What can we say? There isn't a slow news day that goes by that we don't drop to our knees and give thanks to Steve above for the divine gift of rampant speculation. (Granted, His Steveness isn't exactly fond of Mac rumors, but hey, that's just the sort of paradoxical dualism you're going to have to deal with in a Steve-created universe. Steve works in mysterious ways.) Today we're especially thankful that on the third day, Steve gave us Go2Mac-- because those Mac product prophets continue to posit that next month's Macworld Expo will bring forth a mysterious third Mac portable that True Believers are calling "Son of Pismo."

Those eagerly awaiting the coming of the Son preach that it will be last year's FireWire PowerBook (originally code-named Pismo) reborn and clad in shiny new raiments befitting its miraculous resurrected state. To that end, followers of the Son of Pismo insist that it will be sandwiched neatly between the PowerBook G4 and the spunky little iBook in terms of size, price, and features (14.1-inch screen, 500 MHz G3 processor but with a 100 MHz bus, and a full set of Pismo ports-- oh, and a DVD/CD-RW combo drive option), but boasting a shiny new polycarbonate coat over a magnesium frame. In short, if the Go2Mac prophets are correct, it'll be the Peter Brady of Apple's newly-expanded three-sibling 2001 portable line.

Or will it be Jan Brady, instead? Call us faithless heathens, but we still can't shake the memory of Apple's last attempt to split its simple "pro/consumer" dichotomy into a three-product strategy-- in its desktop line. The Cube may be one heckuva slick product, but numbers don't lie-- ask it about its lackluster sales performance, and the Cube would probably start whining about how it's all Marcia's fault: "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!" No matter which way we look at it, we can't help but think that a "middleBook" is just going to split the vote by trying to steal existing sales from the more expensive (and more profitable) PowerBook. (What's this puppy's code name, do you think? Perot? Nader?)

We love our Pismo, we truly do, and we'd be proud to see it return to Apple's product line in a slightly revised form. But we're still skeptical that the Son shall rise next month as predicted-- and if it does, our overriding concern is that it will either cannibalize PowerBook G4 sales or suffer from seriously anemic numbers like a certain other Apple "middle child" that's rumored to be disowned any day now. If Go2Mac does turn out to be right about this, then all we can say is that we hope Apple has spent a little more time thinking about a target market this time around. (That's not to say we doubt the divine hand of Almighty Steve, of course-- what, you think we want to burn in Wintel Hell?)