New iMac

Apple just announced the new iMac. It's neat. My computer works fine, so I'm not like "OOO, I want one!" I mean, sure, I want one, but I can't afford that right now.

Cost for these new iMacs are:
Low end: $1199 (2.0GHz, 1Mb RAM, 250Gb Hard drive)
High end: $2299 (2.8GHz, 2Gb RAM, 500Gb Hard drive)

You can go to apple to check out everything about it, but I wanted to mention some things I really like about it.

Apple keeps working to make their machines better and better, and this time they've come up with some nice things.

The design looks similar to their last iMac. I've got a friend who has one and he loves that his desk is not cluttered. Having one of these new computers would not keep my desk from being cluttered.

Remote Control
First thing that caught my eye was the remote control they added. You can control iTunes, DVDs whatever. That's great. My wife and I watch movies on my machine because it's the biggest screen in the house (Apple Studio 21").

There is also something called Bonjour instant networking technology which is great too. The claim is that the iMac will find any computers networked and connect them automatically. I'm assuming that means I wouldn't have to have duplicate MP3 libraries on each machine. That's nice.

Built in Camera
Next thing that caught my eye was the built in iSight camera and microphone. Not much to say here except that it's built in. This is smart, considering there's so many people doing podcasts and video blogging. Just a nice option.

Big Hard Drives
You can upgrade the hard drive space to up to 1 Terabyte. That is huge. Looks like the minimum is 250Gb, which considering my first computer (LCIII) had 16 Megabytes. A terabyte is 1000 Gigabytes (1,000,000,000,000 bytes for you windows users).

The processors are faster too. Looks like up to 2.8Mhz. That pretty fast. It seems like Apple is gearing more towards the music and film industry with these fast processors. Ever noticed how many Macs you see in movies and TV? A director friend told me it was a sort of nod to Mac because Macs are used so much in movie making. I'm sure it has something to do with product placement too.

Monitors
Those monitors are sure pretty. Their tech specs say something about 160 degree viewing angle and I'm assuming that means you don't have to be right in front of the machine to view what's displayed. That's nice.

Mighty Mouse
Last thing that caught my eye was the included mouse. There's a multi-directional scroll ball that claims 360 degree scrolling, and touch sensitive technology fro the right- and left-click buttons. These are cool little innovations. I know Apple has been working on touch screen technology, and I'm hoping to see a mouse that is based on touch screen technology sometime soon.

Well, if this post has made you want an Apple, here's a little help with the transition.

Hope this helps.

What do you think?
1. What Mac are you using right now?
2. Do you wait to upgrade your OS or do it as soon as it's released?
3. Do you remember how much you paid for your first Mac?