Are you finding those forty-pound iMacs too unwieldy to work into your juggling act? Do you yearn for a consumer desktop Mac light enough to rest on a large cube of Jell-O without compromising its structural integrity? A couple of weeks ago, when Steve revealed that the newest thing about the latest models was the return of "Snow," did you need to fight the impulse to throw yourself under a city bus? Did you need to fight the impulse to throw Steve under a city bus? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then you're likely suffering from LCD iMac Impatience Syndrome, a nonfatal but potentially upsetting condition.

Fear not, though-- your wait is at an end! Faithful viewer Nathaniel Chaar notes that ZDNet has scooped the rest of the world on this one: their posted specs for the 600 MHz iMac clearly indicate that the system ships with a 15-inch LCD monitor. So there you have it, people; the LCD iMac is here, but in all the excitement, Steve evidently just forgot to tell us during the keynote. Don't be too hard on him, though-- the man's got a lot on his mind these days.

We know what you're thinking: "But AtAT, I've seen the new iMacs, and they are very clearly the same 'Kihei' models we've had for two years. They are big and heavy. Their screens are CRTs. Trust me on this one." Hold up a sec, here; are you impugning the reliability of ZDNet's Mac information? Just because the organization recently made the questionable decision to "de-emphasize" its Mac coverage, that doesn't mean that it doesn't still apply the most rigorous standards to its journalism and fact-checking procedures. If those folks say the 600 MHz iMac has an LCD, then it's got an LCD-- end of story.

Oh, wait... we've just noticed that the specs are actually part of a review for the iMac 600 MHz Special Edition-- in other words, the top-of-the-line "Wacky Patterns" model released last February. You realize what this means, don't you? The iMac has had an LCD display for over five months now! While that undeniable fact may appear to fly in the face of all observable fact, we figure that Apple is using some sort of secretly-developed LCD panel that manages to reproduce the color fidelity and non-blurring resolution-switching capabilities of a traditional CRT. Unfortunately, it also appears to have inherited the CRT's weight, size, and power consumption-- but heck, you can't have everything. Hang in there, and eventually Apple will probably transition to more "traditional" LCD displays in its iMacs, thus improving the computing experiences of novelty jugglers and lovers of gelatin-based furniture everywhere.