"Hey, AtAT," many of you have asked, "how come you haven't mentioned those oh-so-sneaky iMac G5 spy photos that have been plastered all over the 'net?" Good question, people! After all, as faithful viewer Andy Van Buren points out, even a site as mainstream as CNET has covered the "photos supposedly taken in a Paris airport elevator," and what could be more dramatic than three illicitly-captured images revealing some unknown LCD-based object partially removed from an Apple product box? The whole sordid affair is clearly chock full of intriguey goodness, and as such, ought to be right up our alley. So what gives?

Well, while we admit that the plot, as outlined, has potential, unfortunately there are a few holes in it so wide you could squeeze a circa-2001 Steve Ballmer through them without even greasing him up first. Granted, it's certainly true that the Apple Expo kicks off in Paris tomorrow, complete with a Philnote that would have been a Stevenote if Fearless Leader weren't still nursing a bum pancreas back to health. And we'll freely admit that said Philnote is as likely an event as any for the introduction of that totally reworked third-generation G5-based iMac that Apple had previously promised would surface and ship in September. So given that Apple would presumably ship at least a few demo units to Paris and some freight-hauling employee at Charles de Gaulle could certainly have busted open an Apple box and grabbed a few quick snaps between floors, why haven't we waxed eloquent about these eminently plausible pix that have taken the Mac community by storm?

Answer: because while CNET says they "have not been verified as authentic," we prefer to call them "about as credible as Microsoft video evidence." Specifically, our initial reaction to seeing the photos was to ask, "why did somebody take pictures of a third-party LCD display jammed into a PowerBook box?" Honestly, a quick peek (at, say, MacBidouille for the first two images, and at the .Mac HomePage where all three originally surfaced for the third) is all it takes to see that whatever that LCD-based doohickey is, it doesn't come close to fitting inside the Styrofoam packing block in the PowerBook box. Apple wins awards for its packaging, which is always both beautiful and functional; the idea that the company would stuff an iMac G5 into a box three sizes too small is laughable at best.

Most damning of all is the fact that French airports don't have elevators, instead relying on an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to transport people and objects between floors.

Still not convinced? Well, maybe you'll believe the creator of the photos themselves. Faithful viewer Nigel Tufnel notes that, as reported in an AppleInsider forum post, if you load the third "spy photo" into Photoshop, look at only the blue channel, and mess with the brightness a bit, you can clearly see the words "FAKE FAKE FAKE" next to the box. And if you're going to insist that it's still all just an astounding coincidence, it's clearly time to have your mental health care professional reevaluate your currently prescribed dosage.

It just goes to show that you really have to be careful come keynote season, because fake "spy photos" always come crawling out of the woodwork, purporting to show unreleased Mac hardware in boxes that are too small to contain them sitting on the floors of nonexistent Parisian airport elevators. It happens all the time. On a completely unrelated note, though, look-- a covert snapshot of the new Mac Tablet! This one was taken twenty feet away from a Charles de Gaulle rope-and-pulley shaft, on a not-at-all-suspicious carpeted section of airport-grade hardwood floor. And the device even fits in its alleged box! Gee, how could it not be real?