The rumor that Rhapsody is being "Steved" has permeated all ranks of the Mac faithful, even to the point of Don Crabb musing about such a move in an article on MacNN. Don summarizes the points that have all of us a little on edge: Apple is "pulling back" on Rhapsody, saying that it's not just continuing the Mac OS for backwards support-- the Mac OS is really our future; Rhapsody is instead being hyped as a server OS that may also be suitable for some high-end users who need its heavy-duty features. Don is understandably upset with this strategy, citing its likelihood of dissuading developers from writing anything for Rhapsody (since who would use it?) and dooming the fledgling operation system to an early retirement. The end result? We're left with the same creaky OS foundation that we had before the Copland debacle, and after adding another half a billion dollars to the money pit. And that, presumably, is why Apple's rumored to be thinking about scrapping the whole deal. But which is better-- a failed Rhapsody, or a cancelled one?

Thankfully, Mac OS Rumors claims that the rumors about the latter possibility are "patently false," and have all arisen from the recent media frenzy claiming that Apple's dual-Os strategy is a new plan; just corporate backpeddling due to a project that's not going as well as everyone had hoped. However, as faithful viewer Bobby Thomale points out, this recent "repositioning" of Rhapsody is largely a media construction; Apple's been pushing the dual-OS model since last January. The vision of Rhapsody as being a replacement for the Mac OS was retired over a year ago.

...Of course, some would wonder about the wisdom of accepting the debunking of a rumor from a site that is a rumormonger by trade. But you only live once, after all. And it looks like Rhapsody's going to get its chance to fight for elbow room in the computer world. But will Apple let it fight on the desktop as well as in the servers?