Boy, between the Power Mac rumors and the AirPort Express intro and, if not actually the announcement of Euro iTMS, then at least the announcement of the announcement, things sure were crazy yesterday. ("HOW CRAZY WERE THEY?") They were so crazy we never even had a chance to mention Uncle Steve's annual appearance at the D: All Things Digital conference. (Do we hear crickets chirping? Man, tough crowd.) No, that wasn't actually a joke, and no, D:Steve isn't actually a Stevenote per se, but in some ways it's even better; for the low, low price of just $2,995, starry-eyed Mac fans can show up to ask him questions and raise issues that he might otherwise never address in public. Remember last year's Q&A session, at which he revealed all sorts of candid little tidbits about where Apple would be headed in the future-- or, more to the point, where it wouldn't be headed? Good stuff.

As it turns out, we're slightly less flush with cash than would behoove us to drop a few grand apiece for the privilege of kickin' it inquisitive-style for a couple of hours with the Stevemeister. That's why we're so glad that AppleInsider has posted a few choice highlights from the show. It sounds to us like Steve continues to squeeze a lot of mileage out of the ever-popular Mysterious Silent Smile™; that was his response when asked when iPod prices will drop, and also his reaction when Walter Mossberg complained that AirTunes still requires people to get up and go to their computers when they want to change the music they're listening to. While most people will choose to interpret Steve's grins to mean "soon" and "just wait" respectively, we'd like to caution our viewers that we've had a fair amount of experience with mysterious smiles over the past two years, and it may have just been gas.

But let's get to the controversy: amid other little infogems (like how Apple is apparently working on some sort of iPod-in-the-car device and won't even consider supporting WMA until it has 50% of the market), Steve reportedly announced that he was "proud not only of the products Apple has shipped, but also the products Apple has decided not to ship," such as "an Apple PDA." Uh-oh-- heads up, Apple Handheld Obsessives, Steve's whistling your tune! Or refusing to, anyway; as far as we can tell, this is just Steve gloating about how he was right when he said years ago-- and repeated several times since-- that Apple should stay out of the PDA business. In other words, he's proud that Apple never devoted resources to working on a product that would probably have lost money and dragged Apple's stock price Palmward, especially when the iPod was almost certainly a much better investment.

The thing is, though, it seems to us that AI's headline for this delightful compendium of hot-off-the-press Jobsisms-- "Apple developed, but did not ship Apple PDA"-- wholly misses the point, and is just going to get the Apple Handheld Obsessives all riled up again. Based on AI's report, at least, it doesn't sound to us like Jobs ever said that Apple had created a PDA and then shelved it; we interpreted his statement to mean "See, I was right not to waste time on making PDAs, neener neener neener." We weren't there, so maybe the guy's exact words more clearly implied that Apple has a PDA locked up in a lab someone that will never make onto a store shelf, but we doubt it. (Maybe someone who was there can fill us in?) Granted, it was years ago, but even Phil Schiller went on the record to confirm that Apple had "nothing going on" in the handheld space, and have you ever seen a more honest face?

Of course, that hasn't stopped the Apple PDA diehards from reviving the rumor yet again-- despite the fact that it was at this very conference last year that Jobs reiterated for the umpteenth time that Apple was not working on a PDA, and that the company's market research had showed that Apple was far better off ensuring that Macs could sync data to iPods and third-party mobile phones. So unless Steve changed his mind since last year and then back again, all logic and reason dictates that we put this whole "Apple PDA" rumor to bed once and for all.

Then again, we were never huge fans of logic or reason. Plus, we know that if Steve really did mean that Apple had developed a post-Newton PDA and then decided not to ship it, the Apple Handheld Obsessives will surely liberate the prototypes from the company's underground bunkers and show the world what we're all missing. It's all good.