No issue has divided the Macintosh community as bitterly as Apple's latest product color, Key Lime. Reactions to the glowing green hue are typically polar in nature; people either love it or hate it. Or love to hate it. Or love it because other people hate it. In any event, right now Apple's only offering Key Lime products via the Apple Store, both to play it safe on the inventory front (since a warehouse filled with unsold Key Lime iBooks constitutes a hazardous materials containment facility, and the paperwork on those things is just murder), and to prevent the untold number of seizures and heart attacks that would undoubtedly result if customers with weak constitutions were suddenly and unexpectedly exposed to a Key Lime display model in a retail store.

That said, we at AtAT now strongly suspect that Key Lime will catch on in a huge way. Not only have we heard from scads of Mac fans who are in love with the new color, but we're also starting to develop our own appreciation for it. (We'd say that it's growing on us, but you'd be amazed how many people can misinterpret a simple statement like "this glowing green color is starting to grow on us." The last thing we need right now is to be thrown into quarantine.) For one thing, based on Apple's streaming-on-demand QuickTime footage of Key Lime's introduction, the color isn't really the toxic green that Apple's iBook page implies. Don't get us wrong-- it's still bright, it's still pretty obnoxious, and it'll still make those suited businessmen with their boxy black Wintel laptops frown and shake their heads in disapproval. But the shade is somehow a bit less physically painful to look at than Apple's web photos imply.

More importantly, though, faithful viewer Dan revealed a feature of Key Lime that we've long suspected but never been able to confirm-- until now. Dan pointed out that Studio Web has posted a streaming QuickTime interview with Dave Russell, Apple's Product Manager of Consumer Portable Devices. In it, Dave reveals that, yes indeedy, Key Lime luminesces in ultraviolet light. So if you think the color glows now, wait 'til you see it under a black light. Groovy, baby. Longtime viewers will recall that a Blueberry iBook under black light is less spectacular-- the handle glows, and the keys sort of do, but that's about it. So for those of you who need a portable that'll really knock your friends dead at your next black light party, Key Lime is here to save the day.

This latest discovery about Key Lime's hidden capacities reveals that the color is already taking certain markets by storm-- such as artists and genetic engineers. A faithful viewer who wishes to remain anonymous sent us over to an ABC News story about Alba, a mutant rabbit whose normally white fur glows bright green under black light. In other words, yes, in the right conditions, Alba is basically a Key Lime bunny. Coincidence? Ha! Clearly Apple's market research team really has its finger on the pulse of today's movers and shakers. Just you wait; Key Lime iBooks may seem a little weird now, but soon every frivolously-gene-splicing friend of an artist will own one.