The masses have spoken, and generally speaking, while they would love some brushed metal on their desktops, they don't want it anywhere near their Finder. (Okay, technically we don't think the Power Mac G5 enclosure is brushed metal, but hey, cut us a little slack.) Well, we've got some good news and some bad news on that front. Which do you want first? What's that? There's no way for you to tell us which you want first and have it actually affect the outcome of this scene in any fashion, because it's presented in a strictly linear, static, and one-way structure and this entire conversational conceit is simply a stylistic device that affords no actual real-time interaction between author and audience? Okay, chief, bad news it is, then!

So here's the icky stuff: according to Think Secret, Apple distributor Ingram Micro is warning resellers that while the 1.6 and 1.8 GHz Power Mac G5s will indeed ship in August as Steve promised (in the third week, to be precise), the dual 2.0 GHz model-- by far the most popular, even judging solely by the Top Sellers list at the Apple Store-- won't find its way onto store shelves until "late September." That doesn't bode well for those of you who didn't bother to preorder, instead counting on sauntering lazily into CompUSA or whatever and slapping down some plastic whenever the mood strikes you. Well, actually, now that we think about it, it bodes just fine for you as long as the mood strikes you in, say, late September. Or a little later. But not earlier! That was the point we were trying to make, there.

Mmmm. Yeah.

There's an upside, however, which is that, as MacRumors points out, if you did preorder a dual G5 from Apple within mere seconds of the announcement because every passing minute of your life without one is like an infinity of hellfire and wet willies, if you check your delivery date, you'll most likely still see a ETA of late August. Of course, whether that's accurate and it's preordering goody-goodies like you that are sucking up all the duals and keeping them out of the hands of the rest of us, or you're getting shafted until late September just like the rest of us and Apple just hasn't bothered to update your ETA is a matter of some speculation.

Interestingly enough, that wasn't the "good news" to which we initially referred. (Truly, we are complex beings, with hidden depths.) The good news has to do with the other end of the brushed metal stick, i.e Panther's new Finder. If you're like most Mac users, you consider Panther's new metallicized Finder to be a personal affront and an assault on all that's good and decent in this world. (Personally, we're fine with it, but we're weird that way.) Well, here's the real good news: according to a report at MacBidouille, the latest test build of Panther adds a slew of nifty features-- increased speed and stability, data compression in the Finder, synchronization between Address Book and Microsoft Exchange, dancing hampsters [sic] in practically every window-- and "a simplified Aqua look" as an option for the Finder. Of course, if you go the Aqua route, you apparently don't get the new side column or a toolbar, but we expect that lots of you will find that to be a no-brainer tradeoff. So rejoice!

On a related note, the bad news is that the frogurt is also cursed-- but you get your choice of topping!