There actually was, of course, one big announcement this past Monday: as faithful viewer Norman Blake was first to inform us, Apple issued a press release revealing that it had whipped out the company-buying checkbook yet again, this time to absorb Emagic into its ever-widening girth. Don't know what Emagic is? Laboring under the delusion that it's the mystical power that gives the eMac (and before it, the eMate) its ineffable charm? Well, then you're probably a locksmith. Or maybe a claims adjustor, or an emu wrangler, or just about anything else that's not a professional musician. (Note: we've just been informed that emu wranglers can be properly classified as professional musicians, but "only if they're doing it right.")

To be fair, we're entirely ignorant of the music biz ourselves, our involvement in that area being limited entirely to having bankrolled the production of one seriously butt-kicking CD of Irish traditional fiddle and guitar music-- and about the only software we used to pull that off was Quicken. So no, we didn't know who Emagic was, either, until Apple told us that "Emagic has set the industry standard for professional music creation and production" and cranks out Logic, a "professional software solution for computer based music production" that is "actively used by over 200,000 musicians around the world." We've also received scads of mail from AtAT viewers who are more well-versed in the ins and outs of the music business, and they assure us that Logic is a very big deal. Several called it the Final Cut Pro of the music industry; others said that it is to music what Photoshop is to graphic artists. It's apparently that important.

And the deal gets even bigger when you consider that Apple is reportedly planning to axe the Windows flavor of Logic, just as it decided to nix the Windows version of Shake after it gobbled up Nothing Real in February. Because while Shake is the big dog when it comes to Hollywood film compositing work, faithful viewer Michael tells us that Logic was used in "about 90% of the songs nominated for Grammies." Now, we don't know why any of those artists would be using Wintels in the first place, but it sounds like if they are and they want to keep using Logic, they're going to find themselves prime candidates to star in a new "Switch" commercial before too long.

So lessee... Apple's taking over the film business by buying Shake and cancelling the Windows version, and doing the same exact thing in the music industry by wolfing down Emagic. Clearly this is Apple's plan for the Mac platform's complete and utter domination of the computer world, industry by industry. Now all Apple has to do is buy Microsoft and make Office Mac-only. Lord knows why they haven't done that yet... it's such an obvious first step! We'll keep our eyes peeled for a press release next week.