You know, the only thing kicking up more debate than the iMac's lack of a floppy drive is its inclusion of a 33.6 Kbps modem. Since the "i" in iMac reportedly stands for "Internet" and Apple is strongly targeting the cute blue lump at computerless homes who want Internet access, why stack the deck against themselves by including only a 33.6 modem when the rest of the world is going 56K? (Never mind the fact that a huge number of people can't achieve 56K connections over their phone lines anyway-- it's the marketing we're talking about, here.)

Well, Reality has some interesting light to shed on the subject. According to them, Apple actually plans to ship the iMac with a software-based modem, like the Geoports that shipped with many of the PowerPC Performas. This would help keep costs down, and more importantly, allows Apple to upgrade all iMac modems simply by releasing a software upgrade. Apple's Telecom software currently maxes out at 33.6, which probably explains the listing of a 33.6 modem in the iMac's specs, but they can certainly rev the software if they need to. In fact, it seems entirely likely that Apple is quietly planning to do just that (though probably not for the Geoports). We think we read somewhere that buried deep within the pre-release developer version of Mac OS 8.5 is the string "iMac 56K internal modem," but we might have been hallucinating.

All we can say is, we hope Apple's right about this whole software modem thing. We at AtAT used a Geoport software-based modem for well over a year on our PowerTower Pro. We frequently got connection speeds of 31.2 (and occasionally achieved 33.6 connections) when dialing in to our ISP; everything seemed great. But then we recently switched to a hardware-based Global Village K56Flex modem, and even though we can never connect at anything better than 28.8 for some reason, the actual throughput performance is easily 50-100% better than we had with the Geoport. Even on our respectably-speedy 200 MHz 604e, the Geoport software just couldn't compete with a hardware chipset. It'll be interesting to see if Apple manages to achieve decent throughput in the iMac's software modem; otherwise people who use the system are just going to think Macs are slow at Internet access. (Reality claims that the iMac software modem should only chew up 3-4% of the CPU time when in use; we'll see.)

With the recent split between IBM and Motorola regarding their PowerPC development plans, several AtAT viewers are understandably concerned about the future of the PowerPC from a Macintosh standpoint. According to MacCentral, Apple is considering the divergence a "non-event," claiming that nothing but good can come of the two companies working on their own designs and enhancements for the chips. After all, now IBM and Motorola will compete for Apple's money, and that should drive both companies to make their respective PowerPC chips more Mac OS-friendly.

The other side of the coin is considerably less shiny, though; both IBM and Motorola have been trying to shift the focus of the PowerPC to embedded systems, and potentially away from desktop microprocessors. If that trend continues, in a few years you may have a toaster with a PowerPC inside, but your Mac might be running something from Intel instead. Given Apple's relatively low market share, it's quite possible that both companies might simply decide that the Mac portion of the PowerPC market is irrelevant. If that happens, we can say goodbye to cool enhancements like AltiVec, which is a great extension for a Mac-bound chip, but is less useful for a PowerPC that will be controlling your coffeemaker. (IBM has already said that they're not interested in AltiVec, since it isn't important for the chips they want to throw inside their high-end Unix workstations.)

We're all going to have to wait and see what happens with PowerPC development. The good news is, Apple's all set for the next few years: the G3 and G4 designs are both in no real danger. The other upside is, if development of PowerPC's for embedded systems goes well, then there may end up being a PowerPC that will be suitable for Apple's upcoming handheld systems, like this rumored "eMac" that's expected next year. That would allow Mac OS Lite to be very similar to the full Mac OS used in desktop systems.

Wheeee, the popularity of Microsoft Word macro viruses continues unabated. Data Fellows has reported a new one, which-- get this-- actually posts a user's Word documents to various internet newsgroups. Imagine your personal journal winding up on alt.sex.stories, or your résumé being posted to alt.drugs.pot.

The good news is this: right now, the existing virus does its nastiness by posting via Forte, a popular Windows newsreader. Mac users therefore need not be particularly alarmed right this second. Of course, we wouldn't be surprised if someone were to create a variation that does the same thing on Macs, by controlling Newswatcher or whatever, so if you use Word 6 or higher, be careful.

By the way, if you're using a Power Mac, you should be worried about the AutoStart Worm virus right now, which continues to spread depite mass warnings and a plethora of tools to help people avoid infection. Do yourself (and the rest of the Mac-using world) a favor-- disable the AutoStart feature in your Quicktime Settings control panel, and read up on the virus at sites like MacFixit and MacInTouch. Better safe than sorry.