Apple releases new aluminum iMacs

As everyone already knows, Apple nixed the 17" iMac but introduced new 20" and 24" models with a thin aluminum frame, and at the same time, they dropped the prices significantly. Some specific points:

- It can support up to 4 GB. The previous model could only utilize up to 3 GB, because of limitations with Intel's chipset.
- The screen is now glossy. If you plan on getting a new iMac, hopefully your light setup isn't glare prone.
- The graphics has been updated to the Radeon HD 2400 XT on the low end model, and the HD 2600 Pro on the two higher end models. While the 2600 Pro is an improvement over the previous Radeon X1600 and the GeForce 7300 GT, it may be inferior to the previous 7600 GT option in some real world usage, although we have yet to see Mac benchmarks with these two models. There is no option to configure a higher end GPU in the current iMacs.
- All models now have Firewire 800.
- The CPU is up to 2.8 GHz, utilizing Core 2 Extreme. This is a pleasant surprise.
- As expected the bus speed has been increased to 800 MHz. However, memory remains at 667 MHz, since SO-DIMMs are used.
- The wireless keyboard has no numeric keypad, and uses a keyboard design similar to the MacBooks.

Overall the new iMacs represent an incremental upgrade, with some curious changes such as the less than impressive top-of-the-line GPU, and loss of the numeric keypad in the wireless keyboard. The loss of the matte screen is also going to be annoying for some users, but I'd expect most people won't care, or will actually prefer the new glossy screen.

However, I'd recommend that most Core 2 Duo iMac owners stick with their current machines. Also, this may represent an excellent opportunity to pick up the previous white iMacs for cheap.

Most complete iPhone review so far, at AnandTech

For those of you with the least bit of interest in the iPhone, check out Anand's review. He brings us 28 pages (!) of phone geek goodness.

Bottom line? It ain't perfect, but he likes it, quite a bit in fact.

P.S. I particularly like this picture.

Unprecedented iPhone interest at Howard Forums

It seems those guys over at Howard Forums are generating a TON of traffic on their Apple iPhone forum. While most of their mobile phone manufacturer forums usually have at most a few hundred people viewing them, the Apple iPhone board currently has over 15000 viewers.

Apple releases SuperDrive Firmware Update 2.1

Apple today released SuperDrive Firmware Update 2.1 for some of its MacBooks and MacBook Pros. The machines included are:

MacBook Pro Core Duo (15" 1.83GHz, 2.0GHz, 2.16GHz)
MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo (15" 2.16GHz, 2.33GHz)
MacBook Core Duo (13" 1.83GHz, 2.0GHz)
MacBook Core 2 Duo (13" 1.83GHz, 2.0GHz)

It's not clear which drives are included, but in the very least it includes the Matsushita UJ-857 drive. The update changes the firmware on the drive from HBE4 to HBEA, to improve "readability of certain CD media".

Cube & old G4 Power Macs not Leopard compatible

I have it on good authority that Apple has added a new restriction to the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard requirements.

We knew that a DVD drive, built-in Firewire, and at least a G4 were required. However, one additional requirement now is an 800 MHz G4. This basically leaves out everyone with early Power Macs, including:

G4 350-400 MHz Yikes (PCI)
G4 350-500 MHz Sawtooth (AGP)
G4 450-500 MHz Cube
G4 400-500 MHz Gigabit Ethernet
G4 467-733 MHz Digital Audio
G4 733 MHz Quicksilver

All G4 iBooks should be fine, but Leopard will exclude most of the G4 Titanium PowerBooks (up to 667 MHz). Fortunately for most G4 iMac and eMac owners (with DVD drives), only the very bottom end 700 MHz models are excluded. Curiously, a GPU capable of supporting Quartz Extreme is not listed as a requirement, but that may be moot as I believe all 800 MHz G4 Macs shipped with Quartz Extreme support.

This is big disappointment for those of us with Cubes and such, but we shouldn't give up just yet. I suspect that if one has access to a PowerPC Mac which meets the requirements, one may be able to transfer a Leopard install from that to an unsupported G4 Mac. (An Intel Mac will not work, since its installs are not bootable on PowerPC Macs.) The other question is whether or not those of us with upgraded CPUs will be able to install Leopard natively. Lastly, I'm sure that XPostFacto will be updated when Leopard ships, to add support for these vintage Macs.

Stevenote came and went. No new iMac.

The WWDC keynote address by Steve Jobs is now over, but there was no mention whatsoever of new iMacs. We heard lots of good stuff about Leopard, some stuff about the coming iPhone, and even learned that Apple has released Safari 3.0 beta for not only Mac OS X but also Windows XP and Vista.

However, new Santa Rosa iMacs are missing in action. Let's hope for a quiet release at the Apple Store some time in the near future.