Even the price is the same: $1,300 for the 17-inch model, $1,700 for the 20-incher. It still has a built-in camera for live Internet videoconferences, still can record DVD's, still comes with a remote for controlling music, photo slideshows and DVD playback from across the room, and still has built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless networking. The new iMac, like the old, is virus-free, spyware-free and gorgeous to behold.
Like the existing iMac model, which remains available, the new one is a sleek, thin, snow-white flat-panel screen with no actual computer box the guts of the computer are hidden inside. The first such retrofitted model, the iMac, went on sale last week. One, however, has already arrived, six months ahead of schedule: Apple's switch to Intel chips for its Macintosh computers. Most of these goodies will take time to reach the masses. THE buzzwords for the 2006 technology outlook fly thick and fast in nerd circles: high-definition DVD.
