The folks who trade in insider Mac information must be more than a little frustrated with Apple's anti-leak protection-- namely, the alleged "disinformation" campaign. The claim is that Apple execs are actually feeding false information to their underlings on purpose, which is supposed to accomplish three things. First of all, if different false info is given to different groups of employees, it's a simple matter for Apple to weed out the loose lips just by noting which falsehoods start appearing on the web. Secondly, if those employees know that their "indiscretions" are now more traceable, it might make them clam up to avoid risking their jobs. And thirdly, even if anyone manages to smuggle real confidential info out from behind Cupertino's Silicon Curtain, none of us know what to believe, since the truth is camouflaged amongst all the lies; "trusted sources" who had the goods in the past might be passing along fake data that they totally believe to be true. It's really a neat trick, don't you think?

Now, we don't know for sure whether or not MacInTouch's news about a Power Mac G3 speed bump last week was disinformation or not, but one thing is verifiably true: the speed bump didn't happen. The Apple Store still lists Apple's pro desktops with processor speeds of 350, 400, and 450 MHz-- just as they've been since the last speed bump in June. When the new models didn't appear, the fact that both Apple's internal and external Power Mac special promotions end around September 25th led us to speculate that we'd see the next speed bump sometime around then. Well, apparently that speculation was tantamount to taping an "X" an the window and shining a lamp on it, because suddenly we started getting information from a plethora of various shadowy sources, both known and unknown. And while not all the information hangs together perfectly, the overall picture that emerged was a pretty clear one.

It sounds as though there won't be any more speed bumps for the Power Mac G3 line. Instead, the little birdies are all chirping about the advent of the Power Mac G4; the chorus pretty much agrees that Steve Jobs will unveil it at Seybold at the end of August, but there's some disagreement as to when the new systems will actually become available-- some say immediately following the announcement (which sounds pretty early, given Motorola's chip production schedule), while other say towards the end of the calendar year. So is this just more disinformation? Maybe. But isn't that what makes all of this so gosh-darned fun?