It's the return of everyone's favorite party game, "Guess the P1 Release Date!" See, the announcement of the iMac last May caught pretty much the whole world by surprise; until then, all we had were vague hints from Apple that a re-entry into the consumer market was coming, and a lot of varied speculation about the "Columbus" project (which turned out to be the iMac's motherboard). When the iMac finally made its surprise appearance, people were floored, and the initial flurry of interest from both the Mac community and the media pretty much guaranteed that the lovable little lump would be a hit, debate about missing slots and floppy drives notwithstanding. Now, with the consumer portable (known as "P1" within Apple's walls), Apple told us all ahead of time that it would be coming in 1999, and everyone is expecting a runaway success similar to the iMac's. The only question remaining is, "When?"

After some speculation that it might surface at Macworld Expo in San Francisco last January (not even close), hopes were running high that Steve Jobs might trot it out on stage at last month's Expo in Tokyo. No go. The latest whispers we'd heard put the unveiling at around the timeframe of the Worldwide Developers Conference coming this May, which is farther off than we'd like. However, Mac OS Rumors has thrown their hat into the ring and is now predicting a P1 unveiling at one of those super-special "Apple Events" expected on or about April 22nd. While we at AtAT have no particular reason either to confirm or to deny the date, the fact that the P1 introduction will be a world-wide media circus is a sure bet. There's no way, for instance, that Apple would take the wraps off what is probably their most highly-anticipated computer in history at something as relatively low-key as a developers' conference, unless they were willing to throw the conference into utter disarray by opening the doors to hordes of reporters and cameras. Expect media super-saturation.

Of course, just because Apple may or may not unveil the P1 in late April, that doesn't mean you'll actually be able to buy one at that time. Sure, Apple claimed their new strategy was "announce when it's available" back when they brought the world the first G3's, but things have slipped since then. The iMac, for a classic example, was announced a full three months before it was shipping and available; if Apple follows a similar strategy with the P1, then we may well not see them for sale until, say, the Macworld Expo in New York this July. Yes, we'll keep our fingers crossed for an "available immediately!" announcement, but we won't be holding our collective breath. And whenever the P1 is announced, and whenever it's actually released, we have a feeling it'll be well worth waiting for.