Oh, and what's with the total dearth of new Power Macs and PowerBooks today? Looks like the rumor mill has been running a little creaky lately; instead of new pro Macs, Steve trotted out a brand new iMac G5-- or, rather, the same old iMac G5 with a few new tricks up its sleeve. Looks like we'll have to wait a while before we have a new machine we can buy to replace our aging and ailing old dual 800 MHz G4.

Or will we? We're looking over the pricing and specs of this new iMac in the official press release, and we have to say, it's awfully tempting to get the high-end model to serve as our new workhorse so we can put the dual G4 out to pasture. Seriously, look what you get: a 2.1 GHz G5 (which is a single processor, sure, but it ought to feel nice and zippy compared to two 800 MHz G4s), 512 MB of RAM expandable to 2.5 GB, a 250 GB hard drive, an 8x SuperDrive, a RADEON X600 XT graphics subsystem, an integrated 20-inch 1680x1050 display (physically smaller than our original 22-inch Cinema Display, but with more screen real estate), a built-in iSight camera, built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth, and a free Mighty Mouse. All for a piddling $1,699. In contrast, the cheapest current Power Mac is $1,999, and we'd either have to get a new display or buy an adapter to keep using our old one.

The more we think about it, the more convinced we are that we could get some serious work done on a new iMac. About all we'd miss would be FireWire 800 (and we don't have any FireWire 800 devices yet anyway), the second processor (which, granted, we'll miss), the faster frontside bus, and the 16x SuperDrive. For the money we'd save, we figure we can live with those minor shortcomings. An iMac G5 might be the perfect lower-cost system to tide us over while Apple going mucking around in its product line-up to rip out the PowerPCs and start stuffing in Intel chips; by the time we outgrow it, we'll be ready to take the plunge with a second- or third-generation MacIntel.

And when we're not working (let's be honest-- when do we ever?), we figure we can screw around with Front Row, Photo Booth, and the new remote control. They sound pretty cheesy from their descriptions, and we've never really understood the whole "PC in the living room" paradigm that Microsoft's been pushing with its whole "Media PC" thing, but Apple tends to do this sort of thing right, and it ought to at least be nice for dorm room situations and the like. So we'll check one out in person at one of our local Apple retail stores, kick the tires a little, and see if we want to spend money we don't have on an iMac instead of waiting to spend even more money we don't have on a new Power Mac, whenever the heck one of those is ever going to show up.