Okay, we're big enough to admit it: we got suckered by the CNET article referring to the "mysterious iMac" at last week's Computex convention in Taiwan. If you don't know what we're talking about, don't bother loading up the article now-- it has since been edited to remove all reference to the "mysterious iMac," which, in itself, could be viewed as mysterious. The reality, unfortunately, simply seems to be that CNET wanted to edit out some information that was both unintentionally misleading and just plain wrong. When faithful viewer Tim Rzeznik pointed us to the story, however, the iMac info was there; Umax, once one of the "Big Three" Mac cloners and now best known as a maker of scanners, was showing off a new scanner product using "an Apple iMac with a 17-inch screen that pivots on a tripod."

So of course our active little imaginations jumped into hyperdrive as we wondered just how Umax could have gotten hold of a pre-release top-secret 17" iMac and how they could have the gall to put it on display at a huge trade show for all to see. Was it corporate espionage and revenge on the Apple that cost them millions in the cloning debacle? All kinds of terrific scenarios flooded our minds as we considered the possibilities. Sure, the article quoted a Umax representative as saying, "we just bought it," but what would you expect him to say? "We secretly sent corporate spies to infiltrate Apple's secret development laboratories as employees, where they've been working diligently for a year and a half gaining everyone's trust so they could then steal a prototype of the iMac II and smuggle it back to Taiwan?" Yeah, right.

So, yup, we admit it-- it never once occurred to us that the 17" iMac on a tripod that Umax "just bought" was simply an Apple Studio Display. Not until The PowerBook Zone alerted us to this simple and obvious answer did the facts fall into place with an audible click. Oh, well-- so much for that conspiracy theory. But that doesn't mean there aren't undercover Umax operatives collecting data on, say, the consumer portable right this minute...