Does everyone remember when Apple got slapped with no fewer than four class action lawsuits over a span of mere days for allegedly making "false and misleading statements" about its financial prospects and thus bilking investors out of zillions of dollars? Well, it's been three whole months since that happened, and we don't mind telling you that we were starting to get a little worried-- not about Apple, mind you, because we figure the Mothership's more-than-capable lawyers have the situation well in hand. No, in a textbook example of classic "Me Generation" selfishness, we've been worried entirely about ourselves. Ninety days, after all, is a long time to go without any new class action drama, and we wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that we're now suffering from some icky deficiency or other. "Drama rickets," or whatever.

So, for our health's sake, we're pleased to hear that Apple is now the defendant in yet another class action-- and, better yet, this one has nothing to do with shareholder fraud (which is nice, because, frankly, that angle was feeling pretty played). According to MacCentral, this time around Apple is being sued for not fully supporting Mac OS X on older G3-based Macs, as it promised to back in 1998. And there is something to that argument, because there are certain indisputable facts, here: the original Bondi Blue iMac, for instance, is still listed as a supported system for Mac OS X, but that operating system lacks hardware acceleration support for its particular video circuitry, making tasks like QuickTime playback painfully slow (compared to on the same hardware under Mac OS 9) and the use of certain "key technologies" like OpenGL effectively impossible.

Now, we imagine that Apple might have a pretty decent defense of "hey, it's coming, people; cool your jets and call off the sharks" if it weren't for the fact that, a few weeks ago, the company publicly admitted that further Mac OS X support for the ATI RAGE II+, IIc, Pro, Pro Turbo, LT Pro, and Mobility chipsets is "not planned." Minor tactical error, that, since now it looks to us like all the evidence necessary to beat Apple in court is available from the company's own web site; about the only way Apple could be more accommodating is by lumping it all together at http://www.apple.com/smokinggun/.

We're looking forward to seeing how this particular case plays out, given the evidence that Apple probably did violate California's Consumer Legal Remedies Act by not fully supporting "supported" hardware as it implied it would (and, more importantly, by not planning to support it at any point in the future). If we had to guess at an outcome, it'd probably involve the case being dropped after Apple pledges to include better support for those older chipsets (as well as certain currently unsupported DVD decoders) in a future Mac OS X point release. That would, at least, be the closest thing to a win-win scenario possible, and we're basically wide-eyed optimists at heart. As for the potential lack of drama we might suffer if the case gets dropped, well, heck, we're willing to take that risk. We can just take supplements or something.