Today's (real) Apple message is "To go where no PC has gone before."

While my first instinct was "what, an iMac for the shower, replete with little suction cups so you can check stocks while you rub-a-dub?" I'm betting this is further iPad evidence.

I bet it's the sofa. You know that's what I want an iPad for, so I can compute and watch TV, so I can instant message and read a book in comfort, so I can take the full internet with me everywhere I go in the house, and use it with one hand.

I just uploaded today's Apple countdown page. For those who didn't see the first one, here's the page for 3 days to go.

I had a lot of strong memories this New Years, spending time with some friends I really don't see often enough (Frank and Janelle), making some new ones (Derek and Heather), and visitng with old stalwarts (Karen and Crystal), among several others. The moment that will stay with me the longest is sitting in Dinah's car New Years afternoon, listening to 'Hallelujah,'mourning her Grandpa Bob, who passed away on Sunday the 30th.

Like last year, when Kristen's fiancee died in a skiing accident on Dec 30, this New Years mixed the emotions of loss and hope, sadness and rejoicing. I'm sure it was that way for a lot of people this time around, as most of my friends seemed to opt for small gatherings of friends instead of big parties to usher in the next cycle.

New Years used to be so much simpler...

Wouldn't it be nice if every potential partner's offerings were so clearly labeled from the outset?

Okay, so I may have taken it down from the front page by the time you read this, so if so, check out my take on Apple's '3 days till' message.

Watch the monitor, not the keyboard.

If I actually watch what I type, maybe I wouldn't need a spellchecker in the first place.

As an aside, I'm really in favor of resolutions that you can do moment by moment. I like things like 'smile' more than 'lose 20 pounds' because the first is something you can achieve moment by moment, and the accomplishment is joy enough to continue. Longer-term resolutions don't have the same payoff. Maybe 'stop eating when you're not hungry any more...'

With all the blind speculation, I've got to wonder: Could the 'flat-panel iMac' and the 'iPad' be the same thing?

There's little doubt that the flat-panel iMac is coming on Monday, but there's also little doubt that Apple's hype engine was called forth for bigger news than that.

I'm starting to feel like it's July of 1991, when Apple introduced the Powerbook 100, 140, and 170, completely revolutionary with their trackballs, palmrests, and portability.

Breath: Baited.

Well, the cat's out of Jobs's bag. Next week's incredible unveiling? Well, it's one of the ones that some people have been waiting for longest. I'd call it a Newton II except it's come so much further.

In a nutshell, it's a PDA, significantly bigger than a Palm or small WinCE device, with a great color screen, a 'lite' version of OS X, multimedia and handwriting recognition support, Firewire, audio in and out, quite likely an Airport card.

On the software side, it looks like NewtonOS, where NewtOS would be if it had been evolving for the past 5 years instead of canned (which it may very well have been, though most of the Newton engineers I knew have gone to Palm or Handspring).

There's the notepad, of course, but there's also a full web browser, an OS rebuilt around multimedia, and quite possibly one of those snazzy 5gig Toshiba drives in there, although maybe not.

I'd post the pictures, but that would just elicit me a call from Apple legal later tonight or tomorrow morning and I'd just as soon not. If the pictures are still up at SpyMac when you read this, that's great. If not, well, as Apple keeps reminding us on their home page, Monday's just around the corner.

Damn I wonder if it still uses NewtonScript on the back end, or if it's BSD-based. If it's the former, then I'm probably the only person at Yahoo who's a readymade NewtonScript developer with four years experience. If it's the latter, well, that's just so cool I wouldn't care about it not using NewtonScript.

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Though I'm not putting up a mirror for the aforementioned reasons, you can find one for now at Interface Studio.

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Of course, it might not be real at all anyhow. Some folks over at MacSlash are raising red flags, mostly about small vibrations in the video in the closeup movie and the use of 'Apple iWalk' on the startup screen when all other apple products are refered to without the Apple moniker. Then there's the fact that Apple doesn't have a trademark on iWalk... but Microsoft does.

Okay, so there's still a little uncertainty. It'll make the world go around for another few days. Maybe the cat's still in the bag after all. :-) I'll say this: Apple's hype machine has actually made me not want to find the secret before Monday. Oh sure I'm looking, and if it's out, I wana know, but I'm kind of hoping Apple can keep it under wraps until the moment of the unveiling. Like the iMac. I didn't know, even though I worked in the office that was doing all the print work. There was just this room that was always off limits. I want a key to that room...

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For the truly anal (and those who can get movie 3 to play) try going frame-by-frame. when the person touches the disk, rotating the apple logo, watch carefully. The logo is straight down, the finger touches, starts seeming to move the wheel, but the logo stays still, until after 5 frames it instantly jumps to where it should have been, but there's no blurring, and no corresponding finger movement. Looks like a glitch in teh CGI, though why someone would want to go through that much trouble... Also, it seems doubtful that the site would post for three days saying 'we have this confidential video. We're just making sure it's real before we post it...' acting as a beacon for Apple to step in if they really had something.

If it's a fake, it's the best I've ever seen. If it's not, there's some darn strange stuff going on. Also, the trim around the edge of the monitor often obscures the edge of the screen, including menus and other interface elements. doesn't seem like something Apple would do...

Please live up to the hype.

You've gotta be curious. I really hope it's not a letdown...

This nice little blog entry sums up a lot of my own tech 2K1 thoughts nicely. Sure, I want my hovercar, but I'd settle for an extra lane down 880 in Fremont.