Well, poke us in the eye and call us Squinty-- no one told us that Apple was planning on making a MAJOR REVELATION today! Had we known, we would have prepared; thrown a cake in the oven, hung colorful streamers from the ceiling, lit the candles in the Jobs shrine, that sort of thing. Or, at the very least, we might have showered and put on pants. Just to lend the announcement a sense of occasion, you know?

So just what is this MAJOR REVELATION, you ask? Stevenotes and Tigers and syslogs, oh my! According to faithful viewer mrmgraphics, it seems that Apple has seen fit to issue a press release announcing that, when the Worldwide Developers Conference kicks off at the end of next month, the geektivities will commence with that most cherished of happenings, an authentic Steve Jobs keynote address. Moreover, Apple has even decided to reveal one of the topics of said Stevenote-- to wit, "a preview of 'Tiger,' the next major release of Mac OS X." Oooh, now that the cat's out of the bag (or at least its particular species is), Panther's already starting to feel a wee bit creaky and decrepit, isn't it?

Actually, now that we've thought about it a bit, it occurs to us that this possibly isn't all that much of a MAJOR REVELATION after all. The fact that Steve will be starting the show with a keynote address will only shock those who somehow failed to notice that he's done the same thing for something like five years running. Likewise, given that last year's Stevenote was heavy on Panther and 2002's was all about Jaguar, only the perennially stoned or newly non-comatose will derive any astonishment from the disclosure that a dominant topic will be the next major release of Mac OS X. Meanwhile, Mac OS X 10.4 officially being named "Tiger" isn't a surprise, since it was widely rumored about a month ago. And none of the revealed features in Tiger are much of a curveball, either, because, well, there are no features discussed in the announcement, and all we know for sure so far is that Tiger will include that keen Spoken Interface technology.

Still, questionable MAJOR REVELATION status notwithstanding, it is still nice to get official confirmation of facts most of us had already taken for granted. If you're hoping to catch the Stevenote live and in person, though, it'll cost you big time; whereas a conference pass to Macworld Expo used to run a mere couple hundred smackers and got you access to the show floor and a slew of general-Mac-interest sessions, a WWDC ticket will set you back at least $1,295 (that's with the Early Registration Discount) and offers such non-Stevenote activities as "Beyond syslog: The New Log Subsystem," the likes of which will probably bore non-developers right out of their skivvies. So while a webcast of the Stevenote is almost certainly in the offing (especially since "members of the media and industry analysts are invited to attend the keynote"), keep your fingers crossed anyway, just in case. That's one MAJOR REVELATION we don't want to miss.