Agonizing over the extended 45-day wait before you'll receive your brand new PowerBook G4? Well, have we got some great news for you: according to MacCentral, the factors delaying the arrival of your titanium sex machine are simply "minor shipping and distribution issues." That means that you're not actually enduring a grueling six-week delay caused by Apple's massive difficulty in overcoming technical issues; instead, you're just weathering a mere six-week shipping postponement caused by Apple's massive difficulty in moving objects from point A to point B. If that's not cause for celebration, we don't know what is!

Reportedly, those ever-mysterious "sources close to the company" indicate that demand for Apple's latest laptop is "good," but not so overwhelming that it's causing the holdup. What's happening instead is that unspecified "shipping and distribution delays" are postponing the delivery of units from Taiwan, where the stuff's actually being built. In order to get at least enough PowerBooks for demonstration use at the upcoming Demo Days events, Apple may be forced to ship "individual units" as they become available, instead of larger lots-- a practice that could put a nifty dent into the company's shipping budget.

The real mess, though, is in the communication. Customers who have called the Apple Store in a quixotic attempt to get straight answers on when they can expect their orders and why everything's delayed are generally hearing completely different stories depending upon who actually picks up the phone at Apple's end. If you're the optimistic type, you may want to take Apple's latest reported estimated ship time with a grain of salt; the general consensus at this point among dealers and customers alike seems to be that the announced "45 days" ship time is a worst-case scenario and that Apple's current operating mode is to underpromise and overdeliver. (It's too bad Steve didn't keep that strategy in mind when he announced that we'd be rubbing titanium by the end of January.) Some resellers are still expecting stock by the end of next week, while others are now predicting their first shipment as late as March.

In all seriousness, though, assuming that the reports of "shipping and distribution delays" are actually true, we really do consider this to be good news. After all, if you're going to have to wait forty-five days for your PowerBook anyway, isn't it much nicer knowing that it's just some unfortunate logistical issue, and not because Apple's engineers are frantically trying to find a way to keep its titanium beauty from bursting into flame after two hours of continuous use?