Drama-hounds everywhere just have to love Apple; what other computer company can inspire so much hand-wringing and teeth-gnashing over the rumored delay of a product that hasn't even been announced yet? For the last couple of days, the biggest buzz in the Mac world has been the fate of Apple's consumer portable, the "P1," which was expected to make its debut at next month's Macworld Expo, but which now might be delayed even further. Worse yet, according to O'Grady's PowerPage, the project was in deep enough trouble that Apple held an executive meeting over the weekend to vote on whether or not they should just scrap the P1 completely-- and while the majority did vote to continue working on it, at least a couple of people are rumored to have voted in favor of Coplanding the thing.

So ever since the PowerPage first broke the story, there's been a flurry of media activity; after all, a late product introduction from Apple isn't news (it's practically a company tradition), but a cancellation-- or even a near miss-- is a big deal. Especially when the product in question is the long-awaited fourth quadrant in Apple's product strategy: the computer that promises to do for laptops what the iMac did for desktops. The good news is that, as far as we can tell, no one still believes that the P1 is in any serious danger of being axed, especially since Steve Jobs has reportedly taken a personal interest in making sure there's a working prototype in time for his keynote address. And Steve knows how to crack a whip.

As usual, Apple's "just not going to talk about rumors or speculation," but this isn't the first time that we think their policy of tight-lipped reticence is hurting more than it helps. After all, the "consumer portable" has been acknowledged by Apple as an upcoming product, and they've publicly stated that it would ship in 1999; how tough is it to step forward and issue a simple statement like "the consumer portable is still slated for a 1999 introduction"? Rumors of product cancellations can't be good things to leave unchecked, so we don't understand why Apple wouldn't make a simple exception to their rule. Could the rumors be partially responsible for Apple's stock price dropping over a point? Ah, well-- at least it gives us all something to take about.