Guessing facts and specifications about Apple's upcoming hardware offerings is a favorite party game among Mac users, right up there with the "Spot the Mac on TV" drinking game (if the Apple logo is plainly visible, take two gulps!) and "Pin The Antitrust Rap on Bill Gates" (bonus points if you manage to pin the subpoena to his crotch). But just because we Mac users can imagine some pretty killer hardware on our own doesn't mean that it isn't nice to hear what Apple's real plans are when it comes to future computers. That's yet another reason why the annual Worldwide Developers Conference is such a blast; it's one of the few times when Apple is publicly forthcoming about what they plan to release over the course of the next year. Oh, sure, they don't tell us everything, but they have to disclose enough information to let the programmers write software that'll work on whatever cool new Macs are coming down the pipe.

Now, as you would probably imagine, after months of personal speculation and hearing all the rumors about scary new technology Apple's cooking up in its secret underground labs, the reality of the situation might seem a little bland in comparison. That said, it's still worth your while to check out ZDNN's coverage of Tuesday's WWDC hardware strategy session. If you've been holding off on getting a blue-and-white Power Mac G3 because you figured there'd be G4s shipping within a few short months, your hardware strategy is running a bit faster than Apple's; apparently the Power Mac G4 won't be released until "this time next year." If that seems a bit late to you, given that the G4 chip is very close to shipping, then you're not alone; it's all well and good for Apple to be making favorable comparisons between the G4 and the Pentium III-- the G4 is smaller (what isn't?), packs more transistors, and sucks up less power-- but the Pentium III is here today, while we've got to wait another year before Apple ships G4-based machines. And by then Intel will have the next chip out the door, and Apple will probably be saying how much better the G5 will be when it's released a year from then. (Well, not really, but you get the point.)

Anyway, impatience aside, we still consider it a good thing finally to hear what Apple's G4 plans are from the horse's mouth. In a more general hardware sense, Apple reps reportedly also announced that the floppy is dead, dead, dead (as further evidenced by the fact that the new 101 PowerBooks don't come with a floppy, nor can you buy one as a media bay peripheral from Apple), and DVD drives will become standard equipment, replacing the ubiquitous CD-ROM drive. And of course they played up USB and FireWire, the next generation of peripheral bus interconnectivity-- no surprise there. All told, there weren't any revelations that come close to the fevered imaginings of Mac fantasists conjuring up their dream machines, but again, it's nice to get a solid sense of Apple's take on the future. Now, anyone up for a round of "Spin the iMac Mouse?"