a protest to take place this Friday, in front of the Apple Store in Cupertino. They encourage anyone who can to attend; those who can't, but want to show their support anyway, are urged to call and/or email Apple at noon on Friday (presumably PST).

The press release about the protest raises one point about the cancellation that we feel is absolutely central to the whole debate-- killing Newton includes killing the eMate, at least in its current incarnation, and the eMate was pivotal to Apple's focus on its "core market" of education. Many educators fought vicious anti-Apple forces to get the eMate into their schools, only to find now that Apple's pulled the plug. As NDA President Adam Tow puts it, "How can educators trust anything that Apple says or does in the future?" There's a detailed looks at this aspect of the matter over at MacNN's Soapbox.

While we at AtAT are bummed to see the Newton go, and we're all for letting Apple hear our displeasure, we're a smidge uncomfortable about this protest. After all, it's sure to attract media attention (which is, of course, what the organizers want), and that attention is sure to be seriously negative. And we all know what negative press brings: lower sales for Apple, leading to reduced market share, and therefore worsened financial circumstances. What happens next? Apple has to cut more programs. At this point, we don't feel that the protest has any chance of bringing Newton back-- but it stands a good chance to help sink other projects in the future. Catch 22. Where, oh where, has our youthful idealism gone?

Okay, we're not afraid to admit that we've been more than a little edgy about how ugly Apple's upcoming Powermac G3 Home (codename: Artemis) has been described. Under the hood, the $999 marvel packs a wallop for the price, but its case been through at least a couple of redesigns in its short history, due to overwhelmingly negative feedback from testers. And while we're worried for Apple's sake (because an ugly case could mean significantly fewer boxes sold), we also have a personal stake in this: we'd like to buy one ourselves to replace the LC 575 in the kitchen. And while our kitchen is hardly a candidate for a Better Homes and Gardens photo shoot (it's more likely to show up in Fangoria, actually), we'd still like to buy a computer that won't frighten the nieces and nephews when they come over to play.

The latest we'd heard wasn't so encouraging: Mac the Knife recently described Artemis as "a giant tooth perforated with quarter-inch holes." Not very awe-inspiring, we thought. But then today he posted a picture of the toothy case, and it's not nearly as bad as we'd feared. So it's a little molar-like. Big deal. It'll remind us to floss. In fact, we actually think it's kind of cute.

Then again, we thought the LC 575 was cute, too, and we appear to be solidly in the minority on that one. Go figure.

There was an interesting (though unsurprising) tidbit posted by our buddies over at MacCentral today. Perhaps you've seen the "Think First" print ads that Apple's been publishing all over the place recently. If so, you know that it extolls the virtues of Microsoft Office 98, and goes on to say that for a while it's only going to be available for the Mac. The thing is, it focuses so heavily on Office, it's much more of an Office ad than an Apple one. However, Apple's footing the bill. Microsoft hasn't chipped in a dime.

Our take on this is that the Mac-first release of Office 98 may have been an unpublicized clause in the Apple-Microsoft agreement from last August. Apple gets to tell people that the Mac is still a viable platform for office use, Microsoft gets the dough from all the Mac sales of Office, and everyone's happy. And actually, if this really is a consequence of that August deal, we could say Microsoft chipped in some one and a half billion dimes for this ad campaign. Never mind. ;-)

Still, it's a little upsetting to see that Apple typically carries the whole burden of advertising its products and the technologies they use. Most notably, you sure never see Motorola or IBM paying for any PowerPC commercials. It's a far cry from "Intel Inside," isn't it? Wintel manufacturers who advertise Pentium systems get a subsidy from Intel, but we highly doubt the other members of the AIM alliance kicked in any cash to strap the Pentium II to that snail's shell. Ah, well.