The ATI-Apple drama continues apace. For those of you who may have missed an episode, last week Steve Jobs, the Man of a Thousand Surprises, received a nasty little shock himself when graphics chipster ATI kinda sorta told the whole world about Apple's new iMacs and Power Macs a day or two before the big keynote. It seems that an ATI press release touting its new Radeon chipset also made mention of the new Apple gear that would carry it. Ooops. Steve, not generally one to tolerate screw-ups, reportedly threw a big scary snit-fit behind closed doors and rained terrible vengeance upon the transgressors: word has it that he ordered all Radeon boards pulled from Apple's show-floor Macs and brutally cut a segment from his keynote in which an ATI representative was slated to demo the Radeon live in front of the teeming throngs. All in all, it wasn't a pleasant scenario, and we're willing to bet that the ATI team gave its antiperspirant a serious workout last week.

In hopes of perhaps mitigating Steve's hellfire wrath, ATI initially claimed that the "leak" wasn't its fault, blaming Business Wire Trade Show Services for releasing the info before the specified date. However, sensing that it wasn't going to be able to wriggle out of this one, the company has since accepted responsibility for its actions; an IDG News Service article pointed out by faithful viewer Jay Forde indicates that ATI is now willing to take the blame for wrecking Steve's surprise. ATI spokesman Brian Chadderton is quoted as saying that "from ATI's perspective, information was erroneously provided to [Business Wire]... We take full responsibility for that." Which may also be interpreted roughly as "Please, Mr. Jobs, sir, stop pummeling us and we promise it'll never ever happen again."

ATI, as you know, makes the graphics circuitry used in every shipping Mac, and has enjoyed its status as Apple's sole graphics supplier for years. There's been a lot of talk that ever since the Rage 128 debacle (supposedly the buggy drivers were largely responsible for the Blue and White G3's reputation as a crashbox), Apple's been increasingly considering shifting its OEM business to another manufacturer-- such as NVIDIA, whose recent announcement of forthcoming Mac support drew murmurs of interest from the Mac community. And after ATI's surprise-wrecking blunder, we hear tell that NVIDIA has offered to have the lips of every employee surgically sewn shut in order to convince Steve that, as far as leaking top secret info is concerned, he'd have nothing to worry about from them.