Taking design cues from the iPod, Apple's new iMac G5 was unveiled in Paris on Tuesday to "raptuous applause," according to PCPro.
The minimalist machine crams all the hardware – G5 chip, optical drive, hard drive and power supply – into a 2-inch space behind the 17- or 20-inch screen. It starts at $1,300.
A potential blackspot: All the I/O ports line up along the rear right side, which surely makes for an ugly mess of dangling wires. AirPort and Bluetooth are optional, which does away with all but the power cord if paired with a wireless keyboard and mouse. Still, there's wires for iPods, cameras, camcorders, etc.
It looks like Apple has returned to the original ideas of its head designer, Jonathan Ive.
According to Owen Linzmeyer's excellent Apple Confidential:
"Ive initially conceived of an upright flat-panel iMac with processor and drives mounted vertically behind the display (shades of the Twentieth Anniversary Mac). When Ive presented his prototype to Jobs in the autumn of 2000, the boss wasn't impressed. It lacked the excitement and purity of design of the original iMac.
To clear his head, Jobs drove from Cupertino to his home in Plato Alto, and then summoned Ive to join him. Instead of berating his star designer, Jobs took Ive for a stroll in his wife's quarter-acre vegetable garden and apricot grove.
Jobs told Ive, 'Each element has to be true to itself. Why have a flat display if you're going to glom all this stuff on it's back? Why stand a computer on its side when it really wants to be horizontal and on the ground? Let each element be what it is, be true to itself.'
Pointing to the beautiful flora that surrounded him, Jobs suggested the new iMac 'should look like a sunflower.' That simple direction was all Ive needed. Within a day he had a working sketch of a computer with an LCD mounted on a adjustable neck, but it would take nearly two arduous years to bring the new design to fruition as the critically acclaimed flat-panel iMac. As Ive explained, 'The thing is, it's very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better. That's what we have tried to do with the new iMac.'"
In the harsh light of lackluster sales, Jobs obviously changed his mind.
Update: Dan Frakes writes, "Apple has provided a large hole in the back of the base so that users can plug cables into the ports, then run them through the hole and down the back of the stand, thus hiding most of the wire clutter.
