Have you ever wondered how long "soon" is? Well, according to AppleInsider, it's about 216 days-- sort of. See, while the site underwent a spiffy new redesign perhaps about a week ago, the most recent actual report was still dated April 27th, and contained details on Apple's "slimmer Titanium-like iBook due next week." Until the redesign, the last change since April was a note that popped up sometime in June, maybe, stating that the site would be resuming publication "soon." (Actually, since the note didn't appear until June, maybe we should knock a couple of months off that "216 days" figure.)

Anyway, the reason we note this is because last night AppleInsider finally broke its seven-month radio silence and posted some real, honest-to-goodness dirt-- the kind we all know, love, and miss. However, if you go racing over there now to see what we're talking about, just like us, you're only going to feel your head turn into a giant sucker like in the cartoons... because as of now, AppleInsider is sitting right back in April 27thville. But faithful viewer mslee swears that AI really and truly posted a new update last night at "9:38 PM Arizona time." Unfortunately, AI also yanked that story so quickly four out of five theoretical physicists agree that it never actually existed at all in a quantum sense, and even the fifth admits-- and we quote-- that "it disappeared faster than my self-respect on prom night." (He refused to elaborate.)

So unless you just happened to be checking out AppleInsider at the precise microsecond when this alleged "posting event" took place, you missed it-- there isn't even a notice explaining why the report had been pulled, or indeed any evidence that it had ever been there in the first place. (Four out of five physicists just said, "See? Told you so!") Luckily, we happen to have an individual with impeccable timing in the audience; faithful viewer Zifnab is the man with the faster-than-light eyeballs, and he managed to catch most of what AI had posted. Apparently it was all about that long-rumored flat-panel iMac, and its upcoming introduction at Macworld Expo San Francisco in January. Or maybe at Macworld Expo Tokyo in February. Or, um, perhaps at a "special event" in March. In other words, "sometime kinda soon."

As for what this long-awaited puppy's going to look like, AI reported that it'll "closely resemble the current 15-inch Apple Studio Display," but with a "considerably beefier" enclosure. Guts-wise, we're talking a near-gigahertz G3; a 32 MB GeForce 2 video subsystem; 128 MB of RAM; and optical drive options including DVD-ROM, combo drive, and possibly even SuperDrive. They'll boot into Mac OS X by default. And the kicker? Prices are said to range from $999 to $1299.

Now, there are two likely scenarios to explain why AI might have pulled this story quickly enough to give its server whiplash. The first is that it's so close to the truth that Apple, who's been monitoring AppleInsider 24-7 for the past seven months just waiting for something like this to happen, immediately leaped in with a cease-and-desist, thus preventing the site from spoiling the surprise. The second is that, immediately after posting, AppleInsider realized just how unlikely a $1299 gigahertz iMac with a 15-inch LCD display and a SuperDrive really sounds, and decided that its comeback should probably lean slightly more towards the credible side. Interpret as your hearts desire. Personally, we're just glad that AI's back; maybe the next update will exist long enough that we'll actually get to read it.