And July kicks off with a bang! Just think, here we were concerned that after the thrill ride known as June, from an Apple drama perspective this month would wind up relatively tame by comparison-- but here we are just one day in, and what do we get? Apple breaking longstanding policy by commenting on unannounced products; Apple admitting it totally muffed its inventory control to a seemingly unprecedented degree; Apple nuking its own stock price in a bizarre display of verbal self-flagellation. Why, we could probably coast through the rest on the month on this one topic alone if we really had to. Clearly somebody up there likes us.

You've surely heard the news by now, but it came to us first via faithful viewer Simone Bianconcini, who'd been browsing the Apple Store when she noticed an uncharacteristically honest blurb on the store's iMac page: "Apple has stopped taking orders for the current iMac as we begin the transition from the current iMac line to an all-new iMac line which will be announced and available in September." Bickety-bam, straight from the horse's web page: there's a third-generation iMac headed your way in less than three months' time. Since the product itself will be announced in September, we assume this must be the announcement of the announcement. How rude of Apple that we had to find out about it from a faithful viewer who just happened to stumble upon the info while shopping; you'd think the company would have had the common courtesy to issue an announcement of the announcement of the announcement.

Now, this is already pretty juicy, what with Apple publicly acknowledging the advent of an "all-new" line of iMacs in a couple of months' time and all, and yet we haven't even gotten to the kicker yet. The announcement-announcement continues: "We planned to have our next generation iMac ready by the time the inventory of current iMacs runs out in the next few weeks, but our planning was obviously less than perfect." Eeeeeeyouch. Apple's been pretty notoriously awful about product forecasting in the past, but we can't remember a single other instance in which the company would have run so dry of a discontinued product prior to the release of its successor that Apple actually had to stop taking orders and sheepishly admit its terrifying lack of timing and coordination.

No wonder Apple seemed to be taking its own sweet time in getting a new iMac out the door; if the whole crop of current iMac models (which Apple has admitted quarter after quarter have been selling slowly for ages now) will vanish entire months before the new ones arrive, it seems obvious that Apple had planned to ship the third-gen models weeks or probably even months ago, but hit some sort of technical snag. Hmmmm, that sort of thing sure seems to be happening a lot these days, doesn't it? Power Macs, Xserves, you know the drill.

But regardless of the reason for the delay, here's what we just don't get: the new iMacs will be shipping in September, right? We may be wrong, here, but according to our math, that's only a couple of months away. If the systems are really going to ship in September, is there a plausible reason why Apple would pull this "we screwed up" play instead of throwing together a last-minute press conference to introduce the new system and say "accepting preorders now, shipment in September"? After all, it's not like Apple's never introduced a product more than two months before its ship date before; heck, even the original iMac debuted onstage three months before it hit store shelves, and the media hype leading up to the launch was tremendous. We just don't see why Apple wouldn't go that route... unless "available in September" really means "shipping around Christmas" or something like that, in which case, yeah, okay, all bets are off.

For whatever reason, though, Apple opted to take the "we blew it" path, and Wall Street is none too pleased; at last check, Apple's stock was down $1.32 in after-hours trading. There goes June's upwards momentum; here's hoping it doesn't keep creeping back down again, because we rather liked having a portfolio with green numbers instead of red ones for a change.

By the way, yes, we've heard all about the iMac-birthday-Paris thing, and credulous as we are, even with Apple's own admission that new iMacs will ship in September, we still think it's a load of hooey. And if you're going to tell us we must be getting cynical in our old age, we'll shake our fists at you and yell "dagnabbit!" until you retreat in utter bafflement and indifference. Don't say we didn't warn you, you young whippersnappers.