Time for a little lesson in deductive reasoning, kiddies! First of all, remember when Apple issued rebates on all Power Macs and PowerBooks late last year? Then remember how the company slashed prices on those very same products as soon as the rebate promotion ended, and mere days before last week's Macworld Expo? Okay, now let's think for a minute about the new hardware that Uncle Steve introduced at that event: new Power Macs and PowerBooks, right? Some people might even go so far as to say that there's a connection.

Okay, so now that we've established that little sequence of events, let's turn our attention to a new special promotion that Apple has just kicked into gear; as faithful viewer Craig Heydenburg was first to point out, customers can now get a $200 "instant rebate" on any purchase of an iMac DV+ (pay a final price of $1099) or an iMac DV Special Edition (take it home for just $1299). Those are spectacular prices on some very capable little consumer systems, complete with DVD-ROM drives, FireWire, and iMovie 2 software-- and, of course, you get to pick your favorite color.

Now, time for a quiz: given what happened not long after Apple cut prices on its Power Macs and PowerBook, and given that Apple just introduced iTunes, an obviously consumer-oriented application that allows people to create their own custom audio CDs using internal CD-RW drives currently found, strangely enough, only in Apple's professional-level desktop systems, what reasonable conclusion can we draw from this latest price cut on higher-end iMac systems? Need a hint? Okay, then consider also that MacCentral reports that "all of Apple's current iMac models have been declared 'end of life' (EOL) by a number of retailers." Still drawing a blank? Sigh... okay, one last hint for those of you who still try to look in the mirror with your eyes closed to see what you look like sleeping: generally when an Apple product is designated "end of life," a newer model emerges within a month or so-- and there's another Macworld Expo next month in Tokyo.

Time for scoring! If you deduced that, in all likelihood, Apple will soon announce new iMacs with CD-RW drives instead of CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drives, give yourself ten points. If you further concluded that the most probable venue for this new iMac rollout is Macworld Expo Tokyo, give yourself five bonus points. And if, after all those hints, all you came up with is a theory about how the lint gets into your belly button, well... next time we'll discuss the slim possibility that professional wrestling just might be fake.