See? All good things come to those who wait-- and luckily for everybody in the Mac community, evidently that guideline applies equally whether one shuts up and waits patiently or complains constantly and fidgets like a ferret with a painful rash. As pointed out by faithful viewer clayromer, Apple has finally announced what we've all been speculating about for months, now: new Power Macs. And while those of you who ignored our advice and had your hopes up for a quad-G5 system running at 2.8 GHz may be slightly disappointed by the specs that have actually materialized here on this plane of reality, we're actually pretty psyched about these new systems.

As it turns out, that leaked PDF was evidently totally legit, because the specs were dead-on accurate: Apple's new Power Macs ship in 800 MHz, 933 MHz, and dual-1 GHz flavors; all models have 256 or 512 MB of RAM standard; all systems but the low-end one come with SuperDrives; and the entry-level model has ATI RADEON 7500 graphics, while the two higher-end systems boast the long-awaited nVIDIA GeForce4 MX. (Here's an interesting little tidbit: all of Apple's new Power Macs support dual displays right out of the box.) There's a nice Mac OS X-native software bundle, too, including the standard iApps plus a slew of third-party stuff like PixelNhance and GraphicConverter-- no, it's not Photoshop, but heck, who can wait until that finally ships in the year 2084? (Plus, we'll be too busy dodging Grunts, Brains, and Hulks to use it.)

The news gets better when you check out the prices. Granted, the 800 MHz config might still look a smidge anemic at $1599, but that 933 MHz model with a SuperDrive and a GeForce4 is a solid deal at $2299-- and the tricked-out dual-1 GHz unit is an absolute steal at $2999. Take it from your friendly neighborhood AtAT staff, who just got the credit card bill for that dual-800 MHz G4 we bought for $500 more last month (ow); three grand for 15 gigaflops' worth of performance, a SuperDrive, a comfortable arsenal of bundled software, and a 64 MB video subsystem that supports two monitors and pushes over a billion textured pixels per second is one spanking nice deal. Trust us. And if you value price over top-of-the-line performance, MacMinute reports that you can score some sweet deals on yesterday's models-- like a dual-800 MHz G4 for $2499, or a solid thousand bucks off. (Double ow.)

Best of all is the availability date: now. As in, now, now. The Apple Store is dishing out estimated ship dates of 5-7 days for the entry-level model and 1-3 days on the other two, but a quick call to our local Apple retail store confirmed that they had all three models in stock, just waiting to be taken home; the only G4-based iMacs in the store, on the other hand, were the demo models. So chalk up one more reason to get a Power Mac instead of a new iMac: pure, unadulterated impatience. So what are you waiting for? Amass that debt!

Not that you'll have to wait particularly long if you've still got your eye on the 800 MHz iMac, mind you; Apple issued another press release today indicating that the high-end iMac-- the one with an 800 MHz G4, a SuperDrive, and a flat-panel display "that floats in mid-air" (but don't get too excited; you can totally see the wire)-- has just started shipping, thus meeting Steve's original "end of the month" directive. We're not entirely sure what the phrase "has begun shipping" necessarily indicates from a practical perspective, but we can hazard a guess and assume that the very first pre-orders are being filled, and that Apple retail stores will probably start getting some iMacs in stock by the end of the week. (A store representative would only say "soon.")

As far as we're concerned, though, happy as we are that the new iMac is finally shipping, that's not the real news in that press release. We're far more jazzed by the revelation that Apple has racked up "a record-breaking 150,000 pre-orders for the new iMac since its introduction three weeks ago today." What th--?! That's fifty grand a week, people! That's over seven thousand a day, nearly three hundred an hour, about five every minute, or one each and every twelve seconds since the Stevenote, nonstop. That's huge. Actually, scratch that-- it's Huge's big brother, Staggering.

Let's break it down another way: Phil Schiller notes that Apple has now scored more G4 iMac pre-orders in three weeks than it booked original iMac preorders in the entire three months between that product's introduction and its ship date back in 1998. Considering that the original Bondi Blue Wonder turned out to be a smashing sales success by pretty much everyone's criteria, Apple's iMac: The Next Generation looks like it's going to be a star of utterly cosmic proportions. This, we can only assume, is a Very Good Thing™.

So much for any concerns we had that the new design wouldn't catch on; clearly it's caught on in a big way with the people who count-- namely, the ones trying desperately to suppress their salivary reflex long enough to pry open their wallets and whip out the plastic. Kudos to Steve and the inimitable Mr. Ive. How could we have ever doubted you? (Oh... that Cube thing. Right. Never mind.)

Hey, let's go back to that whole Power Mac thing for a second, and discuss the Promo That Wouldn't Die. When Apple first introduced the "Crystal Clear Savings" promotion last year, it promised $100, $300, or $500 back by mail to customers who bought an Apple display with a Power Mac G4-- the more expensive the G4, the bigger the rebate. The deal was originally slated to end on December 31st, prompting everyone on the planet to assume that this was an exercise in clearing inventory, and new Power Macs were likely to surface at Macworld Expo in early January. So far, so good.

But then, about two weeks before that promo was set to expire, suddenly it gained a new lease on life, and was extended through the end of January. That's when some people started to get a bad feeling about the prospects of new Power Macage at the Expo; as it turns out, they were right, and so we struggled through the show sans new pro workstations. But here we are, just a few days before the end of the Crystal Clear Savings promo's borrowed time, and bickety-bam, new Power Macs! Good deal. So it's adios to Crystal Clear Savings, right?

Well, sort of. Because while that specific deal may well have vanished from Apple's promotions page, faithful viewer Oded points out that a new one has arisen from its ashes, and it looks mighty familiar somehow. This one's dubbed "Screen Saver," and it offers-- ready for this?-- $100, $300, or $500 back by mail to customers who buy an Apple display with a Power Mac G4 between now and March 31st. It's like déjà vu all over again.

So does this mean, perhaps, that the new Power Macs are just stopgaps, and that the "real" new Power Macs (say, G5s) will be at the Tokyo Expo? Not so fast, there, Sparky-- there's a subtle difference with this new promo. This time around, the rebate amount depends on which display you buy, not which Power Mac. (Indeed, the "old" 733/867/dual-800 MHz G4s are eligible, meaning you can score a really sweet deal right now if you don't need the latest and greatest.) If anything, we'd think that this new promo implies that Apple may be planning to revise its display line sometime soon. A bigger Cinema Display come Seybold, perhaps? Or maybe cheaper 15-inchers come Tokyo? The mind reels...