Brace yourselves; we at AtAT have stumbled upon Apple's biggest secret yet. If you think development of the iBook was kept under heavy security, you're right-- but the Cone of Silence around the iBook project was nothing compared to the secrecy imparted to Apple's most ambitious project yet. It's not a new computer. It's not a new operating system. From what we've been able to piece together from the dying gasps of the few Apple employees who made it out alive, it's mad scientist-style messing around with the very fabric of reality itself: Apple is actually developing technology that will let them manipulate the flow of time. (Insert dramatic chord here.)

It started as an ambitious project to duplicate Steve Jobs' own naturally-occurring Reality Distortion Field so that other high-ranking Apple executives could hold complete sway over customers and media alike. (Imagine an army of Steves disseminated world-wide and selling Macs to the masses. Now that's a plan to increase market share!) Laboratory attempts to isolate the field, however, have been only partially successful so far; when a prototype was applied to a laboratory-grade Average Shmoe™ who had been told that the iMac is up to twice as fast as comparably-priced Wintel systems, the subject first nodded enthusiastically but eventually asked about performance in real-world applications. (The subject was subsequently "eliminated" to prevent any corruption among the test group.)

One useful and fairly successful offshoot of the RDF Isolation Project, however, has been the application of fundamental distortion waveforms to localized detectable time streams. In its first practical application, Apple's bending the perception of iBook delivery times. To see this remarkable phenomenon up close and personal, visit the Apple Store and start ordering yourself an iBook (either flavor). When you get to the "Review Your Order" page, take careful note of two things. First, look next to the iBook's picture and note the caption that reads, "Place your iBook order today for delivery in late September." Then glance down towards the iBook line item listing and look at what Apple's quoting in the "To Ship" column. When last we checked, it read "70 days," which places delivery in-- mid-October. Late September and mid-October at the same time? Could it be? Astounding! With further development, Apple's time-distortion work may eventually let the company travel back a few years to undo some of its more hideous business errors. Ya think?