Apart from all the beta buzz, most of the Apple world is pretty darn quiet these post-Expo days. But fear not for your recommended daily requirement of drama, because you know what a news lull means: it's time to revive the long-standing tradition of digging up dusty old rumors that still haven't borne fruit! Let's see, what shall it be this time? The Apple PDA? The Disney buyout? The Mac OS X "Red Box," providing full compatibility with all Windows applications? Picking one is always the toughest part; they're all like dear old friends to us.

Luckily, Mac OS Rumors has gone and chosen one for us: the Apple retail store. When faced with often less-than-perfect retail incarnations such as the store-within-a-store boutique at CompUSA (or outright brain-chewing disasters like iMacs at Best Buy), the concept of honest-to-goodness, Apple-owned and -operated retail outlets is like some sort of beautiful dream. Picture, if you will, a Mac store with consistently knowledgeable salespeople, the latest gear you need in stock and on the shelf, demo models powered up and functional, and no stocking ladders blocking the product displays. Why, it'd almost be enough to make us give up mail-order completely. Almost. And assuming that this Apple Store scheme ever actually comes to pass.

MOSR's latest info on this long-standing dream indicates that we may finally hear an announcement of brick-and-mortar Apple Stores at Steve's next big Mac keynote-- at Macworld Expo in January. Reportedly the scheme involves a "highly centralized" management model, which will let Apple watch and control each location via the 'net. For that reason (as well as for product demonstrating purposes, we expect), each store would have a high-speed Internet connection, possibly provided by EarthLink-- who, in return, would get its own store-within-a-store in each Apple retail center. Sounds good to us; where do we sign up?

Of course, the announcement is simply the first step; then Apple would actually have to build the darn things, staff them, pump them full of product, and open the doors. A January announcement would mean we probably wouldn't be able to push a cart down Apple's translucent aisles until mid-2001 at the earliest. So perhaps the real news here is the startling fact pointed out by faithful viewer David Puett: Mac OS Rumors has now been updated for three weekdays in a row, and for almost a full week before that. Is it an omen?