Okay, so while we were AWOL yet again (and trust us, this wasn't the last time-- not by a long shot) we missed out on the whole "the iPod photo is dead, long live the iPod" lineup reorg that touched down earlier this week. If somehow you missed it, Apple's press release dishes the skinny: in a nutshell, the "iPod photo" as an entity unto itself is kaput, because all full-size iPods now include the color screens and photo-display capabilities that were once the earmarks of the iPod photo product line. And when we say "all" full-size iPods, we actually mean "both"; Apple has more or less deep-sixed the basic monochrome-display 20 GB iPod and moved the entry-level iPod photo down into its $299 price slot, downgrading its hard drive to 20 GB and nixing its FireWire cable in the process to justify the $50 price break. The 60 GB iPod photo stays where it was at $399, only now it's semantically just an "iPod." Are we clear?

Even though we missed broadcasting that day, we can't help bringing it up now three days late, since the same part of us that relishes the absurdity that we drive on a parkway and park in a driveway can't help but grin like a maniac when noting that, among all iPods with screens, now only the white iPods have color screens, while only the ones that come in multiple colors (i.e. the minis) have monochrome displays. (And yes, we're ignoring the fact that the newly-repriced $329 iPod U2 is still black and red and now also boasts a color screen. Whassamatter, you never heard of an anomaly before? Sheesh.) Oooo, it's practically enough irony to carry us clear through to Macworld Expo Boston, at which point the annual prospect of a Mac trade show sans Apple (or, indeed, even many Mac users) ought to hook us up with all we need until Christmas.

Now that we got that out of our system, to help compensate for boring you with a three-day-old plot twist, howsabout this for a deal? First, we'll pledge not to mention the equally-out-of-date release of iTunes 4.9 with Podcasting support (at least, we won't mention it any more than that), and second, we'll dish a little about alleged future iPod developments, so you can drool chronologically forward as well as back. According to Mac Rumors, UK gadget mag T3 claims that "reliable inside sources" report that the iPod shuffle will soon be available in 2 GB and 4 GB capacities. No word on whether these beefy new tunesticks will replace the $99 512 MB and (now cheaper) $129 1 GB versions, or simply join them in the lineup to give customers still more iTunes-happy options by which they can accrue additional debt.

We know what you're thinking: would Apple really ship a 4 GB shufflePod when there's a 4 GB miniPod sitting right there in the product lineup? Maybe, maybe not-- but the world may never know, since T3 also claims that Apple is ditching the 4 GB iPod mini and moving to 6 GB and 8 GB models whenever this grand product overhaul is slated to happen. As for when, T3 has no info, but a week ago AppleInsider was talking about a "special event that will take place on or before Thursday, July 7th," and surmised that second-gen shufflePods might be on the agenda. So Apple may reveal all within the week-- and heck, there's even a remote chance that, if it does, we'll even be around to tell you about it. Miracles have happened, you know.

We lied: we're going to mention Apple's recent plunge into the oh-so-hep world of Podcasting after all. Why such a blatant violation of a solemn promise made mere paragraphs ago? Well, first of all, Apple just started crowing about a new development in Podcastland, and we'd like to cover something timely without having to worry about never having included the backstory. And second, we're really, really, untrustworthy and horrible people. Seriously. We'd throw post-expiration-date Go-Gurt at your grandmother for a ten-spot. Yes, even Shrek's Ogreberry/Donkeyberry Punch. So stay off our bad side.

So, right-- Apple released iTunes 4.9 a few days ago, which now has a Podcast Directory that allows users to "discover, subscribe, manage, and listen to Podcasts" right in the application itself. iTunes currently supports over 3,000 free Podcasts, all of which deliver fresh recorded content straight to iTunes whenever new audio content is made available-- and thence to a connected iPod, of course, for listening on the go. The latest iPod software update adds a Podcast menu to supported devices, allowing for easy navigation of download audio programs and for bookmarking within a given Podcast, similar to the way it works with audiobooks purchased via the iTunes Music Store. Them's the basics. Got it? Good. Promise shattered, backstory complete, on to the new stuff.

So here's what Apple was crowing about as of yesterday: according to yet another press release, users have subscribed to over a million Podcasts in just the first two days since iTunes 4.9 hit the streets. We don't know for a fact that that's a lot, but hey, it's a million-- sounds good, right? And we've got industry insiders to tell us that a million subscriptions in two days is, indeed, a very healthy number; Adam Curry (yes, that Adam Curry), the inventor of Podcasting, reports that "subscriptions have dramatically increased" across the PodShow Podcast Network since iTunes 4.9's release, indicating that "listeners are voting with their ears." (And we all know how tricky that can be, what with needing to grasp the ballot between your earlobes and all.)

Meanwhile, Will Lewis of KCRW says that his Podcasting servers have been "swamped with a stratospheric increase in traffic," with downloads having "increased tenfold" since Tuesday, clearly indicating that Apple has "propelled Podcasting into the mainstream." August Trometer, who wrote iPodderX, concurs: "Podcasting is like cappuccino. Gourmet coffee was around for a long time, but it took Starbucks to put it on the map. Apple is like the Starbucks of Podcasting." So apparently we can all expect a minimum of six Apple retail stores on every city block, now. Just think of all the independent mom 'n' pop Podcast stores that Apple's going to drive out of business...

But back to those million subscriptions: the Podcasts are free, so Apple doesn't score any cash from this-- at least, not directly. But since "Podcast" is the hot media buzzword right now and iTunes is arguably the best (if not the only) mainstream one-stop-shop jukebox that can suck down Podcasted content and slap it right onto an iPod, the odds are pretty good that all this hype over Podcast support in iTunes will goose iPod sales a little, and iTMS purchases as well.

And just wait 'til we start Podcasting AtAT episodes as read by Sean Connery, accompanied by interpretive guitar music and background vocalizations by Jewel. Those guys owe us a favor.

So we feel a little guilty that Real Life™ has horned in on production so much that we only managed to broadcast a grand total of four new episodes through all of June (that's batting .182-- who are we, Toronto Blue Jays back-to-the-minors shortstop Jason Alfaro?), but our therapist makes a good point: just how guilty should we feel when the progress of Apple-flavored drama seems to have slowed to the glacial pace of a Department of Motor Vehicles queue on International "Everybody Communicate By Blinking In Morse Code" Day? Case in point: it's been three and a half weeks since Apple officially announced that it's bailing on PowerPC and making the tricky flailing aerial leap to Intel, allegedly because Intel's development roadmap hints at power consumption levels far more appropriate for future Macs than IBM's plans indicate, and yet we're just now hearing IBM issue its rebuttal. Which, incidentally, amounts to little more than a half-hearted "Nuh-uh!"

Well, okay, there's a little more to it than that, but frankly, given that he's had almost a month in which to craft an impressive and well-supported response to Apple's claims, we're pretty wildly unimpressed with what Rod Adkins, IBM's veep of development for its Systems and Technology Group, has been trying to pass off to eWEEK as some sort of refutation. Don't get us wrong-- we love the G5, and we consider it a testament to IBM's technical prowess that the company cranked out a chip as nifty as that. But basically, Rod says that while Big Blue "could build PowerPC chips that satisfy the needs of the entire range of Apple's product lines, including portables such as the PowerBook," it just doesn't want to. Or, more to the point, he seems to think that Apple didn't want it to.

"They had Freescale primarily for the low-end and mobile solutions," says Rod, apparently oblivious to the fact that Apple has been desperately trying to stem mass defections of Road Warriors who are turning to the Dark Side and switching to Wintel notebooks (because PowerBooks, while superb machines overall, lag somewhat horribly in the performance department). He also seems to have missed the multiple occasions over the past couple of years when Apple was forced to admit publicly to the press that, although customers were clamoring for a G5-based PowerBook and it'd love to sell them some, IBM just didn't have a smaller, low-power G5 suitable for squeezing into a laptop yet. And he even somehow spaced on that time that Steve Jobs himself, when asked about a time frame for a PowerBook G5 hitting the shelves, said "we are working on it and what we'd like is to have it by the end of next year." That was September of 2003. So while Apple has been working on the problem all this time, IBM has been, what-- playing This Little Piggy on a whole lot of toes?

Indeed, Rod almost seems to be implying that he went to Steve two years ago and said, "okay, so here's the G5 for the Power Mac-- and here's a low-power one for PowerBooks, too, since, you know, we're perfectly capable of making stuff like that, you see," to which Steve replied, "Don't you dare! We'd much rather stick with Freescale's underperforming G4. You know, the one that drove us to IBM for the G5 in the first place. You take that mobile G5 and throw it on the fire, and let us never speak of this again!" There's clearly a reality disconnect somewhere, here, and it sure sounds like it's on IBM's side to us.

Not that we're denying Rod's essential claim that "there's nothing about POWER architecture that limits you in any way in terms of power management or power efficiency." But this attitude that "IBM has the capability to deliver a product such as a mobile PowerPC 970 chip," but apparently either didn't know that Apple wanted one, or just didn't feel like it, well, that's either refreshingly honest or terrifically stupid. Or both. Meanwhile, we suppose we now know why Apple never received a 3 GHz desktop G5, either; "Wait, you mean when Steve announced to the entire planet that the G5 would hit 3 GHz within a year, that meant he actually wanted us to build one? Well, why didn't he say so?"