It was little surprise that today’s event focused on the iMac. Still in many ways the flagship of Apple’s line, the all-in-one-desktop-that-could is nine years old now, and it’s gone through three major revisions. As much as I’d like to say that today heralded the fourth, the truth is that it was little more than an evolution to the existing product line—albeit a very shiny, pretty one.
Jobs spoke about the two major design components that go into the iMac: aluminum and glass. Aluminum has long been a material of choice in Apple’s products, from the PowerBooks to the iPhone; like glass, it has a high-end elegant appeal to it. And so, those are the two elements that they’re bring to the iMac line: “Consumers have told us that they love the glass and aluminum.” Plus, aluminum and glass are both very desirous from a recycling point of view.
That’s all well and good when it comes to exteriors, but what about performance? You might be tempted to judge these books by their silvery covers, but the truth of the matter is that these machines are no slouch under the hood. They feature Core 2 Duo processors up to 2.4GHz, up to 1TB of hard drive storage, up to 4GB of memory, the usual complement of 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.0. Graphics support will come in the form of an ATI Radeon HD Graphics cards.
As for model lines, the 17” has been dropped in favor of two 20” units costing $1199 and $1499 and featuring 2.0GHz and 2.4 GHz processors respectively. The 24” unit is down to $1799 from $1999, and also has a 2.4GHz chip. Both the $1199 and $1499 have 1GB of RAM standard. The usual set of ports completes the unit, with 3 USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 and 800, Gigabit Ethernet, audio in and out, and video out via mini DVI.
From a peripheral standpoint, what we’ve seen of the new keyboard appears to be true. “You might have seen this on the web,” Jobs quipped during the presentation. There’ll be dedicated keys for brightness, expose, dashboard, and media playback, and there’ll be a wireless keyboard and mouse option as well. The Bluetooth version of the keyboard will eschew a numeric keypad for compact size.
All the models are available starting today, as soon as the Apple Store goes back up.
[Image via Engadget]
that's the same ugly iMac with a new enclosure.
where did their creativeness go?
I actually think it looks great... somehow more futuristic. Especially with its thinness and the sexy new keyboard.
Minor correction.... The 24 incher has a 2.8 model... so they go up to 2.8 now :)
Yuck. That was my first impression. I do not like the new design. I am going to hang onto my lovely all-white imac as long as possible.
I also read the user comments over at macworld.com and out of over 50 comments, only one person commented on the appearane positively. There were no negatives. But, out of 50+ comments, hardly anyone commented on the appearance.
I think the new iMacs are ugly, and I'm glad I bought mine when I did. Everytime I look at the new iMac I have an insatiable urge to order a Chipotle' burrito. Brushed metal looked futuristic back in the 70's; why is Apple pushing the metallic look when other companies are using ergonomic plastic designs that are more enticing? Is there a Shapshifter for hardware? On the flipside, I might upgrade my Mac Mini server.