The Steve giveth, and the Steve taketh away. Sure, all we like sheep are getting Panther on October 24th, which is more than two months ahead of the tail end of Steve's original "before the end of the year" commandment, and we can all give thanks that we'll be solemnly Exposé-ing well in advance of Dick Clark counting down the drop of that big sparkly ball. But there's a price to pay for our early admission into Pantherland, and we're not talking about the $129 cover charge; it turns out that at least one fairly nifty feature will be missing from 10.3.0: "Home on iPod."

We can hear you now: "What on who-Pod?" Which is actually a perfectly valid (albeit goofily phrased) question, since "Home on iPod" wasn't a feature demonstrated, mentioned, or even subtly hinted at in Steve's original Panther sermon last June-- nor did it pop up anywhere in Apple's well-thumbed online Panther preview. In fact, as far as we know, the only place it's ever been officially mentioned by name outside the cloisters of One Infinite Loop is in the company's fresh-and-steamin' Panther pages that surfaced after yesterday's ship date announcement. The only problem is, all mention of "Home on iPod" has apparently been surgically excised from Apple's web site since yesterday.

No, really, it's true! MacRumors noticed that both the feature's name and a paragraph-long description originally showcased on one of Apple's new Panther pages has since vanished completely-- but MacRumors mined its browser cache and came up with a mirror of the original version, so now you, too, can enlighten yourselves about Panther's secret missing feature-- even as Apple's web gnomes get drawn, quartered, and set on fire for the umpteenth time for posting something that they evidently shouldn't have. (Frankly, given the number of slip-ups in recent years, we're amazed any of those little guys are still left. They must breed like bunnies.)

The idea's pretty simple: toss your home directory on your iPod, carry it around with you everywhere you go, and whenever you happen to run into a Pantheriffic Mac (you know, like on a bench at the bus station, or in one of the stalls of a gas station bathroom-- they're everywhere, right?), you can plug in your 'Pod and log right in, just as if you were at home. Note that this is at least twenty degrees cooler than merely using the iPod as a portable hard drive on which to tote your files; with "Home on iPod," you can apparently log in to foreign Macs on which you have no account-- with zero setup, the Mac sees your iPod and automatically lets you log in with your home account of "chunkylover53" or whatever. Better still, if you happen to edit any files in your home directory on the iPod, the changes are synced back to your home Mac when you reconnect.

Or, rather, they would be, provided that the "Home on iPod" feature actually existed in the first place. Bummer, huh? Maybe it just didn't get finished in time, and it'll show up in 10.3.1. Or perhaps, like Brigadoon, it is there, but it's only visible for one day each one hundred years. Only time will tell...

So we're getting Panther in a couple of weeks, mysterious missing feature notwithstanding. Now what about the other "before the end of this year" goody that Steve promised? We speak, of course, of an iTunes Music Store accessible by those poor saps still using Windows. Well, it's getting tougher and tougher to suppress a giddy rush of optimism and a feeling that a release is imminent. But what's that? You say you're game to try?

Okay, Beavis: we'll start you off nice and slow. Just a couple of days ago, rumors claimed that the iTMS for Windows was technically ready to roll, and merely awaiting an opportune occasion for launch-- say, just in time to distract the press and pump up Apple's stock price after the company posts what might turn out to be disappointing quarterly results next Wednesday. But heck, you say, who believes those seedy rumors sites, anyway?

Pessimism firmly engaged, hmmm? Well, okay, try this one on for size: no less a paragon of journalistic excellence than the Wall Street Journal recently dropped yet another hint that the iTMS for Windows is mere days from wearing the frilly white dress at its debutante ball. A "Heard on the Street" column suggests that Apple's stock price is poised for another big boost (like the one it got when the iTMS first launched last April) "as the company introduces the product to a wider audience next week." Of course, the WSJ gives no source for that "next week" assertion, so we suppose you could probably persuade yourselves to ignore that clue, too.

But if you're such a big fan of uncertainty, venture no further, because this is where the story loses any and all semblance of mystery. Faithful viewer Raffi Saltman noticed that the other shoe has finally dropped: CNET reports having received an invitation from Apple to a shindig "next Thursday at San Francisco's Moscone West convention hall." And before you go thinking that, hey, that could be about anything, we should probably point out that the invite features one of those iPod silhouette dancers and proclaims that "the year's biggest music story is about to get even bigger." Gee, what on earth could they possibly be planning?

So there you have it: in less than a week's time, Apple will finally toss the Real Deal™ into the pool with all those copycat music download services, and may the best store win-- by which we mean to say, may BuyMusic.com get its hinder kicked so hard that neither Scott Blum nor Tommy Lee can sit down for a week without yelping and tasting shoe leather. Why, the only uncertainty left is this: will Windows users actually be able to recognize the iTMS as the superior service? And more to the point, being Windows users, will they care?

Aw, nurtz-- we missed it! It seems that Apple broadcast a new iPod commercial last night on select stations, but apparently not the station we were watching. Serves us right for tuning in to sports instead of our usual steady diet of sitcoms and drama, but unfortunately we had a biological imperative to watch the Cubs swat the Marlins so thoroughly that all that remained of the once-proud ball team was a dark smudge and a vague fishy smell. (Seriously, there's a genetic thing at work, here. We were powerless to resist.)

Fear not for our immortal souls, though; for all we know, the new ad's sitting buried in last night's episode of "Angel" on the TiVo. And heck, even if it's not, we've already watched the QuickTime version three or four times, which ought to be enough to keep us out of Mac-Obsessive Hell should we choke on a pretzel or something before seeing the real thing. In the meantime, we'll still be extra-careful around snack foods of all varieties, just to play it absolutely safe.

So what do we think? Well, there's not a lot to it; it's just those iPod-wearing silhouette people from the print ads hanging out against their various brightly-colored backdrops, grooving like mad to "Hey Mama" by the Black Eyed Peas. And eventually the word "iPod," followed by the phrase "Mac or PC," and, ultimately, the Apple logo. That's it. It's not exactly rocket science.

And yet, we figure it'll probably sell at least twice as many iPods as "Beat," a.k.a. "Geeky Jeff Goldblum Wannabe Probably Wouldn't Have Been Half So Embarrassing Had He Been Shown as a Black Silhouette." Simplicity isn't a bad thing; heck, the iPod is all about simplicity. The music and energy is dead on target for what we assume is the iPod's primary demographic, the moves are mesmerizing, and the colors are, let's face it, darn pretty. And if this ad also (falsely) implies that you can dance around the room while listening to your iPod without coming off as a complete and utter dork, well, that's just a nifty bonus. Hey, we're just happy to have something other than Goldblum voiceovers and people standing in front of white backgrounds.