Outbreak! It's spreading like wildfire, with no slowdown in sight! Wait, hold on, don't call the Centers for Disease Control just yet-- we're not talking about some kind of icky infectious flesh-eating bacterium, or even the Windows virus du jour. We're talking about color. Beige is out, we all knew that; it's so 1997. Bondi Blue enjoyed a brief celebrity in 1998. In the first half of 1999, Blueberry ruled the roost, with four other fruit flavors bringing up its rear. But as soon as the Power Mac G4 touched down a few months ago, Graphite's been all the rage, baby. The coveted metallic grey with the liquid look was first reserved for the elite professional G4, but soon spread to the high end of the iMac DV line, as well, gracing the transparent shell of the Special Edition. The new "Pismo" PowerBook expected to be unveiled at the Expo in a couple of weeks is rumored to have Graphite accents. And now Apple Insider claims that the iBook is the next Apple product to dress in Graphite curves.

Finally, an iBook even for folks as insecure about their masculinity as John Dvorak! If Blueberry and Tangerine are too girly for you, fear not-- Graphite's a nice "manly" color. In fact, it may be macho enough to counter those niggling worries that the iBook looks like a makeup compact or a clutch purse. Are you a "suit" who can't see toting a bright blue or orange laptop into a high-powered meeting? Graphite's staid enough to be welcome in even the stodgiest business setting. Or maybe you've been holding off on getting an iBook because neither Tangerine nor Blueberry works with your decor or your wardrobe. That's the beauty of Graphite; it goes with anything.

It's just a rumor, mind you, and a Graphite iBook may not surface for months. We'd personally be quite surprised to hear any mention of it during the Expo, since the current iBooks are still selling like fezzes at a Shriners' convention. But here's a particularly interesting little side-rumor: the Graphite iBook may wind up having a DVD-ROM drive instead of the current CD-ROM unit. Mmmmm, a portable Graphite DVD player that just happens to be a Mac as well. When (if?) it ships, we may well be looking to trade in our Blueberry model.