Wired on Friday: By the time you read this, if the rumour sites are right, Apple will have announced Mac OS X 10.4, codenamed "Tiger": the update to its desktop operating system.
If Apple hasn't, then you can be assured it will be along in the next few days. The spies that cluster around the secretive company's headquarters have noted the wrap parties, marked the number of developers taking vacations, and made their predictions.
Mac OS X, judging from the preview versions that I, by paying great heed to Apple's terrifying non-disclosure agreements, have in no way seen close-up, is an impressive piece of work.
It incorporates some smart new technologies, including desktop search, dozens of speedier and improved applications, and enough flashy eye candy to attract yet more disgruntled ex-PC users to the company's chic cult.
But Tiger's splashy entrance may well hide a more tempting long-term attractor for the company. Mac OS X Server, the upscale version of the operating system, will also shortly receive an upgrade. Server software is the dull, workaday cousin to the operating systems you see on desktop machines. It's designed to do the heavy-lifting: handling mail, running large network file stores, web servers, databases, run printers, and maintain local area networks.
That Mac OS X has a server version has always seemed awkward. In a world dominated by Microsoft's Windows 2000 range, and the upstart, Linux, Apple's traditional unique selling points have fallen by the wayside in the server industry.
Mac OS X's grounding is good - it is based on BSD, one of the popular free server operating systems. But what's built on top has less appeal. Beautiful graphics aren't much use, if your computer doesn't have a monitor. Out-of-the-box usability isn't a premium when your servers are run by professional system administrators who aren't scared of documentation, strange error messages, or nervous employees asking for more disk space.
That hasn't stopped Apple from trying. A few years ago, it released XServe, a version of its top-end Mac, retooled to fit in the ceiling-high racks that hold most servers. It was an anomaly in both worlds: a server that looked good and an Apple product that was relatively cheap for its target audience.
XServe starts selling at $3000 (€2,317), which gives you an idea what "cheap" looks like in this market.
It's not entirely clear how well the XServe has done. It drew a few fans in the academic world, who use stacks of them to pursue super-computing calculations, and anecdotal evidence suggests that a few Mac-only shops appreciated the introduction of a server range. But it's never been high on any Apple-watchers list.
Mac OS X Server v10.4 could change that. Not because Apple will suddenly be making inroads into the server market, but because it may well have spotted a new market.
More and more people, it seems, want the sort of functions a server can provide, without necessarily wanting the big iron that has accompanied it. The classic example of this is the home user with more than one computer, and a DSL or dial-up connection. They want to share their net connection and printer, and they want to keep all their music files in one place.
When they're away, they want to be able to connect to their home computers and they want a firewall to protect those same computers from others online.
They may want to serve web pages from their home computer - doable via ahigh-speed broadband connection.
And, on the sly, they've been achieving all of this, out of the offcuts from the traditional server world. Some use Windows' server offerings; many have switched to Linux. But, recently, a growing minority of home server cravers have been buying an Apple-based server solution.
And the hardware platform for this revolution? Well, it's not the multi-thousand dollar price tag of the XServe. The computer that many of these part-time administrators will be using will be another monitorless, slim Apple product: the Mac mini, the company's dirt-cheap, home computer offering.
It's not obvious that the company planned it this way, but the first adoptors of the Mac mini have been, in many cases, geeks intent on making it perform server-like duties.
Instead of the desk-jockeys its small size was designed to impress, they've been stuffing it into closets as a home server.
It turns out that while the Mac mini has a slow processor and a small hard drive, even by home computing standards, the fact that it makes no noise, and can be slung almost anywhere, makes it an ideal 24/7, home or small business server.
One company has taken the idea of the mini server a step further, and offers to ship Mac minis into its own air-conditioned computing centre, where they are stacked and connected to a high-speed Net. You operate them remotely to run your web server and handle your mail.
When they crash, a representative of the company will reboot your mini. What nobody seems to know at this stage - including perhaps Apple - is whether the mini can cope with such constant, intense use.
But perhaps the first indicator that they think it might are the new additions: Mac OS X Server.
The new software makes nods to its traditional engineering and scientific audience.
It can cope with ridiculous amounts of memory, and large arrays of hard drives, but it also has software that lets it run, out of the box, a local network. Or administer and share a DSL line. Or a family of blogs. Or your own chat network.
These are not what the traditional, high-octane server market demands.
