There's no doubt about it, Scrappy, there was enough Super Magic Happy-Fun Go Juice in that Stevenote to keep us Reality Distortion Field addicts flying high until at least, say, Thursday evening. Forget about the fact that so-called "dead certs" like new iPods and iMacs were nowhere to be found; it's Elvis's birthday and we can't even celebrate properly, thankyuhverruhmuch, because we're still plotzing at how Apple actually released not one, not two, but three new software applications with names that don't begin with a lowercase "i." Of course, what's really got us picking gravel out of our chins is how Apple just made titanium yesterday's metal.

Oh, sure, you can still buy titanium PowerBooks in a 15-inch form factor, but as of yesterday, the truly sexy portables-- whether you like 'em petite or big enough to double as a handy dashboard sun shade for your car-- are aluminum, baby. Apple's newest 12-inch and 17-inch laptops just made their grand entrance clad in a stunning aircraft-grade aluminum alloy. "Wow, just like a MagLite!" exclaimed Katie, AtAT's resident fact-checker and Goddess of Minutiae. "Or, um, an aircraft." Er, yeah. So that's it, folks; titanium is now passé, aluminum's all the rage, and when the spring fashions hit the runways in Milan, expect to see an awful lot of gaunt skinny ladies wearing Reynolds Wrap.

Now, we know that plenty of you are going ga-ga over such features as a mammoth 1440x900 widescreen display, integrated Bluetooth support, onboard FireWire 800, GeForce4 440 Go (oh, there are just way too many 4's in a row, there) graphics, etc., so we think it's important that you take a step back and focus on the single real reason why the new 17-inch PowerBook is about three generations ahead of the rest of the industry: the keyboard lights up. That's it, right there. The thing could otherwise be an antiquated and crashprone PowerBook 5300 and it'd still rule the roost, as long as the keyboard lights up. (Actually, bad example; the 5300's keyboard did light up, although only when the flames spread from the battery explosion.)

And while the new PowerBook's backlit keyboard is enough reason to give Jon Ive a big, sloppy wet kiss for his accomplishments, when you find out that the backlighting is automatically controlled via ambient light sensors built into the chassis, well, you're also going to want to buy the man a pony. All told, we're figuring these things are gonna fly out the doors-- yes, even though Jeff Goldblum's back doing voiceovers in the commercials. (Mini-Me and Yao Ming more than make up for that.)

Our only regret is that the light-up keyboard didn't make it into the 12-inch model, because we're looking to replace our original Blueberry iBook and it's pretty tough to pass up a 4.6-pound G4 portable with a footprint the size of a sheet of letter-size paper. Plus, you know, the low-end iBook we had been eyeing has a harsh white finish that makes it look like a cheap fridge from the Sears major appliance department, whereas the Baby Bear of the three PowerBooks sports that luscious aluminum exterior that makes it look like an expensive fridge from the Sears major appliance department. So hey, no-brainer, right?