So Mac OS X Tiger's officially out the door and kicking heinie, but we admit that we're a little confused: just what is its connection with Apple, anyway? Because judging by the name, it's clearly a product of TigerDirect, that catalog reseller who, evidently, also creates Macintosh operating systems. So is Apple just cross-promoting it for TigerDirect, or did TigerDirect buy Apple recently during one of our voyages off-world and we just completely missed the news? We're sure there must be a simple explanation, but so far it eludes us.

Oh, wait-- here's a possibility: maybe only the thickest-skulled nimrods on the planet could ever possibly think that just because Mac OS X 10.4 is marketed as "Tiger" that it's somehow connected with those guys at TigerDirect-- and even then only if said nimrods had eaten lead paint chips for breakfast for thirty years and had recently been beaten savagely about the head with the Clueless Stick. Nevertheless, that hasn't stopped TigerDirect from-- ready for this?-- filing a lawsuit against Apple for using the "Tiger" name. Really, folks, does it get any better than this? If courtroom drama were Soylent Green, this Tiger suit would be the kind made from rich people who had a lot of class.

Here's the skinny on the sitch so far: according to a MacMinute article pointed out by faithful viewer Alan Graves, TigerDirect alleges that by naming Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger," Apple infringed upon its trademark and has caused "perceived confusion between the products now being marketed by Apple under the 'Tiger' brand." Therefore, TigerDirect has actually asked a judge for a temporary injunction to prevent Apple from shipping copies of Tiger-- or at least to prevent it from marketing it in its allegedly "confusing" manner. You've really got to wonder about a company that waits until the day before a product comes out to file for a temporary injunction blocking its release. Mac OS X Tiger was first shown publicly, what, almost a whole year ago, right? So what's with the eleventh-hour injunction crap?

Now, this may seem like the grandpappy of all dumbass lawsuits, but believe it or not, TigerDirect actually has what may be a valid legal point: Apple has a "Tiger Center" at the Apple Store, which is more or less using the "Tiger" name in conjunction with an online store which sells the same sort of stuff that TigerDirect sells. (TigerDirect's parent company has "Tiger" registered as a trademark for "mail order catalog services featuring computers and computer related products.") Whether or not having a page on Apple's site referred to as the "Tiger Center" constitutes infringement or could actually lead to customer confusion among any sampling of consumers with sufficient cranial capacity to tell the difference between, say, a live echidna and a pound of ground beef with two dozen pencils stuck into it is a matter for a judge to decide. Somehow we don't see it amounting to much, though.

And apparently the judge agrees, since Tiger is now flowing freely in retail outlets everywhere and there's still a "Tiger Center" at the Apple Store, so evidently no injunction was granted-- which means that the judge doesn't think much of TigerDirect's chances of eventually emerging victorious. It ought to be fun to watch the fireworks until they fizzle, though.

Wait, who makes Mac OS X Tiger, again?

Heads up, folks, because we're in a petulant mood; we'll serve no whine before it's time... and boy howdy, is it ever time! Like we said before, what with chunks of our archaic Quicksilver dual G4 falling off at regular intervals, we're definitely in the market for a new Power Mac-- but before placing an order we decided to wait a couple of days to see whether the new G5s are really as underwhelming as a first glance at the specs suggests. Guess what? Apparently they are... at least, from a Mac geek/tech snob perspective, but then again, isn't that the target audience?

If you follow the hardware rumors religiously, you probably recall that at one point the question on every dirt-slinger's virtual lips was whether the new Power Macs would pack the improved single-core PowerPC 970GX processor, or the long-awaited super-improved dual-core 970 MP chip. Well, as it turns out, the answer is a disappointing "C. None of the above"; according to Think Secret, this week's Power Macs contain the same ol' 970FX that's been shipping for ages, now, only ratcheted up a couple hundred extra MHz. In other words, we can probably expect that performance will scale roughly with the clock speed increase itself, which is a mere 8 percent at the high end. For this we waited ten and a half months? Not that this is Apple's fault, of course, since it's IBM that can't seem to crank out the goods as quickly as anticipated. Even Steve got rooked, buying that line about 3 GHz G5s shipping by mid-2004 and turning it into a promise to Apple customers that he would eventually have to break.

About the only good news on that front is that, according to Think Secret, when the 970GX and 970MP finally surface as real, non-vaporware parts to be shoved into new new Power Macs, both chips will debut at 3 GHz. And given Apple's obvious penchant for multiprocessor systems, is it out of the question to expect dual-dual-core Macs, or what will effectively be quad-processor Macs starting at 3.0 GHz per processor core? Don't answer that-- at least, not until you hear that Tiger contains references to counting a Mac's physical and logical CPUs, lending credence to the notion that a Mac with both multiple processors and multiple cores per processor ("logical CPUs") isn't just possible, but flat-out expected. (The grapevine insists that Apple already has 970MP-based prototypes running, so now it's just a matter of Big Blue getting off its Big Blue Keister.)

Think Secret interprets the addition of support for multiple-core processors in Tiger to mean that "dual-core Power Macs will be ready by year's end." In the meantime, we'll probably just add another layer of duct tape to this here battered but beloved ol' G4 and hope it can hang on until the next Power Mac revision. Besides, an uninspiring performance delta isn't even the real problem with the latest Power Mac lineup: faithful viewer David Krug was the first to point out that the new systems don't come with a modem anymore! What, now we're supposed to fax with an actual fax machine like all those regular chumps out there? Oh, the humanity.

Think we're above recycling an old plotline? Then you're new around here, aren't you? Consider this: we've covered the epidemic of subway iPod theft at least twice-- once to discuss the phenomenon occurring in London, and then a year later to address the same problem in New York. Well, the third time's the charm, right? And we were all set to do the whole song and dance over again now that the Boston Herald reports that iPod theft "has become so common" in our own town of (duh) Boston that "MBTA police have created a new crime category just to keep track of the thefts." Then again, authorities claim that Boston's iPod-related subway crimes haven't gotten violent like they have in New York, and what kind of ratings can we expect to pull in with nonviolent crime? We have to think about Sweeps Month, right?

So instead, we're still going to rehash the same old story (it's practically mandatory in television writing, and we don't want another warning from the union), only we're sticking with New York as the setting because faithful viewer Paul HR dug up a juicy morsel or two on the subject over at The New York Times. We've already touched on how iPod-jackings account for a stunning percentage of subway crime in that city; major felonies rose 18.3 percent since the year before, yet if the iPod thefts (and the slightly less prevalent cellphone thefts) are ignored, that figure would actually have dropped by 3 percent from the year-ago period. The new development is that iPod theft is now such a huge problem in the Big Apple that the Metropolitan Transit Authority is actually going to be running "a series of safety advertisements" aimed at teaching iPod users to protect themselves from becoming another statistic.

What kind of advertisements, you ask? Well, apparently one tells passengers that "earphones are a giveaway" and that ditching the trademark white earbuds for less iPod-specific ones could help you "protect your device." We can't say for sure, but we suspect that another might warn against attracting attention to your device by dousing yourself in black paint from head to toe and dancing with your iPod in front of a solid brightly-colored background. Take it from us-- that's sage advice. Learn from our mistakes.

In any case, the NYC Police Department's chief of transportation is stopping short of banning iPod use outright... which is good, because while many of them are far more vigilant about keeping their iPods out of plain sight, none of the iPod-toting subway passengers interviewed by the Times "seemed willing to abandon their personal soundtracks altogether." And get this: the Times claims that, based on police statistics, "it does not appear that the criminals are reselling the music players"-- in other words, they're not fencing them, they're swiping them to use themselves. So the passengers want them, the thieves want them-- it's official, everybody wants an iPod. Was there ever any doubt?