Boy, we'll say one thing for last January's Pismo No-Show debacle: it's sure made the prognosticators gunshy. Before that fun little disappointment, everybody with a web page and a Magic 8-Ball would blithely predict all manner of new product announcements and surprises, and then commit their prophecies to the virtual semipermanence of digital ink. But ever since the new PowerBook failed to materialize at San Francisco's Macworld Expo, the pros seem more than a little hesitant in their prognostications. Remember Jason O'Grady's humbling experience, first telling MacWEEK readers that Pismo would definitely show up at the January expo (it didn't) and then cautioning that it probably wouldn't surface at the Tokyo show the following month (it did)? We're not slamming O'Grady; he's a professional, and his example only shows just how tricky the Apple prediction business really is. So it seems that people are a mite worried about looking foolish, which is why "maybe" appears to be the word of the day.

Take next week's Worldwide Developers Conference. The word on the street is that Apple will take that opportunity to introduce a new line of Power Mac G4 systems with multiple processors under the hood. The chances seem extraordinarily good, since a dual-processor Power Mac has recently popped up in CompUSA's inventory system; with odds like that, we'd rather bet on Howard Stern winning the next presidential election than bet against a multiprocessor G4 product intro next week. (Well, maybe. Does anybody remember if Pismo product codes had shown up in CompUSA systems before the January expo?)

And yet, there's still a cautious, tentative air surrounding most discussion of next week's show. In particular, we note that Mac OS Rumors is claiming that reports from "Apple sources" are casting doubt on the whole multiprocessor gig: "at present the most realistic scenario given these reports is that Apple will demonstrate MP G4 prototypes," but may hold off on shipping the zippy little puppies until Mac OS X can crank 'em up to full speed. Okay, true, dual G4s running on Mac OS 9 wouldn't be quite as impressive as a fire-breathing, symmetrically-multiprocessing Mac OS X box, but hey, if Macs with two G4s can shave a few more seconds off of Photoshop benchmarks, we say ship 'em now. The high-end graphics mavens will chew up any speed Apple can throw their way, and they'll just get even more power once Mac OS X ships later this summer. So, as a blow against hesitance, we at AtAT are taking a firm stance: Apple will introduce dual-processor G4 systems next week. Probably. If Steve feels like it.