Time for another iMac refresh? More than one rumormonger seems to think so. Not so long ago we had all kinds of buzz coming in that Apple would surely unveil a new iMac DV Special Edition with a monster 17-inch display once Steve took the stage at the Expo. Of course, the Expo came and went without that 17-inch iMac, or anything else for that matter-- there was no new hardware at all, not even the new "Pismo" PowerBook we all expected. While we personally feel that Pismo must have been pulled at the last minute, we were never too confident when it came to those 17-inch iMac rumors. We'd love for it to be real, but it still smells like wishful thinking. Or deliberate "disinformation."

Now, if we had to accept that Apple was planning a refresh of the iMac DV, we find ourselves much more prone to believe Mac the Knife's more reasonable prediction. The Knife, reasonable? This is us reaching for the thermometer again... But really, instead of claiming that Apple's going to ship a giant iMac necessitating a whole new case, the Knife says that Apple's iMac refresh will consist of nothing more than the traditional speed bump. Remember when the fruit-flavored models went from 266 MHz to 333 MHz? Well, now the Knife says the current DV 400 models will soon be bumped to 466 MHz. We can swallow that a lot easier than a new bigger enclosure, no matter how candy-colored the plastic may be.

So yes, Mac the Knife's latest rumor is actually more conservative than the others floating around. Sweet Gladys Kravitz in a cauldron full of caviar and absinthe! Could the Knife be slowing down in his old age? Is it a button-down Knife for 2000 and beyond? We figure it could just be a one-time fluke-- it depends on who turns out to be right about what Apple does next to the iMac. If the 17-inch model wins out over the 466 MHz rumor, than we can chalk it all up to some bad cough syrup. But if the Knife's 466 MHz shows up instead of the 17-inch display, we're thinking "kinder, gentler Knife" for the coming millennium. And if both rumors come true, well, all bets are off...