[griffman]

Macworld (and every other Mac publication and website) does not get advanced notice of new hardware from Apple. You can read lots of rumors in various spots, but we don't report on rumors (since they're just that, and not news).
So nobody other than Apple could have told you exactly when the new iMac was coming, at least not officially. Rumor sites might sometimes give you a brief heads up, but they're often wrong, too.
-rob.

[lkalliance]

Monggomery, just found this...
How technicians access the internals of the new iMac

[maint1]

Hi,
I know I'm not Jonathan Seff but I wanted to respond about your hand pain.
Have you considered doing these exercises?
http://www.eatonhand.../ctexercise.htm
I do a variation of these whre I gently pull my hand back by the fingers and hold it for 30 seconds.
It makes my wrists feel loose and comfortable and I don't have any pain.
Hope it helps.

[JDW]

THE BAD
Jonathan Ive has clearly missed the mark with the latest iMacs. "Hides the iSight" or "it looks like an LCD television" is rotten excuse to justify that ugly black bezel around the screen -- and to think Apple is renown for its "beauty" in industrial design! Remember the wonder of the G4 Cube's design? What happened with these new iMacs!?
The jury is still out on that keyboard too. While smaller is better, I'm not really one for body-slammed keys, regardless of how "great" some people say they feel when pressed. Indeed, most of those same people are or were PowerBook owners and have gotten accustomed to portable keyboards. I doubt those of us with a love for full sized desktop keyboards could come to love this -- push a key and your finger goes down all of a millimeter or two. Even so, I don't consider the keyboard to be as bad as that black bezel around the screen! However, white keys are bad. I've got a white-key iMac here in the office and it looks black now. And we wash our hands. Shame on Apple for putting beauty above practicality. Dirt happens. Black keys wouldn't look that bad, and they wouldn't show dirt so clearly as white keys do! Get sensible, Ive! Stop listening to Philip W. Schiller when designing new Macs!
Gotta love those glossy screen REFLECTIONS! (Here are some AppleInsider photos.) It's the perfect example of why NOT to get a glossy screen. But more than just that, Apple clearly designed the new iMacs as a money-grab. For no sensible graphics person will go for a glossy screen. Reflections are bad enough, but now your colors will be so saturated it's impossible to calibrate or get accurate color! The only option for a non-glossy screen is the Mac Pro and its outrageous profit margins for Apple! Money-grab, plain and simple.
The so-called "New" design is largely unchanged from the old iMac design. I'm talking about body form factor here, not materials like aluminum or trimming a couple millimeters here and there. Squint your eyes when looking at the previous iMac body and this new one, and you see the same form factor. I was expecting something more radically different. Like the difference between the suspended LCD iMac and the current version, or the difference between the CRT iMac and the suspended LCD version. But alas, we still have the same body shape. There's still a wide bezel around the screen (Apple has simply made it black to make us think it's not there), and there's that fat chin at the bottom. I thought Apple would get rid of that once and for all, but they still insist on throwing it in our faces. Indeed, this is yet another "money grab" in that this "new" change is cheaper to implement on the manufacturing side than a major change (like the iPod mockup we've all seen around the web). Some may try to argue it's not cheaper, but if that were true, Apple would not have knocked $200 off the high end model. They are saving money somewhere. But even if they aren't, the new design still looks bad in my opinion.
Gee, I can't say enough "BAD" about that black bezel. It's eating away at me. It reminds me of those old CRT radiation/anti-glare screens people with no design sense use to carelessly slap on their poor Mac Plus or SE machines! How I hated those things! They look terrible. And now Apple puts a black bezel around the new iMac's screen to bring all those memories back! Ack!
Can no longer swap out the video card on the high end model as you could on the previous 24" iMac.
No LED backlighting. This is a MAJOR, major omission. Did I say "major"? Major! Cost smost! They should have used LED backlighting.
No option for a second internal hard drive inside the spaceous 24" model. Why need another? Because of OS 10.5 and its new backup software. Sure, you can add an external. But the beauty of these "compact" machines will be lost when adding a mess of external peripherals. But a secondary backup drive INSIDE for goodness sakes! Yes, I know you can do that with a Mac Pro. But we are talking about iMacs here. Yes, even poor people who can only afford an iMac (or rich people who simple want the compact size and beauty of it) could still stand to benefit from a secondary internal hard drive.
You're gonna have to pay extra for OS 10.5 when it comes out, because these new iMacs currently don't ship with it! The solution to this one is easy though. Just wait a few months more until it does come out and buy your iMac at that time.

THE GOOD
Pretty much everything else that I didn't harp on above. And clearly, you can see that I don't care about the lack of a keypad on the wireless keyboard like some. Who cares. Everyone knows a wired keyboard and mouse are more reliable than wireless, and you don't have to swap batteries every couple months either. The 2.8GHz processor on the high end model is superb. Decent video card too, even if it's not swappable.
Don't think me overly pessimistic here. My list of BADs are longer than THE GOOD, but that's just the way Apple made it turn out. I've loved Apple and its industrial designs since 1984. But these new iMacs send shivers up my spine. Please also don't think me "unrealistic" in my expectations either. It's not like a asked for a QUAD CPU or flash drive. I realize those are not cost effective for the iMac line and will come in time. But for the life of me, I wanted to like the iMac. It just wasn't mean to be. And so we wait until the next major revision comes out. Ah well... Back to my G4 Beauty-Cube! :-)

[Ryan2005]

I did not see the 24 inch IMac but I was very concerned about the green cast from the screen of the new 20 inch IMac. Took a picture of myself using the monitors camera under quartz lights and there was the green tinge which should have occurred. Looked at images from the web and it was there on the images as well. This was confirmed with the Apple salesman helping me. Went to the Disply Profile in the Preference File and only one profile (not the default or IMac) looked good before and after we did an Apple quick and dirty calibration.
The contrast did not seem as good as the older IMac. When you compared them side by side, you would see in an Apple preference window the line around a field for inputing information was not completely visible on the new IMac compared to one it replaces. Text looked anorexic on the new 20 inch IMacs finder widows.
I hope the new LED Cinema Displays don't have this green tinge when they come out.

[swokm]

Okkay. Well, your gripes are different from mine (posted elsewhere) about the new iMac, but I agree that white keyboard keys are an inherently bad idea, and have been since the Apple //c (or, "how I learned not to eat cheetos during an epic bards tale game as a child"). Also internally, it appears to be much similar. This bodes not well for upgrades of the Hard Drive.
As for everything else, I think have some pretty good ideas. Maybe not. Let's see:
- The Fearsome Black Bezel. I do not understand why you fear the Fearsome Black Bezel so, but I hear your tortured plea loud and clear. But let's turn this problem on it's head, shall we? If we cannot defeat the Fearsome Black Bezel, why not join it? 1) The disassembly procedures are pictured in another post, but removing the WHITE SURROUND is quite easy. 2) I recommend one can of "Krylon Fusion for Plastic, Flat Black #2519" in a well ventilated area. 3) Done! See, now there is no Fearsome Black Bezel, but instead a uniformly pleasing, iPhone-like black iMac, with a stimulating flat black front that matches the back. Ahh, surely that is why the Creator intended cheap petroleum. Although the chosen foe of my brethren is apparently the WHITE SURROUND, I too have a powerful dislike of 3 colors/textures on the same device (has the world gone mad?! Heresy!). We should join forces, together we can restore the monotone duopoly!

- Glossy Screen/Glass cover. Similarly, there exist thin plastic sheets, or spray coatings that will restore anti-glare status to your monitor (you could even again rely on our friend Krylon, but I am only aware of a clear matte spray for printed pages--the results with a monitor would be excitingly unknown). If it is color calibration that concerns, the glass cover is only held on by magnets, simple to remove.
- The Chin of Death (ie. Lenophobia). This malady appears to be common, and spreading quickly! If only we could reach these people to say, "Do not fear the Chin, for does not the laptop also posses a Chin of its own, merely folded in front of itself? Verily, perhaps it is the Creators' intention that all things must a Chin posses for the storing of the blessed Power circuitry." Alas, this plea cannot be heard in the ears of the afflicted.
- "They are saving money somewhere". Are you sure? Apple saving money? Somehow that doesn't taste right to my tongue... Still, if what you say is true, I submit that failing to provide a more decent video card option may well represent the difference.
- No LED. I think I speak for us all when I say that we ALL would like a 24" 133 dpi LED panel. I do not believe that they have been invented yet. In fact, word of a 24" LED of any make has yet to reach my ears.
- Backup. I.. don't understand. You mean, backing up to the Drive of 800 Firewires and placing that Drive in a separate safe location is a bad idea? Surely you jest! How is one to... say, make safe that data... if this "backup" is also always inside the iMac, and mounted, when one of the overzealous young Apple Cult brothers decants a tankard of Mountain Dew inside? I think you do jest--ha! I've spotted your sly ruse, and it amuses me muchly!
All in all a fine test you have put forth! I can only hope I've provided some small measure of light to these dark problems.
Your Brother
Swokm
Acolyte in the Cult of Mac in service to our Lord Fashion.
/forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
(Note to self... no more espresso after 7pm... gone too far, I'm sure...)

[JDW]

[indent]Quote:

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- Backup. I.. don't understand. You mean, backing up to the Drive of 800 Firewires and placing that Drive in a separate safe location is a bad idea? Surely you jest! How is one to... say, make safe that data... if this "backup" is also always inside the iMac, and mounted, when one of the overzealous young Apple Cult brothers decants a tankard of Mountain Dew inside?

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[/indent]
I appreciate your other comments, but this one demands a formal rebuttal...
Think about why Apple designed its backup software in OS 10.5 the way it did. Think. No really. Think 2-3 minutes and then come back and read the rest of my post...
Did you think? If not, then go watch the video of where Jobs shows of Time Machine and explains clearly as to why they made it. Answer? Because most people are too lazy to do the right thing.
In your post to me, you are taking the stance of "doing the right thing." In a perfect world, yes, we all would move backups off-site. But the reality is that people don't and won't. You have to make it as easy as breathing for most computer users to backup. In other words, backup needs to occur automatically and seamlessly. To argue against this means you must argue against Apple's logic behind the Time Machine concept itself.
Time Machine provides the software side of the backup solution, but you need a hardware side too: a second hard drive. That's where Apple's wisdom and logic falls short. Steve Jobs just finished telling us the wisdom behind Time Machine, and I agree with it: people don't do what's right, so let's solve that deficiency with technology. And yet, Steve falls short of bringing that logic and wisdom full circle. He still relies on people to do the right thing: buy another hard drive and connect it externally to your Mac. It may sound simple, but it's not. My father, for example, probably wouldn't go out and buy that external drive, even if I told him to. Heck, he wouldn't even connect it if I bought it for a Christmas gift -- I would have to do that too!
So for the same reasons Apple created Time Machine in the first place, you need to have a convenience and seamless solution to the secondary hard drive issue. With two drives already inside your iMac, the problem is solved. No, not the problem of "how does one take the backup off-site before Mountain Dew hits it?" But the problem of "MAKING a backup in the first place" is solved. And for 90% of computer users today, simply MAKING a backup will be a major first step. And how important a step it would be, even if one doesn't do the right thing and take it off site.
Of course, there are other considerations too, but you may not be interested in those because you are a man who "does the right thing" all the time with respect to proper backups. But I will state those additional considerations for everyone else reading: fewer power cords, fewer wires overall, no extra desk space allocation need, no worries about incompatibilities because Apple supplied that 2nd hard drive and will support it. With an internal drive, everything is clean and neat -- what the iMac was designed to be. Or did you not watch Jobs introduce the new iMacs on video? He showed the wire rats nets behind your typical DELL. He then showed the single wire coming out the back of the iMac (not including the keyboard wire and mouse wire). He emphasized the cleanness of the design. An internal secondary backup drive will "keep it clean" and it will largely be dummy-proof too.
I could go on and on about this, but I believe you see my point. The concept behind a secondary INTERNAL hard drive is most certainly NOT rooted in utter foolishness as you suggest. It complements the iMac & Time Machine's concepts perfectly.

[swokm]

Well, I would think about it but I've never used Time Machine or 10.5. But I will take your word for it that Apple intends for a "streaming backup" model, or at least a separate backup volume that is always connected. It kind of sounds like something Apple would do. They are a blessing and a curse.
But I still maintain that it's not a very good backup. It's not that hard to do it the right way, either. I set up a watch folder that triggers a backup Applescript of my parents User folders, and the main Library whenever a particular firewire drive is plugged in. All they know is once a month, an iCal appointment tells them to get the drive out of a drawer and plug it in. There is a progress bar, then a dialog that says "Done! Put the drive back in the drawer." and unmounts the volume.
Still I know what you mean, that part of the Mac experience is just doing Apple's default way with no scripts or messing around. My parents would NOT have set that up by themselves, even with phone assistance. But I still strongly encourage those that are able to even burn a DVD-RW DL or USB flash drive by dragging your most vital folders to it and keep it lonely. I say this because I got bitten HARD. And my backup drive was faithfully plugged in and mounted -- needlessly, I might add -- so it was hosed too. Not that I was smart enough to back up within the last 2 months, anyway.... A painful lesson I hope everyone else can learn from and avoid, that's all.
To me, that is the "quick and dirty, better than nothing approach". In my silliness, however, I was not implying that you were somehow wrong or foolish. Far from it. I'll be interested to learn as much as you have about Time Machine when it comes out. I think we agree on much "any backup is better than no backup", but I would say we differ on how much an external 2.5" firewire drive (one cord) would bother us aesthetically on a 24" iMac. I don't think I'd feel it was too cluttered, and I'd rather do that than double the size of the back of the iMac. Of course, I think the mere suggestion of a 2xHD iMac would cause the Steve to faint As the current title of the Apple page reads, "You can't be too thin or too powerful." <gag>. Nice message to the kiddies there, Apple. I digress.
Perhaps, for your father, a large drive with a separate partition? I just don't know much about Time Machine, and normally don't recommend partitions and mac at all, but would that be suitable as a backup volume? Space, outside of storing LOTS of video, is cheap these days. Not exactly a RAID5 with 2 spares, but as you say, it would be a start.
PS. "you may not be interested in those because you are a man who "does the right thing" all the time" -- made me laugh so hard I almost snorted water on my ancient cube. See, danger abounds!! I'm glad you saw humor in my teasing about the black surround; I've no idea why your concern of that struck me sooo funny!!

[Nobody]

Dave,
I'm also interested in buying an iMac with 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme (mobile processor). However, that CPU hasn't been released yet. You can find more at Wikipedia, and Intel Press Room. According to one of these sources, 2.8 GHz CPU is expected for release on Sep 2, 2007. Which is good, since I don't live in the US, and it takes from two weeks to a month for new Apple products to reach my country's (Croatia) market.

[steve333]

How can you not notice the glare? I tried one and I can see myself in it! I admit the screen image is nice but the glare is more than obvious. Apple screwed up-couldnt they have at least used a antiglare coating on the screen?
The keyboard I liked-good spacing between keys and good touch. The mouse still sucks.

[phadams]

[indent]Quote:

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I'm also interested in buying an iMac with 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme (mobile processor). However, that CPU hasn't been released yet.

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[/indent]
Hmm, I guess someone forgot to tell Apple that, since my 24-inch iMac 2.8 GHz Core 2 Extreme is on its way to me at this very moment -- estimated delivery: Tue, 14 Aug. Or are you referring to another processor?

[thedaveed]

I was at an Apple store yesterday and I could see the lights from the store's ceiling in the imac's screen. I found it distracting, I have a low tolerance for distraction. I don't want to see myself, or my furniture or my windows when my screen image gets dark.

[mfoto]

Anyone that works professionally with photographic images will tell you that a glossy monitor is the WORST thing to have in your computer because they change the brightness and color reproduction of the images. That Apple decided to only make the iMac with a glossy monitor means that this machine is NOT for professional work but for home-use. They made a big mistake with this decision as they limit the amount of people that could be using them.