Briefly: iMac demand skyrockets, Tiger features, more...

Demand for Apple Computer's new all-in-one iMac G5 has risen sharply over the last 3 weeks, according to information gathered from internal company data. The surge in demand is currently far exceeding available supply of the computers, and shows few signs of slowing, leading insiders to believe the iMac is poised to become a hot seller this holiday season.

The company's iBook consumer laptops are also in strong demand after being refreshed last month. However, the iBook remains a G4-based computer and will likely see a supply and demand balance before G5-based iMac, due to constraints associated with the G5 microprocessor. Apple's remaining computer hardware offerings appear to be in good supply entering into November.

Tiger Tidbits

With recent seeds of Apple's forthcoming Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" operating system, sources have noted several key enhancements for troubleshooting applications that unexpectedly quit on the user.

"If an application unexpectedly quits in Tiger, a dialog box appears, asking if you wish to relauch the application," says one source. "Many people evaluating the new seeds realize this. But maybe what they don't notice is that if the application immediately quits again, a new dialog asks if the user would like to 'Try Again' with the application's settings temporarily reverted to their default state." This feature reportedly works nicely in the pre-released builds and is being received warmly by the developer community.

Meanwhile, multiple sources have reported on the presence of Tiger's Spoken Interface (VoiceOver), which apparently kicks on in the pre-released builds when a user fails to provide required system input.

"Just wanted to let you guys know that after setting my machine to install the new build of Tiger, I left my desk for a while," one source explaind. "When I came back it had finished and was at the start screen waiting for me to setup my Mac. I'm not sure if this is default, but I think after it waited a certain time without input it started speaking, because when I got back to my desk it was speaking to me telling me what to do."

Sun Swipes Apple Director of Server Software

Sun Microsystems has hired a new vice president of marketing for its Solaris operating system, luring Tom Goguen from Apple Computer, CNet News.com is reporting. Goguen had worked for Sun on the Solaris OS in the 1990s and most recently returned to company on Monday. At Apple, Goguen was director of server software in the company's Worldwide Product Marketing group.