The progression of harder-hitting Apple ads may continue. First, we had the Snail ad, which likened the speed of Intel's Pentium II to that of everyone's favorite shell-lugging gastropod, while claiming that the G3 chip is "up to twice as fast" according to Bytemarks. Then Apple turned up the heat, letting us see (with no small sense of personal satisfaction) a smouldering lamé-clad Bunnyman, as Apple "apologized" for "toasting" the Pentium II in public. What's next? According to Mac OS Rumors, we should expect the next wave of product-centric commercials to debut with the launch of the Wall Street and Main Street Powerbooks.

Rumors claims that the new ad will compare the high-end Wall Street system (with its 292 MHz G3 processor) with a 266 MHz Pentium II-based Wintel laptop. Given that a mobile Pentium II is slower than a desktop model, and that the 292 MHz Wall Street reportedly performs up to 50% faster than a current desktop G3 Powermac, it's going to be a slaying. One Rumors source confirms what we've long suspected: that the new Powerbooks will be able to emulate Windows nearly as fast as (possibly faster than?) a similarly-priced Wintel laptop can run it natively. We expect that may be a focus of the ad.

It's unclear whether this ad will be a print ad or a television commercial, but for a message this strong, we're guessing that it's destined for the TV screen. We'd love to see a series of side-by-side speed demos, each showing the Powerbook winning in emulation, then with native software. Picture this: Word 97 on the Wintel, Word 97 in VirtualPC on the Powerbook. In a word count test, the Powerbook wins by a small margin. Then Word 97 on the Wintel, and the native Word98 on the Powerbook-- which would win a word count test by a huge margin, most likely. "With a new Macintosh Powerbook, you can run Office 97 for Windows faster than ever. Of course, you could also run Office 98 for Macintosh instead-- and set a new speed record." Could be neat.

We're noticing an irksome trend for newly-released Apple computers to emerge with pricing significantly higher than expected. The most recent and obvious example of this phenomenon is the Powermac G3 All-in-One (née Artemis), which had been widely reported both in the Mac-centric world, as well as in the more general computer press, as being Apple's sub-$1000 consumer Mac. Instead, when it finally emerged, not only was it exclusively available in the educational channel, but it also cost 50% more than originally expected.

The current price watch is on the new Main Street Powerbooks, expected on May 6th; everyone and his/her uncle seems to have written an article on how Apple plans to price the lowest-end configuration of these sleek new machines at or below the $1999 price point, thus hopefully selling a gazillion units. Unfortunately, as the release date draws ever closer, we're starting to hear whispers that the cheapest configuration will actually be a few hundred dollars higher. Most recently, MacNN was claiming that the floppyless base unit will debut at $2299. If that's true, we're bracing ourselves for the possible torrent of "Apple's stuff costs too much" sentiment that may permeate the computer industry shortly thereafter.

The thing is, these prices are still exceptionally good ones; who'd have thought even a few months ago that someone could buy a system that reportedly outpaces a $1699 Powermac G3/233 and includes a 15" monitor, all for $1499? And given the original Powerbook G3's $5700 price tag, being able to get a similarly-speedy laptop soon for only $2299 seems like a dream come true. It's just our expectations that get raised to what are perhaps unreasonable levels. That being said, O'Grady's PowerPage is still expecting a stripped-down Main Street to go for $1999, and maybe as little as $1899, but this time we're not holding our collective breath.

While no one else we've discussed this with thinks it's very likely to happen, Mac the Knife continues to forecast that Apple will introduce the Newton-replacing Mac OS Lite (also known as Allegro Lite) at the Worldwide Developer Conference in a few weeks. Mac OS Lite, faithful viewers will recall, is the rumored "thin client" little brother of the Mac OS that will drive many of Apple's lightweight computing products, like the rumored NC, Columbus/Apple Media Player, and "eMac" projects, as well as the other expected Newtonesque handhelds slated to appear next year. Considering that Newton was canned less than two months ago, we're not surprised at the skepticism surrounding this WWDC rumor.

Now, the Knife doesn't explicitly state that Apple will actually be able to demonstrate the new OS variant at the conference, but it's pretty clearly implied; he reports that Apple is pouring "plenty of resources" into the upcoming shindig, presumably in order to get the Mac OS Lite into a presentable, or at least an announceable, condition. And we're particularly doubtful that Apple could actually launch the "eMac" (color eMate running Mac OS Lite) for a September shipping date if the operating system that drives it is only in the planning stages.

As for AtAT's prediction, we think that this WWDC is the perfect time for Apple to announce that Mac OS Lite exists and is the future of handheld operating systems, but we still doubt that the project could really be far enough along to be demonstrated next month. We're expecting an "OS Roadmap" and "Support from Industry Players" kind of presentation instead of an actual demonstration. But if Steve pulls out a working eMac, we'll be more than thrilled.