The "Son of Pismo" speculation just keeps getting better, thanks to "refinements" of the notion by the people who opened this juicy can of worms in the first place: the good folks over at Go2Mac. In fact, while we're still maintaining a healthy skepticism, Go2Mac has poked, prodded, and pummelled the Son of Pismo scenario into a sort of Grand Unified Portable Theory that eliminates one of our biggest objections-- namely, the "three Mac portables" bugaboo. For you see, now word has it that Son of Pismo will in fact be released not as a "middleBook," but as a new iBook.

We know, we know-- Apple just released new iBooks last month, and a two-month product refresh cycle would imply that Apple's product managers are in dire need of a nap. However, Go2Mac is insisting that when Steve Jobs takes the stage four weeks from today, he'll announce that iBook customers will have a choice when it comes to screen size: 12.1 inches for those who crave ultraportability, or 14.1 inches for people who prefer a heftier display. And according to Go2Mac's insider info, that iBook with the 14.1-inch screen is actually Son of Pismo. So in that scenario, there's no "middleBook", just PowerBooks for the pros and iBooks for the consumers-- albeit iBooks with a choice of screen sizes.

So do we believe it? Well, frankly, no. Sure, it fits in with that Alpha Top exec that blabbed to the press about a new "wider-screen" iBook in production for July, but remember, Apple flat-out denied that claim. And we still think it's pretty unlikely that just two months after touting the compactness of the current iBook, Apple would turn around and add a completely new enclosure to the line. So far Apple has wisely used one enclosure per product, thus avoiding confusing the bejeezus out of the customers and the press alike, and we just can't see them changing gears now.

And for those of you still trying to decide whether or not Go2Mac constitutes a trustworthy source for this rumor, we'd be remiss if we failed to point out the site's claim of color choices for these new Expo iBooks: "Pearl, Metallic Silver, Aqua, Bohemian Blue, Orange Sherbet, and Taupe." We're really hoping our irony detectors are on the fritz and this is just a joke, because otherwise somebody's smoking the Wacky Tobacky, and it ain't us. Pearl, we get. Fine. But "Metallic Silver"? Forgive our ignorance, but what exactly constitutes non-metallic silver? And more importantly, why Taupe? Taupe is brownish-grey; is Apple going beige on us again? Lord almighty, we can see the riots already...