Speaking of Apple sneaking into new markets, what's up with the company's stealth purchase of Nothing Real? If you're a slave to Mac dirt, you've doubtless heard about this by now-- as noted by faithful viewer Jason Wardle, several news outlets (including VFXPro and MacMinute) are reporting that, yes indeedy, Apple busted out the checkbook again and forked over an undisclosed sum for the creator of such applications as Shake and Tremor. Before your trigger fingers get too itchy, we should mention that Shake and Tremor are not excessively violent sequels to Quake; we're told that they're actually extremely high-end 3D compositing apps. We'd go check 'em out ourselves, but Nothing Real's web site is currently down while the company's web hamsters "make some changes"-- which, in itself, certainly lends credence to the buyout reports.

First of all, take a minute or two to get all the "Apple just bought Nothing Real" / "I hope they didn't pay much, then" jokes out of your system. We'll wait.

Ready? Okay. Now consider what this move might mean-- after all, this is some pretty hefty tech, here; an article at Digital Post Production has a list of Shake-enhanced films as long as your arm (well, maybe not as long as your arm, but it's still pretty long), including such special effects showcases as Contact, Titanic, and The Matrix; most recently it was used heavily in The Lord of The Rings. Shake users are reportedly totally gaga over what this software can do, and many digital production houses apparently consider it absolutely indispensable. And lookee here-- it's currently only available for Windows, Linux, and SGI Irix. Hmmmm.

So there are a couple of possibilities when it comes to Apple's plans for Shake and Tremor. The first is that Apple will simply rebrand the software, port it to Mac OS X, and continue to develop and support the versions for other platforms. The other is that Apple will let the versions for competing platforms wither and die while only the Mac OS X version gets any real attention. Which do you suppose they'll choose? (While you're pondering that toughie, keep in mind what happened to all the other software that Apple has quietly gobbled up over the past several years, and ask yourself whether there are non-Mac versions of iMovie, Final Cut Pro, iTunes, iDVD, or DVD Studio Pro. Or is that too big a hint?)

Bzzzzt! Time's up. Reportedly an official company statement indicates that Apple "plans to use Nothing Real's technology in future versions of its products," so we're expecting Shake's functions either to get absorbed into Final Cut Pro (making that gorgeous bundle o' fun even more of a killer app-- as if the real-time effects didn't do that already), or released as a repackaged Mac OS X-only application. If Shake is as good as its users think it is, a move like this might just prompt a slow but steady mass Mac migration in Hollywood over the next few years. And you know what they say: the platform that controls Hollywood, controls the world! Or at least the world's popcorn consumption rate.