I won’t editorialize here other than to say what’d you expect? Apple was going to ignore the chance to sell another accessory?

iFixit has torn up the new iMac to reveal the delicate inner workings of both the machine and its attendant Magic Mouse. Obviously the biggest issue here is removing the massive piece of glass on the front, a process that requires a spunger, suction cups, and a sense that life is futile and electronics should be destroyed on camera for the edification of an audience.

The Magic Mouse teardown shows us that the mouse is covered in one big touchscreen – not huge news – but it also seems that the case is translucent.

The iMac teardown is equally exciting with pictures of the iMac spread out against a lightbox like a patient etherized on a table. Fun stuff.

I certainly don’t want to cause a panic, but EVERYBODY PANIC! APPLE DID SOMETHING!

Yes, new iMacs are here. For prompt shipping, please send your wallet to…

Apple
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014

…with a Post-It note saying “Send iMacs! Please! Hurry!”

In return, you’ll get one of the following:

21.5-inch iMac (MSRP of $1199)

• 21.5-inch LED backlit screen with 1920×1080 resolution (16:9)
• 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
• 4GB of DDR3 RAM
• 500GB hard drive (7200RPM SATA)
• Slot-loading DVD burner
• NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics (256MB)
• Bluetooth, 802.11n, iSight webcam, Gigabit Etnernet, four USB ports, one Firewire port, SD card slot, mini DisplayPort for video output
• Wireless keyboard, Magic Mouse

21.5-inch iMac (MSRP of $1499)

• 21.5-inch LED backlit screen with 1920×1080 resolution (16:9)
• 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
• 4GB of DDR3 RAM
• 1TB hard drive (7200RPM SATA)
• Slot-loading DVD burner
• ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 256MB discrete video memory
• Bluetooth, 802.11n, iSight webcam, Gigabit Etnernet, four USB ports, one Firewire port, SD card slot, mini DisplayPort for video output
• Wireless keyboard, Magic Mouse

27-inch iMac (MSRP of $1699)

• 27-inch LED backlit screen with 2560×1440 resolution (16:9)
• 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU
• 4GB of DDR3 RAM
• 1TB hard drive (7200RPM SATA)
• Slot-loading DVD burner
• ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 256MB discrete video memory (optional upgrade to 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4850 also available)
• Bluetooth, 802.11n, iSight webcam, Gigabit Etnernet, four USB ports, one Firewire port, SD card slot, mini DisplayPort for video output
• Wireless keyboard, Magic Mouse

27-inch iMac (MSRP of $1999 — available in November)

• 27-inch LED backlit screen with 2560×1440 resolution (16:9)
• 2.66GHz Intel Core i5 quad-core CPU
• 4GB of DDR3 RAM
• 1TB hard drive (7200RPM SATA)
• Slot-loading DVD burner
• ATI Radeon HD 4850 with 512MB discrete video memory
• Bluetooth, 802.11n, iSight webcam, Gigabit Etnernet, four USB ports, one Firewire port, SD card slot, mini DisplayPort for video output
• Wireless keyboard, Magic Mouse

Product Page [Apple.com]

iMac Store Page [store.apple.com]

I’m not about to knock myself out for noting the 800th iMac rumor of the past few weeks, so here’s the deal: people “close” to Apple now aren’t sure whether or not Blu-ray will wind up on the next iMac revision. Blu-ray may be on Mac Pros, and maybe then only as a build-to-order option, but that’s enough “maybes” to bore a slug.

Oh, also: maybe Apple will use Intel’s new Core i7 (Clarksfield) quad-core CPUs? I can’t name too many non-power user applications that even tap into a dual-core CPU, let alone a quad-core.

And now we wait for a new rumor tomorrow that will totally and completely contradict today’s. Sigh.

Oh, I’m also contractually obligated to use the phrase “bag of hurt” when doing an Apple+Blu-ray story. This complete my obligation.

This game really shouldn’t be that surprising anymore. It’s that time of year when Apple announces new models anyway. Plus there have been rumors circulating ’round the ‘tubes about updated iMacs and plastic MacBook, but this is the first we’ve heard anything about new Mac Minis. It makes sense though as the last update was in March. That model is past outdated. It needs a new GPU, larger hard drive, and more memory to be considered current. 120GB and 1GB doesn’t cut it for $599 these days – even for Apple.

The new iMacs and MacBooks however might get a complete makeover instead of just a hardware bump. They have been sporting the same overall look since 2007 and 2006. Hopefully price drops aren’t out of the question either. But at this point all we know is the current models are going to be very hard to purchase. It’s not like you would buy one of those anyway knowing that new models are imminent.

The predictions above aren’t exactly going out on a limb, but then again, the iMac isn’t exactly an experimental new product. This is what happens: it gets better, it gets old, and then it gets better again. Sometimes they change the way it looks. What do you want from me?!

Apple Insider notes that Apple has been offering discounts on current stock, so once they get most of that old junk out the door they’ll pull the trigger.

The iMacs definitely aren’t slouching in the tech department but it’s been a while since an update. If anything, the CPUs might get a slight bump, but it’s likely to see updated GPUs and larger hard drives. Chances are that if the model line was going to get a drastic change, Apple would have made sure that they were available before school started back up.

The same goes for the MacBook. If there was going to be a major revamp, it would have probably been unveiled a few weeks ago. But don’t be surprised if a larger hard drive and a faster CPU makes its way into the classic, white MacBook.

You know what’s a little more difficult than I first imagined? Upgrading the hard drive in my late 2006 iMac. I had initially wanted to upgrade the hard drive so I could finally dual boot between Mac OS X and Windows 7, since the old drive, a 250GB model, was pretty much filled to capacity. (Trying to run Mac OS X with only ~5GB of free space isn’t ideal.) And even though the iMac user manual clearly states that the only user-replacabable parts are the RAM, I figured, “Bah! I think I can handle a simple hard drive replacement.” I did, but not before wishing I had never so much had broken out a screwdriver.

Please note that the following is merely a description of my attempts to replace my old iMac’s hard drive. The primary purpose of this post is to kill time on a Monday afternoon, where even Drudge has had the same headline since this morning. It is, in fact, a slow day, in other words.

So why did I decide to subject myself to such nonsense? Why wouldn’t I merely buy a new iMac? Well, for one, new iMacs cost money, and when you owe Citibank the amount of money I do for the privilege of having attended college, well, money is tight. Besides, it would be a fun adventure, cracking open the iMac, going against the grain (the grain being the manual that says “don’t bother wasting your time, it can’t be done”). And if I ever buy a computer in the future, which is not a guarantee, it most certainly won’t be a proper Mac. Rather, I’ll buy a cheap PC, then Hackintosh it. I get to run Mac OS X, without having to shell out more money than I’m willing to these days.

So let’s get to it!

I decide to upgrade my hard drive. I do a little research just to confirm what type of hard drive the iMac uses (a standard SATA one, so nothing crazy). One trip to Newegg later, I have a nice 1TB hard drive heading my way along with an external enclosure for the old drive, just to make it easier to grab things like music and photos off my old hard drive.

I start searching around, trying to figure out if there’s any unreasonable steps involved. I find a description to replace a G5 iMac’s hard drive, and, wrongly, it turns out, I assume the directions are the same for my iMac. I search a little more, and find a thread on the Apple Discussion Board saying how hard it was to replace an Intel Mac’s hard drive. You mean the steps are different for an Intel Mac? Yes! While the G5’s hard drive could be replaced in what looks to be about five seconds (you slide out the old one, and then slide in the new one), the Intel Mac requires you to break into the iMac and perform a little surgery. Still, no big deal.

My hard drive and enclosure arrive in the mail, and I crack open the iMac as per any number of instructions you can find online. I manage to lift off the plastic cover; my next task is to unscrew the LCD and lift it away. I don’t know about you, but the thought of having to physically removing the LCD from the iMac was a little disconcerting. But we soldier on!

Or no we don’t! It turns out that the precision screwdrivers I had used to perform a little surgery on my PSP—several specks of dirt had gotten underneath the plastic screen protector, so I had to open it up and clean it—weren’t the proper tools for the job, and my other Torx screwdriver set was too big to fit into the tiny space where the screw was located. Fine, that’s my fault. I hop on eBay, because I just have the feeling that the local store isn’t going to have a precision Torx screwdriver set, and order a set. Several days later my shiny new screwdrivers arrive.

Keep in mind that about two weeks had passed between my ordering of the new hard drive from Newegg and my getting the proper screwdriver set from eBay. To say that I had lost interest in the whole project would be correct.

Stupid new screwdrivers in hand, I crack open the iMac again. Take this, LCD screws! Thankfully, the eBay-ordered screwdrivers were exactly what I needed, so that problem was solved.

Remember: all we’re trying to do is replace a hard drive.

Gently, I lift the LCD away, and very very carefully disconnect it all the related wires. LCD totally disconnected, I meet the enemy: that blasted hard drive.

Several screws later, the hard drive is, um, disconnectable. I pry away a temperature sensor, disconnect the SATA cables, then, with all my might, stop short of throwing the old hard drive out the window. Why I’m angry at the hard drive, I don’t know. I should be annoyed at Apple for making it easier to get a mortgage than it is to replace a mere hard drive.

I remove the hard drive; oh, but there’s two more screws on there that you still need to remove, in order to put the new hard drive in a cradle.

To replace a hard drive!

New hard drive installed, I put everything back together. There’s a few screws on the floor, but I don’t even care. They’ll be thrown out shortly.

I turn the iMac on… and it works! Well, it turns on, which is a plus. I then slide in the Snow Leopard disc, and after a restart, it starts installing. Only, well, things seem a little dim.

I mess around for Snow Leopard for a minute, install World of Warcraft, and am convinced that the display is a whole lot dimmer than I remember. In fact, yeah, I must have broken the darn thing during the hard drive install. Terrific.

So I crack open the iMac again, and check the LCD wires. As it turns out, I didn’t break it, I just didn’t plug one in hard enough. Snapped into place, I put everything back in its place. I turn the computer on, and…

Yes~! It’s bright again! The colors were never so bright! Praise Jehovah!

Total install time: I don’t know, like three weeks, give or take. Install time not counting the wait in between hard drive/screwdriver shipments: still a good two hours. It’s very tight inside the iMac, you see, and any sudden movements were liable to blow the whole thing up.

The moral of the story? The next time you upgrade your hard drive of your fancy pants PC, just thank your lucky stars that you’re not working with an old iMac, since Apple, for whatever reason, made it exceedingly difficult to perform such a basic upgrade. (It was easier to upgrade an old Bondi Blue iMac back in 2002ish!)

This odd Apple Education page seems to suggest a 17-inch iMac for $899. It appears in Apple’s enews but, as you see after jump there are only 20- and 24-inch models available. What a twist!

The educational newsletter this appeared in seems to have been written for March and, considering we’re almost done with March this could have been a false alarm or a real leak.

via Giz

[Thanks to the people at Reddit for pointing this out]

Holy bananas! Is that a $1500 24-inch iMac I see? Not sure which model is right for you or what offers what over the other? Then check this out (click on the image twice for high-res). But you have to snag the $1800 model if you want a discrete graphics card. Hmm.

iMac

First up, the new iMac which is suppose to come in one 20-inch model and three 24-inch options:

• 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)
• 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)
• MB417: Entry level model
• MB418: “Mass market” model
• MB419: high-end model
• MB420: ultimate model

And for the Mac mini:

• 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)
• MB463: entry-level model
• MB464 high-end model

Bets on whether these rumors will come true tomorrow? I got ten bucks that says they are fake.

In what may qualify as nostalgia overload, an enterprising Canadian has replaced the insides of an old all-in-one iMac with a Sega Dreamcast console. The end result is the iCast.

The process is detailed here on the CGCC forums by user “Logicdustbin,” who says:

“I had a couple G3’s laying around, and for some reason I had a 15″ LCD monitor. As I was cleaning up my workshop, these to things were sitting beside each other, the LCD looked to be about the same size.

So I started taking shit apart. Dropped about 100 pounds of CRT monitor out of the iMac, and in went the LCD, fit just perfect.

Since that fit in nicely, it was an easy decision to slap a Dreamcast inside. The hard part was figuring out where to place it. I didn’t want to cut a big hole in the side of the case (although I was debating on turning the handle on the back of the case to an access port for the disks), but, I ended up doing a ‘PS1 upside down mod’ – its not great, but it works pretty good.

He then extended the controller ports, allowing him to plug the controllers into the front of the iMac, followed by the arduous tasks of getting the power button to work with the new monitor and rigging up an amp to push sound through the iMac speakers. It all appears to be well worth it, though, as this is one nice looking mod for any Dreamcast fan.

Here’s video of everything in action:

iCast [CGCC.ca via hack a day]

Don’t let this dissuade you, dear iMac owner to be. As I always say with Apple products: if you need the product, buy it. The next upgrade will be incremental at best. Don’t base your decisions on blurry cameraphone shots of paper.

It’s hard to tell exactly when Apple will launch the new models – if there are new models to launch – now that Macworld isn’t the soapbox of years past. The company is sure to send out invites to a cleverly named special event where the new lineup will be announced. And yes, we will be there.

Apple is tapping Auras Technology for the cooling system; Auras makes many parts but has produced original cooling solutions like this one (looks cool) and may even be putting together a liquid cooling system for the new iMacs.

People familiar with the company’s plans have said changes to the iMac family will largely consist of performance improvements and technology refreshes. And while there’s admittedly been few concrete details to go by since the August report, this week’s notebook overhauls offer a window into the future of the iMac line, which sports an architectural resemblance to the MacBook lines.

Before you go humping down to Best Buy to pick up a PC, let’s ask ourselves a few questions. The rise of desktop replacement laptops – laptops with full-sized processors, hard drives, and lots of memory – have essentially supplanted the desktop PC in dorm rooms every where. Why pay $500 for a big, noisy box when you can potentially drag your $700 laptop down the hall to watch a DVD in another room or even take it to class?

Then, we have to think about Mac vs. PC. We’re a bunch of Mactards here at CrunchGear, so we’re going to recommend seriously looking into Macs to folks on campus or in school. There’s something I like to call the “Day of Shame” when it comes to Windows machines. The “Day of Shame” starts out fairly normally – you install a new peripheral or try to format a disk drive and you end up trying various installations, reboots, and incantations in order to get the PC working again. This can happen to anyone – it used to happen to me pretty regularly – and it basically wastes a full day of troubleshooting before the PC miraculously fixes itself. I’ve never had that problem with OS X.

That said, here are our desktop picks for 2008. All pricing and specs are based on base configurations without add-ons. What are you looking for? Power and price. Most PCs are over 2-gigahertz right now and 2 gigabytes of memory is about right for the average user. The real draw is a bigger hard drive for movies and music.

20-inch iMac – $1,199 – www.apple.com

Just to get things out of the way we’ve decided to bring the 20-inch iMac front and center. This thing is beautiful and you might be able to get a student discount so don’t count it out just yet. In this configuration Apple includes only 1 gigabyte of memory and a 250 gigabyte hard drive – not much, but enough – but the screen is great and you get excellent reliability. If you’re buying one PC for the next four years – be it high school or college – you can’t really go wrong.

Acer Aspire X1200 – $450 w/o monitor – www.acer.com/us

I’ve been recommending Acer recently simply because they’re offering cheaper desktop PCs with quite a bit of power. At $450 for a model with a monitor – the monitor is about $200 more – you get a 2.5GHz processor and 4 gigabytes of memory.

Dell Studio Hybrid – $699 – www.dell.com

Dell had students in mind when it designed the Studio Hybrid. This ultra-small PC comes in bright colors and contains a 1.86GHz processor and 250GB of memory. What you lose in power you make up for in style and Dell even offers a matching 19-inch monitor with the $699 package, ensuring your PC will match your accessories.

HP TouchSmart IQ504t – $1,299 – www.hp.com

I stuck this 2-GHz PC in here for those who might be considering forgoing a TV entirely. The TouchSmart has a 22-inch touch display with a few sexy features like gesture based controls and a special video mode. It’s great for watching movies and it’s compact enough to fit on a desk without requiring a fat CPU buzzing away at your feet. This is a niche product, but it might work well for some students.

eMachines S3649 – $499.99 – www.emachines.com

If you’re paying your own way or use the PCs on campus more than your PC at home then feel free to pick up this $500 gem. It comes with a 19-inch monitor and 160GB of hard drive space… and not much else. eMachines makes great, cheap machines without many add-ons. This is a solid machine that will last maybe two years without an upgrade.

I’ve tried to run the gamut from low to high with this round up. What kind of PCs have you guys enjoyed working with at school? Do you even still use desktops?