The Apple of My Eye

As a part-time web designer, I, of course, work on a Mac. The iMac from about 2005 that I have (a dinosaur in computer time) died a slow and painful death about a month ago. All was backed up by Hubby on his server in the basement, once again making me really feel for people who don't have a computer genius in the house.

After combing craigslist for nearly new Macs, and with a birthday coming up, we decided I could splurge on a brand new iMac. I ordered the 24-inch screen, 4 gigs of memory (I'm a memory hog when I work), loads of other things that don't matter as much, and got a free printer thrown in with the deal. Oh, joy!

This was September 26th.

I calculated the arrival to be on September 30th. Instead of a delivery, I received the first of many phone calls from Kevin at MacMall.

"I'm sorry, but we are out of iMacs and Mac Minis because Apple is rumored to be announcing upgrades of these computers."

A bit of clarification -- unlike most companies which continue to produce an item and simply add a new item to their inventory, Apple stops manufacturing the model that it is planning to unveil in a new and improved version. Those models disappear from Apple stores and, unfortunately, from Kevin at MacMall. Then, everyone speculates about when Apple will roll out the newbies. So, I got caught up in the vortex of swirling anticipation that Steve Jobs creates every time he has a new release. After all, the new one is reported to be totally awesome and less expensive. All I have to do is be a little patient.

"Apple usually rolls out a new version of a model every 203 days. It's been 227 days for the iMac and the last upgrade didn't do much to improve, so, they must be coming out with something soon."

This is the kind of hard-hitting, reliable intel you can get from the myriad Mac Rumor sites.

"They always announce a new release on Tuesdays."

"No, this year, it's going to be on Wednesday, October 7th."

October 7th came and went very quietly.

"Now they're saying October 9th."

Also quiet.

"Well, let's go back to the Tuesday idea -- October 13th."

Nothing.

After much discussion with Kevin (who has Mac colleagues, another dependable source of information), and dovetailing with the Tuesday idea, we decide that it must be October 20th. Another reason that it's got to be this time is that Microsoft is releasing a new version of it's operating system this week and Apple wants to steal their thunder.

Guess what happened yesterday, October 19th? Our friendly UPS driver delivered an "old" iMac to my house.

Hmm...I am both excited and angry. I was waiting patiently! What are they doing sending me the computer I ordered?

I call Kevin.

Me: "How can this be? I thought there weren't any more 'old' iMacs."

Kevin: "Don't open it" he says conspiratorily. "They're going to announce tomorrow."

So, today is D-Day, or, should I say "A-Day".

Think of me when they make the announcement on the news, or don't.