Enough of the rosy financial news-- let's leap back into the world of rumors and half-truths where we feel right at home. Specifically, we find ourselves unable to stop thinking about this whole Apple-Palm thing. The history's been building for ages, now; first, Apple pioneers the PDA/handheld computer market with the Newton MessagePad. It's a nifty gadget, but it gets roasted in the press because its handwriting recognition isn't all it's cracked up to be. And while Apple spends five years and kajillions of dollars trying to get it right, lots of other companies rush in and flesh out the market-- Microsoft releases Windows CE, the Pilot makes a big splash, and the competition gets pretty heavy. In the end, the Palm Pilot seems to be the clear winner; people like the size, the weight, and the price. Sure, the last Newton devices were incredible-- speed-demons capable of solid Internet access and handwriting recognition that was eerily accurate, but they were too big and costly to be anything other than a niche product. It was sad, really.

So Apple first spun off the whole Newton project as a separate company, hoping that the relative freedom and distance from Apple headquarters might let the products flourish. Then, suddenly and inexplicably, Apple reeled Newton back in-- and shut it down. And they've been very unwilling to sell the Newton off to interested third parties, which always made us go "hmmm." We assumed that Apple was holding onto Newton like grim death in hopes of resurrecting some of its very compelling technology in future non-Newton handhelds. Fair enough. But now we know that Steve Jobs has a real thing for Palm devices. He tried to buy Palm and was rebuffed. He tried to buy Handspring (the consumer-oriented Palm licensee started up by Palm's founders) and failed at that, too. So we figure all that's left is for Apple to buy its own Palm OS license and start building its own Palm clones-- hopefully, with a bit of Newton thrown in.

There's a nifty article about this whole Palm thing over at MacWEEK. After delving into the background and coming right up to rumors about Apple's Palm developments and Palm's own claim that Palm OS-based clones would be available by October or so, the article ends by hinting strongly that we may find out a lot about Apple's Palm plans at next week's Expo. Of course, it's all just more speculation, but we have to admit: a major Palm announcement seems likelier and likelier the more we think about it. Here's hoping we have more to drool over next week than the P1...