Speaking of those rampant iMac G5 rumors, we should probably clarify that while Apple's Tom Boger did, in fact, tell MacCentral that wedging a G5 into an iMac form factor would be "a heck of a challenge" on par with the creation of the PowerBook G5, and he did tell us not to expect a PowerBook G5 before 2005, he never explicitly stated that the iMac was a next-year product as well. What's more, the guy is actually Apple's Director of Power Mac Product Marketing, so we imagine he wouldn't necessarily know about what the iMac developers were working on from an engineering perspective. It's a thin straw, sure, but if you want to keep hope alive for an iMac G5 to debut onstage next to Steve on Monday, feel free to grasp at it. Ah, g'wan-- it's fun!

Got your suspension of disbelief mojo workin', now? Good, because AppleInsider reports that a channel flush of iMac inventory has been underway for a while now, and also claims to have new details about the product revision that should ship in "mid-July." According to AI, the new puppy will indeed be G5-based, packing single processors "at speeds below 2 GHz" into a "completely redesigned enclosure." (So much for the challenge of squeezing a G5 into the existing iMac chassis.) One AI source states that "the new iMac will sport a vertical 'pizza box' physique with the main logic board mounted vertically behind the computer's LCD screen." Sort of a "Spartacus Lives" concept, we guess.

While AI claims that an iMac G5 announcement may come "as early as" this Monday's Stevenote, it's careful not to make any promises-- which is just as well, because astute Apple-watchers may have noticed something a little fishy about the "vertical pizza box" iMac G5 design as reported. Namely, Ive has already admitted in interviews that he'd spent over a year working on a vertical-motherboard-behind-the-screen design for the iMac G4 before Steve persuaded him to scrap it and start over because it wasn't "perfect." (The current screen-on-a-stick design was subsequently inspired by a sunflower in Steve's wife's vegetable garden.) Also, a flat vertical orientation would probably be just as hard to pop a G5 into as the current design, if not harder.

Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that the iMac G5 isn't such a design, or even if it isn't, that it isn't coming in three weeks' time. And frankly, we thought it was coming last April, and after the G5 speed bump delays, the European iTunes Music Store delays, the continuing display update delays, etc. we're sick and tired of being sick and tired. At this point we'd even be happy with an iMac G5 shaped like a baboon's hindquarters as long as it shows up this Monday.

In fact, we're looking around and realizing just how well a baboon's-hindquarters iMac G5 would class up the joint while still blending perfectly with our existing decor. Bring it on!