Ah, the day after... That wonderful time when yesterday's good news becomes consumed in the ominous Shadow of Doubt™. This time, people are looking more closely at Apple's jubilant announcement that it had secured "worldwide injunctions" against those who stole its iMac design and issued cheap knockoffs. For instance, faithful viewer Daniel Drew Turner pointed out his own ZDNet article, which examines the limitations behind Apple's settlements with the copycats and reveals that while the battle may in fact be over, it's a bit questionable which side won.

Apple's struggle focused on two machines, the E-Power and the eOne. The eOne, in particular, may have been hurting Apple's iMac sales, since it's been available at U.S. retail outlets for months now. According to Apple's settlement, eMachines agreed to stop selling the current blue and white eOne by March 31st-- but eMachines retains the right to use the eOne name for a "redesigned" system. Any bets that the "redesign" will consist of nothing more than a color change to something other than one of Apple's established iMac flavors? Heck, Sotec tried that in Japan; their new eOne was identical to the old, only it was silvery-blue instead. In fact, we won't be a bit surprised if the new eMachines eOne turns out to be the same silver Sotec model. If eMachines was too lazy to make their own iMac knockoff in the first place (they opted to sell Sotec's instead), why change now?

As for the E-Power, it never even saw the light of day. Back in November when Apple won its preliminary injunction, Future Power started its own knockoff redesign. According to The Register, the first modified E-Power prototype was "much squarer" and grey, with a "pastel-coloured oval on each side." Is that enough of a change to get around Apple's injunction? We don't know, since they never tried to ship that one, either. But Future Power isn't through with the E-Power yet; the ZDNet article states that Daewoo and Future Power are planning to push a "silver-blue--no translucency" E-Power onto store shelves "within the next 45 days." Evidently "silver-blue" is the color of choice when revamping an iMac clone to back it legal. (Remember that, because it'll show up in Trivial Pursuit one day.) In the end, the final result may simply be this: instead of a slew of fruit-flavored translucent iMac knockoffs diluting Apple's brand, store shelves may be packed with silver, non-translucent iMac knockoffs making every CompUSA look like a Buck Rogers set. Mmmmm, we can't wait.