You know the usual drill: the details of future Apple hardware start out sketchy when they first surface months or years before the product is officially unveiled. Then, over time, various conflicting reports start to flicker and fade, other new data joins the mix, and as the release date approaches, the whole confusing mess slowly coalesces into a fairly accurate picture of the product as we'll finally get to see it on store shelves. But while that overall process does seem to apply to the consumer portable, it's a less-than-perfect model. If anything, the "P1," as it's reportedly code-named, is a secret kept under even closer guard than the iMac was; we're willing to bet that if Apple hadn't publicly stated that a consumer portable was in the works, none of us would have a clue about what to expect. But we're still noticing a tendency for the rumored specs to gravitate towards a sort of overall consistency, as the official unveiling is now just six weeks away. We hope.

According to Apple Insider, the final consumer portable will be quite unlike what many of us were led to expect early on. Yes, it'll be curvy, translucent, and colorful like the iMac. It'll have at least a 300 MHz G3 processor with a 512K backside cache, built-in modem and 10/100 Ethernet, and a single USB port. The lithium ion battery will supposedly "last an entire school day without a recharge," and the enclosure takes a page from the eMate's book by being strong enough to "withstand falls from students' desks." The report also claims the P1 will have a "space-saving" handle. So far so good-- there isn't too much detail, but what's there seems pretty trustworthy. It's a far cry from the built-in wireless Internet access rumors we all saw getting bandied about several months ago.

Now Mac OS Rumors, on the other hand, goes into even more detail: they claim the P1 will be called the "WebMate," despite a plethora of reports that it would be dubbed the "iBook;" the screen will be a modest 11" passive-matrix display running at a resolution of 832x624; etc., etc. And while we dig all the info about smoke-grey-and-purple plastics, a possible Mezzanine card slot, and all the rest, what we're really interested to see is Rumors' report of the P1's thickness, which they claim to be "approximately 3 inches thick in the middle and approximately 1 inch thick at the edges." We sincerely hope that's a typo, because a three-inch-thick laptop sets a new standard in sheer volume-- especially for a portable that's only supposed to weigh between four and five pounds. Hmm-- translucent, colorful, dimensions of a smallish throw pillow-- if Apple can just make it plush and squishy, the P1 would be just as at home adorning the sofa as it would on a desk in the classroom. The iMac doubled as modern sculpture; maybe the P1 will double as soft furnishings?