Good ol' Apple, always thinking about our insatiable thirst for drama. Earlier in the week when the state of Steve's pancreas rightfully overshadowed all other concerns, we were so hard up for raw material we were almost forced to try to squeeze a drop or two of thrill juice from-- of all things-- an iPhoto 4.0.2 update. And if an iApp point-release update that "addresses minor issues with Smart Albums and European books" isn't scraping the bottom of the drama barrel, we don't know what is. It's kinda like trying to make an exciting and vibrant breakfast entirely out of a thin gruel.

The thing is, though, Apple has pulled off a minor miracle and turned gruel into Cocoa Krispies after all; the company has ramped up dramatic potential by transforming the iPhoto 4.0.2 update into a matter of controversy and mystery. How, you ask? Why, by trying to make us all think it never existed in the first place, of course. The update, which surfaced sometime on Monday, inexplicably vanished on Wednesday, and not only did Apple not tell us why, but it also removed any and all references to the 4.0.2 version from its web site.

Indeed, the only sure evidence that it ever existed at all is the "About iPhoto" window of any poor shmoe who applied the update before Apple whisked it off into oblivion-- and said poor shmoes are no doubt even now nervously backing away from their Macs, wondering what was so toxic about 4.0.2 that Apple felt the need to erase it from the very face of the earth. Does it delete your photos? Corrupt your hard drive? Make long-distance phone calls during peak rate hours when you're not looking? What?

Well, no one's sure just yet, but so far the only reference we can find to a repeatable and widespread problem with iPhoto 4.0.2 is at MacFixIt, which reports that several (but not all) users are experiencing much longer quit times than they had with 4.0.1. In some cases, people have to wait up to 20 seconds for the application to quit. Oh, the hardships of life that we endure in the 21st century...

The question, though, is this: would Apple really go so far as to eradicate all traces of proof that iPhoto 4.0.2 ever existed just because it takes a relatively long time to quit? It just sounds like a fairly drastic measure to take if the only problem is an extended quit time. We're not ruling out the possibility that Apple discovered another more serious bug which has yet to strike anyone in the wild-- like, after 72 hours running, version 4.0.2 sprays acid in the face of the user or releases a pulse of mutating cosmic rays or something. So unless you want to risk turning orange and blocky or having your face melted off, it might be best to quit iPhoto 4.0.2 until Apple comes up with a update to the update.

For whatever reason, though, the iPhoto 4.0.2 Update is gone-- and Apple appears to be going to extreme measures to hush up the fact that it ever shipped in the first place. But how extreme? All we can say is, if you happen to have a copy of 4.0.2 on your hard drive, don't be surprised if you're visited in the night by a wetworks cleanup team who'll confiscate your Mac and Midnight Express you off to a Turkish prison...