Well, if there were ever a doubt in our minds that ongoing PowerBook delays were caused by some catastrophic external factor beyond Apple's control, said doubt has long since evaporated and left behind a crusty residue of bitterness and defeat. Because when we say "ongoing," what we really mean is "going on-- and on, and on, and on..." Consider this: the 12- and 17-inch PowerBooks were introduced on January 7th, making them nearly eight months old. In high tech terms, that's older than dirt. But what about the 15-incher, which is still wearing titanium (oh, how gauche) and doesn't even support AirPort Extreme yet? That sucker hasn't been touched since November 7th, making it almost ten months old, and therefore older than dirt's Grampy Jessup.

Indeed, when it's been so long between product refreshes that even non-Applecentric publications like Forbes start to jump in on the Mac rumor game, things have clearly gotten a little out of hand. Ten months between product refreshes (when the company's average is more like six) is not Apple being "coy." In our eyes, there is no conceivable way that Apple would voluntarily have left these products alone for so long, particularly after channel-clearing price cuts way back in early June, and especially in the so-called "Year of the Notebook." Until we hear otherwise, we can now believe unflinchingly in the "Motorola never shipped the chips and thereby reduced Steve Jobs to a raving pottymouth" reports that surfaced a few weeks back.

Meanwhile, it's Tuesday-- always a primo day for new Apple products to make the scene, but it looks like we can chalk up yet another 'Bookless Tuesday before we commence our now-traditional gentle sobbing into our lunchtime soup. (weep weep sniffle sob "Mmmmmm, minestrone" blubber boo hoo) And since we're now firmly convinced that Apple can't budge until Motorola figures out where the heck it left those G4s it was supposed to mail to Apple (check behind the sofa!), any predictions as to when the PowerBooks will finally show up would actually be predictions of when Motorola might suddenly become... well, "competent" might be too harsh a word. So, "competent."

All we can hope for is that this situation doesn't degrade into a case of history repeating itself; you may recall that back in September of '99, Apple was finally forced to issue an earnings warning because it was going to miss its quarterly targets by a wide margin. Why? Because its targets included a healthy chunk of Power Mac G4 sales-- sales which never materialized because, thanks to Motorola, the chips never materialized, either. (It's nice to see so much progress in four years.) This time around Apple has the G5 to help buffer any effect of a PowerBook sales shortfall on its quarterly earnings, but any major dip is still likely to hurt; last quarter PowerBooks sales were up 71% from the same quarter last year, but now there basically aren't any PowerBooks left to sell.

Then again, an earnings warning and the ensuing stock plummet is always good for at least a solid week's worth of drama, so we're covered either way. Especially since, if the protracted scarcity of new G4 processors will nuke Apple's quarterly revenue badly enough to warrant an earnings warning, you just know Uncle Steve's going to pay a little visit to Motorola headquarters with a big, scary axe.