Needless to say, drama fiends who hoped for some sort of bombshell announcement that would shake us to the very cores of our beings are probably just a smidge disappointed. Apple has neither bought Handspring nor been bought by Sony. Steve Jobs is not abandoning his post to spend three years wandering the desert on a specially-outfitted hydrogen-powered scooter in order "to find himself." In fact, even many of the expected and more mundane subjects never came up; we still don't know about Apple's plans for PowerSchool, its not-so-secret retail stores are still officially unofficial, and new dual-processor Power Mac G4 systems are nowhere to be seen. This time around, Steve's big shocker ending was, "Surprise!! There's no 'one more thing.'"

But there is a new iBook, of course, and oh, mama, is it a beaut; a regular chip off the ol' PowerBook G4. Faithful viewer John Hussey calls it the "iceBook" and Mike refers to it as "My First Titanium™," but we're leaning towards "Baby's First TiBook™" as the sobriquet of choice. In case you somehow haven't yet heard, Apple's latest consumer portable is decidedly familiar-looking, but it's just a wee bairn, a mere 4.9 pounds of polycarbonate and magnesium with a footprint barely larger than a sheet of letter-sized paper-- but with a 500 MHz G3 processor, two USB ports, a FireWire port, the optical drive of your choice (even a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo), and all the fixin's, this teensy package packs a mighty wallop. Its 12.1-inch 1024x768 display is perfect for kids who are dwarfed by the PowerBook's relatively mammoth proportions, and also helps keep costs down; wouldja believe the entry-level iBook now costs just $1299? Now that's a consumer laptop.

Having absorbed a day's worth of punditry and feedback, it seems to us that reaction to Apple's Cube-styled iBook (indeed, as faithful viewer Steve notes, this is probably that long-rumored "CubeBook" subnotebook that had the rumormongers hopping) is overwhelmingly positive. And really, what's not to like? Sure, it no longer looks like a Fisher-Price product, it's neither heavy enough to stun a charging rhino nor large enough to hide behind when impromptu gunfights break out, and that nifty handle is no more-- but overall, even without lickable candy colors, we think consumers are going to eat these things up. And let's not forget all those travelling businessfolks for whom a widescreen PowerBook is overkill, but wouldn't be caught dead lugging a 6.8-pound Space Clam into an important client meeting. We bet business iBook sales are going to be pretty solid, without cutting much into the PowerBook's numbers.

By the way, regular viewers may recall that way back on the 23rd, we mentioned that on the iBook front, "little birds circling the AtAT headquarters [were] warbling questionable spring tunes about a single model, a single hue, and an optional CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive." The very next day we reiterated: "According to the little birds chirping around AtAT headquarters... we should expect a single configuration and color, a 500 MHz G3 processor, a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive build-to-order option, and-- most disappointingly-- a 12.1-inch screen." Well, we're no longer disappointed in the 12.1-inch display (given its increased resolution), and we're going to be paying a lot more attention to what those birds have to say in the future. Why, just this morning they were chirping something cryptic about Steve preparing a "Mac OS X preloaded on all Macs" bit for his fireside chat at WWDC in three weeks. Interpret that as you will...