New iMac launch date set? Rumor has it that August 7 - give or take a few days - is the date on or around which Apple plans to unveil its new line of Intel-based iMacs. The new Macs are said to sport a thinner metal enclosure, a sleeker but more powerful keyboard, and Intel's Core 2 Extreme mobile processor. The same rumor mill is churning out another tidbit: That the new video iPods will also be released on the same date. ThinkSecret adds that the new version of iLife may also appear on or around this rumored launch date.

August 7 also happens to be the 10th anniversary of Bill Gates' appearance at the 1997 Boston Macworld Expo.

Steve finally crowned king: Of the music geeks, that is. Blender magazine named Steve Jobs No. 1 among powergeeks in its recent survey of the most influential people in the digital music industry. "The iTunes Store and the iPod have done more to change the way people listen to music than anything since the CD, and maybe since the sound recording," said Blender editor in chief Craig Marks.

Suppliers duke it out over the iPhone: Two Taiwanese companies are vying for manufacturing contracts for current and future iPhones. Foxconn (aka Hon Hai Precision Industry) has been tagged as the current supplier, but another company, Quanta, wants in. According to a regional Taiwanese newspaper, Quanta is supposedly working with touchscreen supplier Wintek to make a lower-cost iPhone that would sell for between $249 and $299. Meanwhile, another report claims that a third company, Inventec, is tussling with Quanta to win the rights to manufacture the iPhone for the European market.

In other iPhone news: A new survey reports that nearly three quarters of non-iPhone owners immediately gained interest in it after watching a short demonstration of its widescreen video playback capabilities. Salon's Machinist shares links to instructions for creating your own iPhone ring tones, plus a list of iPhone bugs, which as of this writing number 68. OS Weekly investigates the iPhone's incompatibility with 64-bit Windows. The iPhone buzz keeps, well, buzzing as Blackfriars logs 20,497 news stories on Apple's hot new gadget. Just the other day we were wondering how long it would take for the iPhone to overwhelm Wi-Fi networks. And - thank goodness - Louis Vuitton has come out with iPhone cases.

Apple Stores sell more stuff: AppleInsider reports that Apple's 164 U.S. retail stores saw an uptick in sales for the third quarter of 2007, which ended June 30. Sales reached more than $715 million - slightly higher than the entire Apple retail segment, including international sales, for the third fiscal quarter of 2006. Even better, sources say, nearly every story met or beat internal sales targets for the quarter. New stores are set to open this weekend in Illinois, Massachusetts, and Michigan.

The question is whether this is a run of luck for Apple, or just part of a successful "zen" business plan

Apple files more patents: One is for a method of rendering user accounts portable. According to the patent: "The invention relates to improved approaches for enabling user accounts to be portable across different multi-user computer systems. A user account can be stored to an external, portable data store, and thus the user account becomes portable."

The second patent is for what seems to be a glowing touch pad, the goal of which Apple describes in the patent filing as an "improved feedback mechanism for touch pads."

In other news: An independent coder responsible for a new Mac OS X worm that's only been partially patched by Apple says he'll share details of his code so Apple can create a complete patch. Axiotron and Other World Computing's ModBook - a modification of the Apple MacBook that turns it into a tablet computer - has been delayed due to parts shortages. Check out CNET's list of 10 tech disappointments that had names much cooler than the products themselves. And, as kooky as it sounds, the Chinese really are doing tests to see if they can use rockets to disperse rain clouds to ensure a precipitation-free Olympics.