Given how relatively quiet things are in the world of Apple right about now, we figured we'd try our hand at a little fortune-telling of our own. While we've had good luck in the past listening to singing birdies and reading cryptic messages in our Alpha-Bits, those were uninstigated and unprovoked instances of divinely-given knowledge of the future. This time around, we decided to take an active role instead and put on our soothsayer hats for a little wild prognosticatin' action, in hopes of conjuring forth some info related to one of Apple's non-consumer-desktop product lines. (After all, there's only so much "LCD iMac" speculation in which one can engage before one's head caves in and catches fire from the inside.)

So, armed with a copy of Soothsaying For Dummies, we chanted from Apple's boilerplate Software License Agreement and cast our goat entrails upon the base earth. (Actually, it was VegiViscera™ brand vegan soy-based goat entrail substitute-- which we heartily recommend over "I Can't Believe It's Not Goat Entrails!™", which we've found to be less than satisfactory when used for hieroscopy; too rubbery. Plus it's got a harsh soy aftertaste.) While we're still pretty new to the whole "reading the future in guts" gig, we think we saw something about the Power Mac G4/733-- moving to the bottom of the Pro Desktop food chain. In other words, these here veggie guts seem to be implying that Apple's entry level Power Mac will run at 733 MHz in just three weeks' time.

Skeptical? So are we, but what can we say? That's what we're seeing. And we're even more suspicious at what we saw next: that the Power Mac line would actually top out at over 1 GHz at the high end. Can it be possible? Can Motorola actually have broken through the gigahertz ceiling that has taunted it for years? If you're the optimistic type, you may want to get your brain set for some seriously zippy Power Macs, because that's exactly what Steve's got up his baggy sleeves (at least, according to the finest simulated animal guts yet available on the open market).

This whole scenario sounded a mite familiar, so we went poking around in our Reruns, and whaddaya know-- Mac OS Rumors actually predicted the same general thing back in March; whether that makes the whole thing more or less believable is entirely up to you. (We should note that that illustrious site also predicted a WWDC intro of dual-processor 667 and 733 MHz Macs at the same time, but heck, who bats 1000 these days?) Lastly, we should mention that this is unsubstantiated prognostication and shouldn't in the least affect any existing plans you may have had to run right out and slap down some cash for a new Power Mac. Then again, if you're the type of person who plans to buy a new Mac less than three weeks before an Expo Stevenote, you've got bigger problems than believing what some soy-based goat entrails tell you...