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You may recall I got bought a very nice Apple ‘Think Different’ neon sign a while back. It’s been left in the cupboard gathering dust, as I really didn’t know where to put it! Well, I finally dusted it down the other day, and gave it a new place in my Mac setup. I think you’ll agree, it looks great! One day I will own a shop with that sign in it!

I really enjoy my little workspace now, especially when it’s all lit up at night. Next stop, to get cracking with that coding book. I will understand it one day. Would be great to make a nice iPad app, as that market will be less saturated to begin with.

After speculation all weekend about possible updates, Apple have today finally refreshed the iMac product line. With speeds roughly resembeling previous models, some people may be dissapointed not to see the Core 2 Quad processors . What is new though is the NVIDIA Chipset architecture which offers faster memory bandwidth using DRR3 RAM. As reported last night Apple have decided to push the 24″ model even more by only offering one option on the 20″. This is an aggressive move by a company which is never shy on taking  a few risks. The 17″ iMac has been well and truly forgotten. Here is a rundown on all four systems.

20-inch: 2.66GHz

2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB DDR3 Memory
320GB Hard Drive
8 x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Graphics
£949.00

24-inch: 2.66GHz

2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB DDR3 Memory
640GB Hard Drive
8 x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M Graphics
£1,199.00

24-inch: 2.93GHz

2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB DDR3 Memory
640GB Hard Drive
8 x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 256MB Graphics
£1,499.00

24-inch: 3.06GHz

3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB DDR3 Memory
1TB Hard Drive
8 x double-layer SuperDrive
NVIDIA GeForce GT 130 with512MB Graphics
£1,799.00

The first thing that strikes me is the prices! If anything they have risen to previous models. Whether this is a sign of the pound being so weak at the moment I don’t know. But yesterday I could get an iMac for £799, now I have to pay £949 for a similar model? Crazy! The first two models are also limited to using the 9400M GPU, which whilst not slow, is not exactly earth shattering for a desktop computer. Overall, I’m very dissapointed.

Latest news in the new iMac/Mac mini saga is that we could see these machines as early as tomorrow. Apple have a history of releasing product refreshes on a Tuesday so I don’t see why not. Hardmac have posted product numbers, while  OneMoreThing have supplied the apparent specs of the new models.

The new iMac models and their corresponding references:
- MB417: Entry level model
- MB418: “Mass market” model
- MB419: high-end model
- MB420: ultimate model
The entry level model should come with a 20″ display, while the three other models will feature a 24″ panel.

For the Mac mini, the references are the following:
- MB463: entry-level model
- MB464 high-end model

Mac mini
- 5x USB
- 1x FireWire 800
- 1x mini DVI
- 1x Display poort
- Nvidia chipset (like the newest MacBook)
- starting at Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 Ghz
- 1 of 2 GB DDR3 memory (max 4 GB)
- 120 GB hard disk (max 320 GB)

iMac
- one 20″ model, three 24″ models
- Intel Core 2 Duo (not a quad core): 2.66 Ghz, 2.93 Ghz and 3.06 Ghz
- 1x Display port
- 20″ 2 GB DDR3 memory, 24″ 4 GB DDR3 memory (max 8 GB)

Interestingly, if true, there will now be only one 20″ model, with the other three sporting 24″ displays. The days of the 17″ seem long forgotten now. No mention of any Core 2 Quad processors either, I still fancy the top end 24″ model to have one. Anyway, we will wait and see what happens tomorrow, I know at least one person chomping at the bit to get his hands on an updated iMac, you know who you are…

[Update]

Comet have updated their website with new product numbers and place holder prices! New models tomorrow are officially IMMINENT!

Comet showing new models!

[Update x2]

I’ve just been emailed by a reliable source who tells me these are the full specs of the new machines. Not much to get exctited about then, no 2.4GHz option in the Mac mini seems a strange decision?

IMAC 20″/2.66/2GB/320/SD/MSE/KB
IMAC 24″/2.66/4GB/640/SD/MSE/KB
IMAC 24″/2.93/4GB/640/256/SD/MSE/KB
IMAC 24″/3.06/4GB/1TB/512/SD/MSE/KB

MAC MINI 2.0/1X1G/120/SD/AP/BT
MAC MINI 2.0/2X1G/320/SD/AP/BT

What I have found amazing, to the point of being almost funny, is the fact early adopters of the iMac G5 will actually benefit from Apple’s upcoming OS X release, Snow Leopard, more than users of the more up to date Intel Core Duo iMacs.

When Apple first shipped the iMac G5 in August 2004 the average consumer didn’t realise they were buying an all in one with a 64-bit CPU. Apple’s choice of chip was the PowerPC 970 series from IBM, which could process both 32-bit and 64-bit instructions natively.

Apple announced to the public that it would make the transition to Intel processors at the World Wide Developers Conference in 2005. By January 2006 they released the first two products running Intel Core Duo processors, these included the 15″ MacBook Pro and the entire iMac line. The rest of Apple’s range followed throughout 2006 and by September the iMac range was updated to include 64-bit Core 2 Duo processors.

So if you still own a Core Duo Mac does that mean there is no point getting Snow Leopard? Not really, but it will be interesting to see if the G5 catches up with the Core Duo Macs once Snow Leopard’s installed. Apple are stating the use of a 64-bit CPU will deliver 15%+ more performance in Snow Leopard.

Intel Core Duo is the odd one out

I recently bought myself a brand new Samsung 750GB SATA hard drive to put in my ‘Late 2006′ 20″ iMac. The machine is a 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo with 2GB RAM and a Radeon X1600 Pro 256MB. So I followed the steps to open it up and removed the screen, then replaced the drive and reassembled.

Next I booted up and everything seemed to be fine, started installing Leopard and noticed it was taking a while to install, 5 hours to be precise! I then put my old hard drive in a FireWire Caddy and used Apple’s ‘transfer data from another Mac’ option to get all my files back, this took about 16 hours!

After all was done I started using Leopard for a while only to find that every minute or so the system would beachball and become unusable for about 2-3 minutes. It would then catch up with itself and a minute or so later, beachball again! I trawled the internet for answers and found someone else on the Apple Support forums that had bought the same hard drive and had exactly the same issues. He told he’d returned his Samsung drive and bought a Seagate model, which he said worked fine.

Two days later I have my new Seagate 750GB hard drive waiting to be fitted. I go through all the motions again, removing the iMac’s front, taking out the screen, installing the hard drive. Guess what, it also had the beachball problem! I even tried using a jumper setting to force SATA 1.5Gb/s mode, still the same!

So now I’m back with my original Seagate 250GB hard drive installed, and am booting the iMac from the Samsung drive using my FireWire Caddy! No beachballs at all now! I can only think that the SATA Controller in the iMac just can’t cope with a drive bigger than 500GB. Time for an Aluminum iMac I think…