Nature abhors a vacuum-- and so does the world of Apple rumors. We can only assume that Steve's been on a leak-plugging rampage lately, because in recent month's the air supply's been mighty thin for those of us who live and breathe that tantalizing "inside info" about those different thinkers out there in Cupertino. The heaviest hitters in the rumors game all seem to be on extended sabbaticals or something; AppleInsider's been gathering cobwebs since April 3rd, Mac The Knife's been missing in action for nearly two months now, and even "legitimate" AAPL dirt-disher Robert Morgan's been in semi-hibernation-- he just posted an extremely detailed analysis of Apple's Q2 financial results over at MacWEEK, true, but the layer of dust on Apple Recon is almost five months old. Meanwhile, even Mac OS Rumors has been slowing down lately, with less frequent updates and a heavy concentration of content we can only describe as "Rumors Lite".

So what's a rumor-deprived dirt junkie to do under these intolerable conditions? Why, talk about the Apple-Palm PDA, of course! Yes, it's during the "lean times" like these that we as a community fall back on the oldest, longest-standing, most persistent rumors never to have borne any fruit. It's a survival tactic to keep the rumor centers in our brains from atrophying when newer dirt is nowhere to be found. (By the way, did you know that Disney's about to buy Apple? They want in before Apple ships a shrinkwrapped Mac OS X for Intel later this year.)

So let's see what's brewing in the churning world of the mythical Apple PDA, shall we? Mac OS Rumors is drawing connections between Palm's recent announcement of a move to the ARM processor and the alleged relationship between Palm and Apple. (The ARM chips are what Apple used in the final iterations of the ill-fated Newton, see.) But reportedly "Apple is no longer planning on using much of the Newton technologies in its handheld efforts," and there's no indication at all of when we'll ever get to see this legendary beast. Since the big "W" in Apple rumormongering is "WHEN," we find ourselves drawn to the fresh-faced young upstarts at MacRumors. They've got juice on the Apple PDA's announcement time frame, claiming that an introduction of this "unique" handheld may happen in "three weeks." What's this prediction based on? "A source." But that's not all! One of their readers also heard the "three weeks" rumor from "someone [who] walked by him" in CompUSA.

That's two obviously reliable (and possibly even independent!) sources, folks. In a rumors drought this dry, one unsubstantiated report from "a source" plus one corroborating tip passed along third-hand from a random passerby in a computer store are about as good as an actual press release from Apple, a three-ring gala media event announcing the product, special bulletins on CNN celebrating the news, and a hologram of Steve Jobs himself suddenly beaming out of every Mac less than three years old saying flat-out, "Apple's PDA will be here in three weeks." So three weeks it is-- this time, for sure.