The conflicting Mac OS X release rumors are flying fast and furious now, and the shouting has reached a fever pitch. By now we've heard 'em all: Mac OS X 1.0 to be launched on Steve Jobs's birthday, February 24th, with no more betas; Mac OS X Public Beta 2 to be released at the Expo, with the 1.0 release following a few months later; Mac OS X "Power User Release" to materialize at the Stevenote; Apple to rename the operating system "Mac OS XI," now due in mid-2002; etc. But while the rest of us are arguing about how "my OS X rumor can beat up your OS X rumor," wouldja believe Apple's over in Germany spilling the real dirt?

That's right; apparently that whole "veil of secrecy" thing doesn't fully apply in Deutschland, because according to a ZDNet article first pointed out to us by faithful viewer Matt, Apple was unusually forthcoming about the imminent system release when chatting with a group of German developers. (Evidently they have ways of making you talk.) Straight from Apple itself, here's the scoop: as previously reported by both ZDNet and the Naked Mole Rat, the original public beta is a lone wolf, and there will be no more betas for the eager public to chew on. Now, before you look all crestfallen and start to pout, that's actually good news, because another beta would pretty much guarantee at least a few more months before the final version emerged from Apple's underground bunkers. So get that hangdog look off your face and rejoice-- the next version to see the light of day will be the long-awaited Golden Master for developers to whale on just prior to sending the thing off to be stuffed into pretty boxes.

As for the actual release date itself, apparently that's still not 100% certain; while Mac OS X is "feature-frozen" and "on track to ship by February," the developers present were swapping rumors that the big day would fall either during next month's Macworld Expo in San Francisco (a scenario we consider to be almost pathologically optimistic) or at the February Expo in Tokyo. And for those of you who are looking askance at the Tokyo possibility because you don't think that Apple would unleash such an important product at an overseas event, need we remind you that the public beta was released at the Apple Expo in Paris? So there you have it, folks; provided you've got the hardware and the inclination, you can be awash in Mac OS X-y goodness in less than two months. Get psyched!