So here we are at the final weekend before one of the most highly anticipated Macworld Expo keynote addresses in recent memory, and we don't mean to alarm you or anything, but that can mean only one thing: some of you are about to die. Yes, this is the time when all the nerve-wracking speculation reaches its peak, which usually takes its toll in the form of a Mac fan or two keeling over because of heart failure, or stroke, or (in slightly rarer cases) spontaneous human combustion-- and surely this time around, what with all the extra excitement over brand new products like the flash-based iPod, the sub-$500 headless Mac, the audio breakout box code-named "Asteroid," etc. there are going to be more speculation-related casualties than ever. Sad but true.

However, since we here at AtAT really care about the health and well-being of our ad revenue faithful viewers (sure, we may privately refer to you as "ratings cattle," but it's a term of affection-- can't you just feel the love?), we're here to help prevent as many fatalities as we can. How do we do that, you ask? Simple: by taking the pre-Stevenote excitement down a couple of notches so your hearts don't seize up, your brains don't choke, and your heads don't burst into flame for no apparent reason. Also, we counsel everyone of the Apple-obsessive persuasion to dress accordingly during this high-risk period by wearing light knits and breathable fabrics. (Why tempt fate?)

First of all, for those of you whose blood pressures and body temperatures are rising to dangerous levels because of those alleged photos of an Apple "iHome" media center posted over at Engadget (as pointed out to us by faithful viewer James), we'll just come right out and save a few lives by saying it: it's a fake. Not a bad one, mind you, but since when does Apple spell "Centre" the British way? Meanwhile, if you look closely at the fifth photo down, it seems pretty clear to us that the product graphics on that box were printed out and glued to, say, a 12-inch iBook box or something like that-- you can see what appears to be the paper coming off a little at the left edge of the box flap. There's also the fact that Apple would never design packaging whose text and product photos would be upside-down when the box was carried by its handle. And, of course, there's a precedent of faked Apple product "spy photos" taken in elevators. So just let it go, already.

And since your poor bodies are already dealing with enough stress due to the virtual certainty of imminent cheapMac/Asteroid/iWork introductions (nothing says "the rumors are true" like an Apple lawsuit or two), allow us to ease the pressure a bit by telling you that you can probably stop stewing over the possibility of an Apple-branded and -designed mobile phone. When Apple first announced its partnership to bring an iTunes Music Store-compatible phone version of iTunes to Motorola's upcoming mobile phones, we took the announcement entirely at face value; since then, somehow the story turned into "Apple is creating its own phone and even made an official announcement," though no one seems to have found an announcement that actually says that.

Well, if this takes any pressure off, you should know that Motorola has already been playing up the iTunes-compatibility of its new phones at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, and according to a PC Magazine article pointed out by faithful viewer John Alabaszowski, the devices are just... phones. Phones that can play iTMS-purchased songs (once you transfer them from your computer) with "the iPod interface," sure, but phones nonetheless. Indeed, faithful viewer Brady Kroupa even dug up a video on Motorola's site that shows footage of Steve Jobs himself talking up iTunes-for-phones solely as a feature for Moto's 2005 phones. In other words, we see zero evidence of any sort of Jon Ive iPod-cell phone hybrid coming next week, so do yourself a favor and don't dwell on it yet. Not that it won't happen at some point, but at least wait until Apple sues somebody before you put any real stock in the iPhone/"Mysterious Dude" rumors.

And yes, we know about the "Apple cellular network" rumor, too, but what say we just steer clear of that one completely for the time being, hmmmm? After all, you've got enough on your plate right now as it is. So just try to keep it together until Tuesday, because we'd hate to lose any more viewers to the Grim Reaper. (We're saving up for a speedboat.)

So, uh, what'll you be doing next week during the Stevenote? Because unless you've got tickets to the Big Show itself, we can tell you what you won't be doing: watching the Stevenote. Sure, we know it's tradition; every January, Mac freaks the world over who can't converge upon the Moscone Center for the real thing instead congregate in the homes of friends with satellite dishes, or in theater-equipped Apple retail stores or satellite-enabled classrooms or reseller facilities, all to work themselves into a communal frenzy of real-time Reality Distortion Field By Proxy. Fans without satellite access plunk themselves down in front of a QuickTime-capable web browser for a tinier and more pixellated webcast. Sure, neither option is as heady as absorbing the real thing from a few dozen feet away, but they get the job done.

Except that this year, Apple freaks not in Moscone itself are apparently going to have to go without their annual dose of live January Steveness. Faithful viewer Daniel Blanken pointed us to an AppleInsider article which reports that "for the first time in several years, Apple Computer may not provide a live feed of its opening keynote presentation at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco." That means no Steve live-via-satellite-- and no webcast, either. As far as we can tell, this info is legit; you can see a copy of the memo from Apple quoted in Berkeley's cancellation of its on-campus broadcast, for example. We'd tell you there's no reason to panic, but that'd be mildly hyporcritical, seeing as we've just spend the last two hours alternately clawing at the walls and breathing into a paper bag.

Why no live feed? Well, no official reason's been given, but AI originally claimed that it was Steve's doing; reportedly he canceled the live webcast and satellite broadcast because he was "miffed over a series [of] new product leaks." That makes zero sense, of course, since the folks who leaked product details are already being sued, and we doubt that the lack of a live keynote webcast will somehow make them see the error of their ways. Not that Steve's motives are always rational, mind you, but it seems to us that when it comes to matters of retaliation, the man at least knows whom to punish.

AppleInsider has since recanted that explanation, and now claims that, in all likelihood, Apple never planned a live feed in the first place, because they're "costly and yield few benefits to Apple as a company." Well, we're not going to argue the "costly" part, since we know all too well how expensive bandwidth can be (to say nothing of what the satellite feed might cost), but we'd think that keeping its rabid fan base as happy as possible qualifies as a benefit to Apple-- not necessarily a quantifiable one, granted, but Apple of all companies should know a thing or two about worthy investments whose returns don't necessarily show up highlighted in bright green on a balance sheet. We're also a little surprised that Apple sees no benefit in showing off how well QuickTime works as a live webcast medium. Heck, the company could have even done a faux-webcast entirely via iChat AV, whereby Mac users could connect to a limited number of one-way video chats to showcase the power of Apple's videoconferencing solution. Instead we get squat.

Like we said, though, only Apple knows how much it pays for live Stevenote feeds, so we suppose we have to trust their money guys to know what's what. If you're really brokenhearted about this development, there's still the faintest glimmer of hope, since as of Friday afternoon, at least one Apple retail store was reportedly claiming that the in-store Stevenote broadcast was still going to happen, but we're more inclined to believe that the retail associate who stated as such was just out of the loop. And even if there really won't be a live feed, apparently there will be a QuickTime webcast of the Stevenote posted after the fact, so at least we'll get to see Steve's Magical Mystery Tour eventually. Just think of it as a six-hour tape delay in case there's a really, really bad and complicated "wardrobe malfunction."

It may be Wildly Off-Topic Microsoft-Bashing Day (sort of), but just for a change of pace, we're not going to do the obvious thing. Oh, don't get us wrong-- we're still going to bash Microsoft. (After all, the last thing we need today is the shakes.) It's just that we're not going to bash them in the manner in which you're probably expecting, i.e. by harping on a couple of technical screwups during Bill Gates's last keynote. No, we're all about the aftermath on this one.

A bit of extra setup: faithful viewer Brett Chaffer shed a little more light on the subject of one of our recent rants, namely the lack of Mac support in TiVoToGo: according to CNET, Bill Gates spent a chunk of time at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this week bragging about Microsoft's partnership with TiVo, strongly implying that TiVoToGo won't work on Macs for the same reason that none of the "Plays For Sure" music download services will, either: Microsoft still hasn't ported Window Media Digital Rights Management to the Mac.

So given that Microsoft is partially responsible for our current TiVolian woes, you might well expect us to bash Laughin' Bill for screwing up his keynote at the very same show where he bragged about getting in bed with TiVo in the first place. And we certainly could, of course, given that faithful viewer Jeff Duran forwarded us an Associated Press article which reports that Bill's keynote "promoting what he calls the 'digital lifestyle'" (gee, where have we heard that before?) was plagued by "technical glitches that prompted jokes and guffaws"-- glitches including a Windows Media Center PC that froze up during a digital photography presentation and an all-out Blue Screen of Death on an Xbox during a demo of a game's "ostensible user-friendliness."

The thing is, though, a Windows demo without a cock-up is only about as rare as a garden snail without opposable thumbs-- and anyway, the Great Gates Keynote Debacle has already been ridiculed about a zillion times, including in real time by Conan O'Brien, who was onstage next to Gates when the magic happened. So frankly, we're not going to bother, but if you're really interested in watching a demo go kaflooey, faithful viewer Dan Tappan was kind enough to point out that there's a streaming video of the carnage on Microsoft's own web site-- or, rather, there was. This, folks, is where the real bashing comes in, and well-deserved it is, too: Microsoft had originally posted Bill's entire keynote. Sure, on a Mac you needed Windows Media Player 9 to watch it (must... suppress... gag reflex), but it worked, and the freeze-up occurred at about the 25-minute mark, while the BSOD nightmare started at about an hour and ten minutes into the stream. But gee, guess what Microsoft did?

That's right, they removed the keynote stream and replaced it with five poorly-edited "highlights." Some of them cut off right in the middle of a sentence; they must have edited them with Microsoft Movie Maker. Not that it matters, because Bill's not saying anything interesting anyway-- the real "highlights" of the presentation were the crashes and blue-screens, which are now, all too predictably, nowhere to be found. The blurb on the page says "See the future. Today." What it should say is "See the Past. Almost like it really happened."

It's sad, really. After all, everyone has bad demos now and again; Steve Jobs has had his share of keynote mishaps, including app crashes, hardware malfunctions, and the like. The difference is that when Apple posted the streams, it posted the real deal. It didn't act like a pathetically insecure six-year-old whose mother never held it enough by editing out the problems and pretending that they never happened. But we guess it takes all kinds of fruit to make fruit cup. Incidentally, is there a fruit called a "revisionistberry"?