Post-holiday depression's one thing, but for us, post-Expo depression's a nastier affliction. The causes are similar; a gradual buildup of expectations past all reasonable degree, culminating in a dose of reality that can't help but be a bit of a letdown. And this time around, it's a more localized case of disappointment permeating the Mac community; unlike at last month's Expo, this time Uncle Steve really did trot out a bunch of new hardware goodies-- more than most people were expecting, in fact. The iBooks got a nice RAM and storage boost, plus a spiffy new Graphite "Special Edition." The G4s got their processors juiced up 50 MHz in all configurations. And finally, we got a new PowerBook-- Pismo's here and it's a barn-burner.

But the thing is, Pismo's what's causing the bulk of the post-Expo depression. Nobody's faulting its specs; it's speedy, loaded with new features like FireWire and AirPort compatibility, and reasonably priced. Still, we've got a lot of Apple watchers wandering around with frowny faces and muttering, "Is that all?" The problem, you see, is that Pismo looks just like Lombard, the PowerBook G3 we've all been seeing since last May. Its got no shiny translucent bits, no liquid Graphite accents (on the outside, at least), no iBook-inspired clamshell design-- it's the same black Lombard with new guts, pure and simple. And as such, it's definitely the odd Mac out when viewed against the rest of the Apple product line-up. (Remember Sesame Street? "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong...")

But for those of you who are depressed, rejoice! We were actually wrong yesterday when we said that the only way to tell a Pismo from a Lombard was to look at their rear ends. Faithful viewer Al Shaw points out that, if both 'Books are open, there's another way to tell with a mere glance: "the Lombard has the words 'Macintosh PowerBook G3' silkscreened right beneath the screen. The Pismo just has the word 'PowerBook.'" Glory be, he's right! That was an important detail that escaped our notice; Apple's officially named Pismo "PowerBook." Not PowerBook G3, not PowerBook 2000, just... PowerBook. Congratulations to Pismo for joining the one-name club along with iMac, iBook, and Cher.

Granted, just calling it "PowerBook" might lead to all kinds of confusion considering how many other PowerBooks of various kinds have been released over the years, but at least it's not just another PowerBook G3-- Apple's had to differentiate between those in its documentation by calling them the PowerBook G3 (that's the original 3400-chassis version), the PowerBook G3 Series (that's Wall Street), and the PowerBook G3 (Bronze Keyboard) (that's Lombard). And now we notice that Apple's referring to Pismo as PowerBook (FireWire). Whatever-- it's not like Apple hasn't managed to deal with multiple products with the same name before. We're just glad that there's something else superficially different between Pismo and Lombard.