Come on, now-- you'd think these people would have learned their lesson after Bondi Blue. A CNET article makes a big stink over third-party peripheral manufacturers who are reportedly shocked and dismayed that Apple has revamped the iMac color selection; now that Indigo, Ruby, Sage, Graphite, and Snow are the next hip thing, they're "left wondering what to do with all those USB hubs, CD-ROM drives and printer covers featuring last year's shades."

Say, that is a tragedy. As one manufacturer states, "I don't think changing the colors so quickly is such a good thing." And we totally agree; clearly no one could possibly have foreseen that a mere eighteen months after Apple introduced the original five fruit flavors, the company would just toss them out like so much brightly-colored trash. We always figured (and we don't think we're alone on this) that Apple would stick with the same five bright colors forever, because honestly, what company would actually change the colors of its products? Ford, for example, is a fine example of a staid and steady all-American company who knows the value of consistency; all of its cars are still available only in Model-T Black. You can just imagine the chaos that would ensue if the company did something as foolish as, say, make cars in new colors every single model year. There'd be rioting in the streets as befuddled consumers were driven mad by the sheer flightiness of it all. It'd be anarchy.

So, obviously we can sympathize with the peripherals manufacturers who, because of Apple's flaky move, are either going to have to try to market Blueberry CD-R drives to owners of Indigo iMacs, or (gasp) change their products to match the new colors. As for all that stock on hand, it's not their fault; how could these companies possibly have guessed that Apple might release new iMacs at the Expo (did anyone see that coming? 'Cause we just couldn't believe our eyes!) and that after only a year and a half the colors might be changed? They're now going to have to try to sell all that fruit-flavored stock to the couple of million owners of fruit-flavored iMacs, instead of to the obviously far more lucrative market consisting of the couple of thousand people who ordered the Indigo/Ruby/Sage/Snow models and might actually receive them soon. It's a real shame, and frankly, we think Apple should do something to compensate these poor accessory-makers for their losses. What are they supposed to be, mind-readers?