http://www.apple.com/imac/
Would be curious to take a cruise on one of these...
and your thunderbolt too...
S

Hmmm -

I really love the screens on these but something just seems wacked about the CPU and Monitor being smushed together in the same case like that. I bet it get's hot. Also wondering if it has all the ports etc. needed for audio. Slots for upgrades etc.?

Nick olde bean what say you?

I'm not Nick but, I will say, as someone who has always appreciated many elements of Apple computers but always been put off by the pricing and lack of expandability/flexibility, this new iMac seems to be getting much more closer to an acceptable price/performance ratio.

At the same time, due to the all-in-one form factor, it's even less expandable and flexible than any other desktop.

Provided it is all you want - and think you will ever need in a Mac computer for the foreseeable life-span of the machine, it is pretty attractively priced for the features and power offered, for a Mac.

My wife has a 27" iMac and it's great - just a really elegant machine. It really doesn't get hot, and it has FireWire and USB ports...and the new one has Thunderbolt, which will eventually let you add everything you need. And it's quiet, although I'm overly sensitive and hear her back-up drive that's on the floor, behind a file cabinet under her desk, wrapped in bubble wrap!

An iMac wouldn't really work for me personally, since I have all my computers on the other side of a wall, and also because I wouldn't want to give up my 30" Cinema Display. But with a quad processor, big display, usable Bluetooth for keyboards/mice (the BT in Mac Pros is horrible), and 16GB of RAM...it's a viable machine.

With the new Thunderbolt technology it opens up many new possibilities. The Thunderbolt port is basically PCI bus in a new format, sort of like having 6 PCI slots per port. The 27' iMac has two Thunderbolt ports. My guess, in June at WWDC the PowerMac towers will have multiple Thunderbolt ports maybe even with the dual copper/optical Thunderbolt ports. The audio and video industry will adopt this technology, remember this is Intel's baby. The idea of being able to plug just about anything into it is a winner. Being able to copy a Blue Ray DVD in 30 seconds is fast, that's a big deal. PCI slots may even go away, and computers may shrink, who knows. I can't wait to see the new Thunderbolt interfaces for audio and video. I can see them making digital mixers and dsp effect boxes etc. I've got to think it's all coming.

Noise and heat are a real pain, my biggest concern with the iMac is how quiet it is. If the iMac is really quiet it maybe the most perfect audio computer on the market today for some, others will always need more power no matter what. If the iMac is noisy when under a heavy load then it would be useless for me for audio recording. I wish someone would objectively report on this from a pro audio magazine. The form factor of the iMac does seem questionable, but Apple has been building the iMac for years now, so it should be okay.

I was just contemplating building a rack mount computer and building an isolation rack box for it, what a pain and what an expense. The new iMac could potentially make things a lot easier, and I can run multiple operating systems on it and have the best of both worlds.

So Nick, how quiet is your wife's iMac under heavy load? I think I'd rather make an isolation box for external drives than the computer??? I believe you can add a 30" Cinema Display to the iMac, or am I wrong about this?

James

The Thunderbolt technology is amazing.. Music might jest get back to music instead of worrying about gear. .

Nick, see if this article helps with BT on your Mac Pro:

http://guides.macrumors.com/Adding_Bluetooth_and_Wireless_to_a_Mac_Pro

I agree with Nick. I wish I could buy one of these but I need the flexibility of card slots and I like having my computer in the big walk-in closet that keeps things quiet.