Official reminder time, folks: it's now just five weeks until Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, which means this is officially the beginning of the standard pre-show speculation season. As you are all no doubt aware, weeks T-minus-5 through T-minus-3 are designated a "Low Intensity Guesstimation Period," so don't sprain a lobe or anything; this is just the warmup to the heavy lifting later. Don't go too light, either, though, or you won't be prepared; we all know that Fearless Leader will be previewing Tiger for the first time, for example, so that's not even an issue. But you might want to spend the next few weeks considering that the smart money says Steve will trot out those long-awaited faster Power Macs during his dog-and-pony show.

Okay, sure, the rumor mill's been predicting imminent G5 speed bumps since late last year, but honestly, can you imagine Apple holding off any longer than the last few days of June? Seriously, if Steve tries to walk off that stage without introducing faster G5s, it's going to take more than a Reality Distortion Field to keep the crowd from acting with swift and blinding violence. And just in case you still need some factual evidence to back up the whole "G5s at WWDC" thing, consider what faithful viewer Cellar Door passed along to us: a link to the Apple Developer Connection Hardware Purchase Program, which is currently pushing low-end G5s like they're going out of style. Or, more to the point, will be.

Yes, if you're an ADC Select or Premier member and you live in the U.S. (the email also says "Europe"), you can buy a 1.6 GHz Power Mac G5 for just $1299-- that's $500 off retail, or almost 28%. Now, we're actually not at all sure how much cheaper, if any, that is from the normal developer price, but Apple is clearly trying to shovel these things out the door: the company makes a point of specifying that qualifying developers "can purchase up to five (5) Power Mac G5 1.6 GHz systems through the ADC Hardware Purchase Program, without affecting annual hardware discount purchase limits." In other words, "please take these stinkin' things off our hands, because when we ship a dual 2.0 GHz unit as its entry-level replacement next month, they'll be worth about as much as a can of pudding with the pull-ring broken off." Meanwhile, the offer ends on June 26th, just two days before the Stevenote; if you're drunk enough on a Monday to think that's just a coincidence, you may possibly have a problem.

Of course, we're just guessing about that whole "dual 2.0 GHz entry-level" thing, but that's what the whole "Low Intensity Guesstimation Period" is all about: a blatant disregard for anything even remotely approaching reason or logic. Still not feeling the vibe? Here, have some fine imported rumor on us: faithful viewer Pat in Tahiti tipped us off to French site Croquer dans la pomme (literally, "the mouse under the chair would like a green pencil"), which is making some pretty specific predictions for just what sort of G5s WWDC will bring us all. For its part, CDLP is predicting PowerPC 975s across the board, with the low end model boasting a single 2.2 GHz processor, the mid-range running two 2.6 GHz chips, and the top of the line chugging away in a full-on dual 3.0 GHz config, thus fulfilling Steve's promise of hitting 3.0 GHz within a year. Of course, there's that ever-present disclaimer "likely to change," but again, we're still in low-intensity mode here, so that's actually good.

So just dive in and start spouting any crazy ol' hoo-haa, folks; the water's fine. But in two weeks' time, prepare to start narrowing things down and applying actual "research," okay?