Not that we're seriously suggesting that Apple crafted a massive PR letdown on purpose, but man, can you think of a better way to kill the rumors trade? Think about it: suppose that all that hype about an LCD iMac prior to last July's Macworld Expo was deliberately leaked from One Infinite Loop when the company knew full well that it wouldn't be unveiling that long-awaited product until October at the earliest. Heading into that keynote address, everybody (well, everybody who doesn't keep up with AtAT, anyway) expected a revolutionary new iMac that would take the world by storm. Instead, we got slightly updated Power Macs, a "shipping in two months" demo of Mac OS X 10.1, a preview of iDVD 2, and ho-hum iMacs in the same old chassis. The fans were shellshocked as they filed out of that hall-- and the community backlash against the rumors sites probably had Steve Jobs giggling like a schoolgirl on nitrous.

Again, we want to stress that we're not saying that's what actually happened, but honestly, have you noticed how gunshy people have been about predicting Apple hardware rollouts for the past couple of months? Worker Bee, Shmorker Bee; last July's Big Nothing cast a darker pall over the prognostication game than a mere employee dismissal and intellectual property lawsuit could ever create. These days, on those rare occasions when we do find a rumor about a new Mac intro date, there are so many qualifiers we find ourselves flashing back to Pee-Wee Baseball tryouts. (See, because a qualifier can be a limiting phrase like "if this happens" and "providing that doesn't change," but it can also mean "one who qualifies for something," and it's really easy to qualify for Pee-Wee Ba... Ah, never mind.)

Anyway, despite our continued reminders that AtAT is most definitely not a rumors outlet, we get an awful lot of mail from viewers looking for insight on Apple's future product plans. The subject du jour is the PowerBook G4, whose titanium exterior is just as "now" today as it was on day one, but whose innards are starting to smell a little stale. After all, it's been over nine months since Uncle Steve first took the wraps off that particular mix of power and sex, so the PowerBook's guts could use a bit of an overhaul. We've already passed on the mysterious message we found on our car hinting at 500/667 MHz processors and a CD-RW option due sometime this month; as of yet, we've since received no indication that those plans have changed, despite Steve's insistence that there will be "no new hardware products" at the upcoming Apple Expo in Paris.

On the other hand, maybe we should leave this to the pros. Mac OS Rumors dishes the dirt as a career instead of as a mild distraction when nothing good's on TV-- and as faithful viewer The M@d H@tter points out, MOSR is now downplaying the likelihood of a new PowerBook surfacing this month, stating that it definitely won't show up at in Paris and that a rollout "in October or perhaps even early November" is more probable. The site does admit, however, that "it's still possible" that the unit would make its debut "the week previous [to Apple Expo] at Seybold." For our money, we rate that last scenario as extremely unlikely-- but only because Seybold is the same week as Apple Expo, and not the week before. It'd be a neat trick, though.

Ah, what the heck... see this limb, here? See how we're going out on it? That's because we still have a strong feeling that the new PowerBook is indeed just weeks away, and that it'll be here before the month is out. Maybe it's the emergence of some latent psychic ability, maybe it's the alignment of the stars and planets, and maybe it's Apple's various frenzied attempts to clear the channel of PowerBooks over the course of the past several weeks; whatever the reason, something in our gut still says "September." But if you place any bets based on that prediction, don't blame us if you lose all your chips...