You know how a lot of times, rumors mostly come true, but the reality doesn't quite match up to the hype? Like when Apple finally took the wraps off the long-awaited Pismo PowerBook, it turned out to be pretty much last year's model with AirPort and FireWire thrown in. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but all those high-flying rumors about a spiffy new translucent clamshell design pretty much went out the window. Or when the iBook was first unveiled, there was a general sense of disappointment from folks like us, who were expecting a consumer-oriented laptop to be lighter and smaller than a PowerBook, for easier use by kids; instead it was nearly a full pound heavier. Generally those of us who follow all the rumors are doomed for at least a little disappointment when reality smacks us upside the head.

On rare occasions, though, the reality winds up being much nicer than even the wildest rumors. Perhaps you recall that a while back the whispers around the water cooler predicted that Apple would soon ship a shrinkwrapped version of iMovie for $99. It made sense; after all, iMovie is a great consumer-level video editing application, and it's lovely that it comes bundled with every iMac DV, but not every budding director is the iMac type. Let's say you're a professional graphic designer. ("You're a professional graphic designer.") As such, you need the extra power and flexibility of a Power Mac G4 to get your work done efficiently. But on your off-hours you'd love to tinker around with editing all those home movies of your kids-- and you're not exactly keen on shelling out a grand for Final Cut Pro, especially given its learning curve. Wouldn't it be perfect if you could just pick up a $99 copy of iMovie and have some fun?

Well, here's where the "better than rumor" part kicks in-- as faithful viewer GORDYmac was the first (of many) to point out, Apple's just made iMovie free. That's right, it'll cost you absolutely zilch if you want to download it, and if you'd rather have it shipped to your doorstep on a shiny new CD-ROM, you only need to shell out $19.95 for "shipping and handling." (Just watch all those copies on eBay suddenly get really, really cheap; betcha those people that paid $125 a copy last month are feeling pretty stupid right about now.)

What's the catch? Well, for one thing, this "trial version" doesn't come with tutorials. For another, if you're planning to install it on your older FireWire-enabled Mac, you may be out of luck; Apple's posted requirements claim you need either a Power Mac G4 or a Pismo PowerBook, and you also need Mac OS 9.0.4. Still, we figured it'd be worth a shot-- heck, it's free, right? So we downloaded the 20 MB installer and ran it on a beige G3/266 with Apple's FireWire kit installed. The installer didn't care that we're running Mac OS 8.6-- and once we fired up the iMovie application itself, we found that it didn't particularly care, either. We don't have a digital camcorder handy to test this out still further (though in camera mode, iMovie just says "Camera Not Connected," which we consider a good sign), but at least we got to mess with the titles and sound effects. For 320 KB of proof that iMovie at least runs on older systems, check out our test movie, which displays an appropriate PG-13 quote from Beavis and Butthead. See? It works!