Whoops! It seems that, once again, we have inadvertently driven scores of Mac fans to their untimely and needless deaths. Who knew that a quick and heavily-tempered throwaway caution about some lingering third-hand doubts surrounding a Power Mac G5 intro at WWDC that we slapped in at the end of a book report would send so many excitable rumor junkies scurrying for the nearest high window ledge? Looking back, it's all so terribly, terribly funny. Tragic. We mean "tragic."

Look, folks, here's the scoop: first of all, as the oft-ignored disclaimer at the bottom of this page should imply, AtAT is not a source for insider information; we don't have operatives hiding behind Steve's ficus plant while the man rehearses his big speech. Secondly, if we ever did have inside moles pipelining us all sorts of illicit information (and we're not saying we ever did, mind you), they would certainly have all dried up during those thirty-seven years when we had vanished completely from this plane of existence. (Worker Bee 2-- what's up? You don't call, you don't write... uh, never mind.) When we mentioned that we had heard the "faintest rumblings" that the G5 might not make it in time for the Stevenote, we were talking about rumblings that were-- guess what?-- pretty darn faint. Which is why we also said that we don't much believe them. (Yet.)

Unfortunately, everyone and his grandmother apparently leapt upon that "faintest rumblings" bit, and while many sites took it in the spirit it was offered, a few of them linked to it as some sort of incontrovertible evidence that the 970 doesn't really exist, it's all just some cruel hoax foisted on us by Steve's Evil(ler) Twin (no wrongdoing on the part of Mona Simpson implied), and we're all going to be stuck with Motorolan G4s until either Jesus comes back or we die. The direct effect of this was twofold: firstly, it caused our server to emit horrible straining sounds and break out in a heavy sweat; secondly, it led the aforementioned overly-excitable rumor junkies to take their own lives in an act of overwhelming despair. Which was, again, all pretty hilarious distressing.

Now, to put this whole situation into a bit of context, we'd like to remind you all of what happened way back in July of 2001, AKA "The LCD iMac That Wasn't." You remember this, right? Everyone got whipped up into a foaming frenzy about how LCD iMacs were absitively, posolutely going to be introduced at Macworld Expo. We were almost burned at the stake for suggesting that they weren't in the cards. The LCD iMacs were indeed a no-show, and the entire Mac-using community wound up in a bad mood for six months. (Everyone was so snippy.) This is precisely why we start to get a little concerned when we see people getting their hopes up so high; there are no guarantees when it comes to what Steve's going to unveil, so if we hear rumblings (no matter how faint or unquotable) that the G5 may not be done in time, we consider it a service to pass that info along to you in the hopes that maybe you'll temper your enthusiasm just a hair or two.

(By the way, we don't mean to imply that we believe the current "G5 might not make it to WWDC" rumor even remotely as strongly as we did that original "no LCD iMac" report; if the whispers that the G5 might not surface at WWDC are the "faintest rumblings," reports that LCD iMacs weren't going to be at the summer 2001 Expo were air raid sirens, sonic booms, head-on collisions by semis loaded up with high explosives, the fans in the original Xserve, etc.)

Indeed, in the interest of keeping expectations at a reasonable level, we'll point out that MacRumors notes a "real" source indicating that the G5 might not ship until well after WWDC: an eWeek article claims that Smeagol, the version of Mac OS X required to boot the G5, might not be ready for general consumption until August. In our experience, eWeek's pretty consistently correct about stuff like this; take that as you will. It still doesn't mean a pre-production unit won't at least be used for the Panther demos onstage.

You are, of course, all perfectly capable of choosing and embracing your own personal levels of enthusiasm. If you want to stick your head in the clouds, that's fine-- provided you're aware that there's a chance, no matter how slim, that what you're expecting won't show and you'll wind up plummeting ten thousand feet into an Olympic-sized pool filled with horse manure and AOL CD-ROMs. Personally, we're allergic to surprise disappointments, so we prefer to keep our expectations incredibly low, making every one of Steve's WWDC announcements a pleasant surprise. Therefore, despite the fact that we're pretty sure that Steve will at least demo the G5 even if it doesn't ship for a month or two, we hereby provide AtAT's official list of WWDC keynote predictions, designed to maximize your eventual surprise and delight:

• Steve will announce that not only doesn't the 970 exist, but IBM itself is also just an elaborate hundred-year hoax intended to grant false hope to those naughty Mac fans who dare to read rumors sites.

• He will then introduce Apple's new Power Mac G4again, running Motorola chips at clock speeds of 1.25, 1.42, and 1.5 GHz at prices starting at just $2199. Half the audience immediately shoots themselves.

• In the middle of a Photoshop bake-off demonstrating how a dual-processor 1.5 GHz G4again system marginally beats out a Wintel box that costs fully half as much, Steve's cell phone will ring. After a brief muted conversation, Steve will announce that, due to processor availability problems with Motorola, the G4again will actually ship in 1.0, 1.25, and 1.42 GHz configurations, but at the same price points as the originally-announced systems. The other half of the audience gnaws off their own limbs and beats themselves to death with them.

• Steve will introduce new 15-inch PowerBooks. They're actually the old 15-inch PowerBooks, but with less RAM and missing half the keys so that Apple can claim they're lighter than the previous models. The only people left alive to watch are the two guys working the video cameras; they seem nonplussed.

• Steve trots out a new videoconferencing version of iChat and an accompanying webcam-thingy, and announces that it's only compatible with the G4again ("so you freeloading bastards will actually buy them")-- and even then, you really have to shout pretty loud.

• Steve then begins to roll out new adjustable displays, but his cell phone rings again, and after a minute he announces that the G4again will actually ship at 733, 800, and 933 MHz at prices starting at $4000. At this point the two camera guys off each other in a suicide pact.

And there you have it: AtAT's official List O' WWDC Predictions™, guaranteed to bring a smile to your face come the morning of the 23rd when things suddenly don't seem so bad after all. Thank us later.