Some of our more games-oriented viewers probably already know who Peter Tamte is; as the executive director of MacSoft, he's been one of the driving forces behind keeping the Mac games market alive when companies like LucasArts had given it up for dead. MacSoft released Mac versions of some of the most popular PC game titles, such as Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, and Shadow Warrior, when most other game companies considered the effort a futile move. Well, MacSoft saw a 151% increase in revenues during Q1 of this year, compared to the same quarter a year ago, so apparently Peter & Co. were right on the money. And we've especially been impressed with the way Peter's found time to duck into comp.sys.mac.games.action every once in a while to keep the rabid gamers up to speed on the latest developments.

So it's no surprise to read in a press release that Apple's hired Peter away to report directly to Captain Steve as Apple's new Senior Director of Consumer Marketing. Peter knows what consumers want, and now he's in a unique position to make sure that Apple takes the right steps as it jumps back into the home market. He'll also be a valuable liaison between Apple and the developers writing software for the Mac platform. It's thrilling to see Apple making smart hires.

With the rapid approach of the iMac and the sudden return of Apple as a consumer-oriented computer company, we at AtAT are ecstatic to hear that Peter is on Apple's team for the transition. It especially bodes well for the feature set of future iMacs, which are now more likely to get some better games support, which is of course key to any success in the home market. The future looks bright...

Okay, everybody, let's face it: overall, Apple is not a particularly effective advertiser. Yes, things have gotten a lot better in the past year; "Think Different" raised eyebrows and kicked up enough controversy to get people talking, the anti-Pentium ads that followed offered a clear and concise reason to consider buying a G3 Power Mac, and the fold-out PowerBook G3 print ad was simple, effective, and pretty widespread. But as much as those ads have all helped Apple regain some mindshare and sell some products, they weren't ubiquitous enough to compare with Intel's or Microsoft's presence. Now, before you jump down our throats about "financial realities" and the like, yes, we're quite aware that Intel and Microsoft have a lot more money to throw around than Apple does, and we definitely feel that Apple's spent what money it has in a pretty effective way, but there are still these Big Gaping Holes® in its ad strategy, like, why are CompUSA's Sunday circulars still so Mac-scarce?

It's that detail in particular that brings us to an issue that not too many people seem to be talking about: what about advertising for the iMac? It's now just one month until the little thing hits store shelves, so we would hope that Apple plans an advertising blitz to commence no later than three weeks from today. We've heard via an Upside column that Apple financial wiz Fred Anderson claims that the sales and marketing budget for the iMac will be "huge." That's good news, as it indicates that Apple at least realizes the need for iMac advertising. As to what kind of ads we'll see, that's anyone's guess, but Steve Jobs hinted that a commercial might be made of the 3 1/2-minute "Simplicity Shootout" video shown at the Expo, and now available in Quicktime format. That video's a great start, although we're not sure how it would translate into a 30- or 60-second commercial. Perhaps they can break it up into a series of shorter ads, to be shown in sequential commercial breaks during a particular show. Regardless, Apple's heart (and apparently its checkbook) are in the right place, and it's entirely a matter of execution now.

While we're on the subject, we'd also hope that Apple has used some of that "huge" iMac marketing budget to bribe the hell out of CompUSA in order to get big splashy iMac coverage in the Sunday circulars. After all, CompUSA is where most iMacs will be sold, especially the ones purchased by people who don't already own a Mac. Then again, with somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 iMacs on preorder (depending on whom you believe), CompUSA probably won't have to be coerced to get up off its duff and finally start advertising Apple's systems.

The line of peripherals coming out for Apple's forthcoming iMac grows ever longer. This time, Hewlett Packard is reportedly planning to release USB scanners that will be compatible with the cutest computer on the block, according to Mac OS Rumors. That's good news, as until now, scanners for the iMac were relatively scarce; whereas multiple storage devices have been announced, only Umax had committed to releasing a USB scanner with iMac-compatible drivers. And as we always say, choice (and competition) is good.

But here's the interesting thing: Rumors claims that the only difference betweens HP's existing USB scanners will be the bundled driver and the casing, which we expect will be "iMac-friendly." Let's see; Iomega's iMac Zip drive has a translucent blue case, Syquest's iMac SparQ is translucent red, Imation's iMac Superdisk mimics the iMac's colors and textures almost perfectly. Sensing a trend? The promise of USB on the iMac was that it would eventually open up all sorts of PC-only peripherals to the Mac side, since manufacturers would only have to write Mac-compatible drivers. But instead of just writing new software, it appears that vendors are, more often than not, also changing their hardware designs to be more iMac-like in style. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but we find it sort of ironic to see manufacturers voluntarily changing their hardware when they don't need to.

What that willingness really shows is that these manufacturers expect competition to be fierce as they battle for iMac owners' dollars. Say you're Jane or Joe iMac-Owner: which would you rather buy, a drab and boring looking flatbed scanner, or one that's sparkling, translucent, and complements the computer you'll be using it with? Apple's ushering in the long-anticipated Age of Computer Style, in which looks and industrial design become much more important factors in the buying process than they once were. Anyway, for those of you who want to track the list of peripherals being released for the iMac, we've found iMac2day's list to be pretty comprehensive. It's a fairly sizeable list for a computer that's still a month away... We have no doubt that USB will catch on in a big way, and we're very comfortable with Apple moving to the new interface as its standard.