Heads up, everyone; with new iMacs almost certain to strut their CD-burning stuff at next week's Macworld Expo, it's already time to start thinking about what the less immediate future holds for Apple's cuddly consumer desktop system. Next week's models aren't likely to be much more than the existing units with CD-RW drives, more RAM, bigger hard drives, faster processors and graphics, and maybe a new hue or two-- but with the same basic chassis and design. But will this be it? There's little argument that the iMac's look is getting old, so after next week's revision, will Apple try to counter a sagging personal computer market (and flagging iMac sales, to boot) by turning the iMac into something decidedly other?

Let's consider the possibilities for a minute. There's the long-rumored 17-inch iMac, whose advocates hope would counter the growing feeling that the iMac's existing 15-inch screen is just too small. There's also the "monitorless iMac" idea that's been kicked around so much, which would let customers pick their own screen size, while freeing up Apple's industrial design folks to play around with a smaller footprint. And then there's that ol' LCD iMac concept, which has long been proposed as a great way to revitalize the line into the Next Big Thing™. Which, if any, of these are in the cards when Apple decides to shake things up a bit?

Well, if you believe Mac OS Rumors (and notice, of course, that we said "if"), in the shorter term, the 17-incher's the best bet. Monitorless iMacs would do a lot to wreck the system's "there's no step three" ease-of-use reputation, so that's pretty much a no-go, and LCD panels are still way too pricey to slap into a consumer-priced iMac. So MOSR states that the next iMac will feature a "larger, high-resolution display" without specifying a size, though we can't see Apple using anything larger than 17 inches-- and smaller would, uh, sort of defeat the purpose.

But the larger-display iMac won't just be today's iMac on steroids. Rumor has it that Apple is moving the ports closer to the front of the unit, while peppering the enclosure with "a denser arrangement of cooling vents." Oh, and about that enclosure? Apparently Apple's recent move away from curves (the Cube, the PowerBook G4) is filtering down into realm of the once-cuddly iMac, as well; prototype future iMacs feature "a more angular shape," and some even have "a smattering of exposed metal surfaces" to create "a more futuristic, industrial look." Zounds! Shades of Good Terminator at the end of T2! Sounds like the iMac's time as "the cute computer" might well be drawing to a close.