Who can tell the future? (Other than the Psychic Friends Network, of course.) Well, when it comes to forecasting the skinny on earthshattering events in the Mac world, we'd have to put our money on Mac OS Rumors. It's not just that their info is so often correct (which it is), but it's also the way in which their predictions are so fraught with high drama and excitement. For instance, take today's rumor that Apple's "Pro" level Power Macs are slotted for a November introduction, amid a media circus not unlike last November's unveiling of the original midrange G3's and the online Apple Store. The very idea just sets our brains a-tingle.

The G3 "Pro" series is to be based on the next generation of Apple's Gossamer motherboard, and will address the shortcomings of today's G3's from the perspective of graphics and multimedia professionals who feel constricted by things like IDE hard disks and RAM capacities of less than a full gigabyte. Expect, too, a faster system bus, speedier chips, and hefty options like FireWire. If Rumors is correct, Steve Jobs will roll out the zippy new offerings in an "event" designed to capture the attention of the press, and at the same time will reveal more about both the new consumer-grade Mac OS portable and the forthcoming Mac OS X.

Hmmm, we find our brains hesitant to accept the fact that the Power Mac G3's were only announced last November. That means they've only been shipping for about seven months; seems like a lot longer than that, doesn't it? Hopefully the next five months will shoot right by, because we at AtAT are getting a little anxious for a system upgrade, and the Pro G3's may be just what we're looking for. Time for us to start saving those pennies...

As for just why your friendly neighborhood AtAT staff is itching to plunk down a few grand for a sparkling new G3 Pro this winter, it certainly isn't because of any technical shortcomings of our trusty PowerTower Pro. With nine drive bays, it's got plenty of room to grow, storage-wise. It's still got a slew of empty PCI slots in case we need to add USB, FireWire, or other capabilities. And even though its 200 MHz 604e is starting to feel a little long in the tooth, we can just buy a G3 upgrade instead of splurging for a whole new system.

No, the reason we've got the "new machine itch" is because we miss Apple's superior industrial design skills. Our PowerTower is a very capable machine, and it has a ton of room to grow, but it is one ugly box; it's got a cheap, boring, typical-grey rectangular "industry-standard" tower case, complete with flat, icky knockout panels covering the unused drive bays. Granted, the existing G3's aren't that much cooler to look at, but at least the minitower design has that cool translucent green button on top that lets you unfold the whole unit to get at the inner workings. And, of course, there's the iMac, which is the pinnacle of high-tech style. While an iMac totally wouldn't fit our computing needs, we're just drooling over the fact that Mac the Knife says the upcoming G3 Pro machines will borrow heavily from the iMac's style book. Yummy!

In the end, though, we expect cooler heads will prevail, and instead of buying a new Mac, we'll continue to upgrade this ugly old PowerTower. But never underestimate the power of fashion. On the other hand, our boxy PowerTower is a collector's item now that Power Computing has gone down with the Mac cloning ship; and we all know that retro is in, right? ;-)

Horror of horrors-- Apple's brand loyalty fell from an 82% repurchase rate to a measly 71% last year, according to a ZD Market Intelligence study. This marks the first time in recent memory that Apple falls from the top of the heap; Gateway and Hewlett-Packard both scored higher than Apple, based on the percentage of computer buyers who repurchased new machines from the same manufacturer. But while that may sound ominous at first, make sure you consider the presence of Mac clones when you look at the numbers.

After all, your friendly neighborhood AtAT staff are among those Mac mavens who contributed to Apple's drooping brand loyalty numbers; we bought an LC 575 back in 1994, and added a PowerBook to the stable in 1996. But in 1997, we needed a high-end graphics machine on a limited budget; after being unable to find any 7300/200's in early January, we opted for a Power Computing clone instead. So we were one household who switched to a non-Apple computer last year, despite the fact that we stuck with the Mac OS. On the other hand, if a comparable Apple machine had been available, we would've bought it, and we fully plan to buy Apple systems in the future. (We wish we could see brand loyalty numbers for all Mac OS systems, not just Apple-branded ones.) So we're not terribly concerned about Apple falling behind.

In fact, Dave Tremblay (Senior Industry Analyst at ZD Market Intelligence) pretty much nails the situation on the head when he states that "Apple's repurchase loyalty in 1997 was a surprise, not because it went down but because it didn't go down as much as we thought it might." Now that the cloners aren't cannibalizing Mac OS system sales, the G3 Power Macs and PowerBooks are selling well, and the iMac is poised to take the consumer world by storm this fall, we're fully confident that Apple's customer loyalty will return to its customary position over the course of the next couple of years.