New iMac takes us back to the future

By ADAM GIFFORD

Apple's new iMac seems to come from the same '60s design book which gave the world "futuristic" white televisions on white plastic spheres with rounded white plastic furniture to match.

It looks like no computer anyone has produced before - a thick chrome stem rising from a small white hemisphere and supporting a flat panel monitor.

Flat panel monitors are easy to look at, too, but their price has kept them out of the reach of most computer users.

A 38cm (15in) monitor costs about $2000 including GST.

Starting price for an iMac flat panel with a 700 Mhz chip, 40 Gb hard drive and CD writer is about $4000.

The first Machines to arrive in New Zealand will be the superdrive version, able to burn CDs and DVDs and selling for about $5500.

Most of the first shipment has been sold already. In the first three weeks after announcing the iMac, Apple received 150,000 orders worldwide.

The iMac flat panel is a joy to use. Being able to position the screen makes more sense than having to use special furniture or stacks of telephone books to get the screen at the right height.

A large slow fan keeps the machine relatively quiet. The keyboard and mouse are the same as Apple has been shipping with iMacs for the past year or so.

The default operating system is Mac OS X.1, which as anyone who has used it will tell you is a big advance on the first version, and far superior to puny pretenders like XP.

Apple is making much of its new applications which it ships free with the iMac.

Editing videos isn't something most users will expect to do extensively, iMovie 2 makes it look simple.

The new iPhoto application, which allows users to import images direct from digital cameras and manage large collections of pictures, also made sense.

iTunes 2 allows users to put their music collection on the machine, burn custom CDs and link to the Apple iPod music player.

But serious users will need extension speakers - the limited space inside the dome gives tinny sound.

The round casing has no space for expansion slots, but the built-in NVIDIA GeForce2 MX graphics processor removes the need to add an extra video card, which is the main purpose of the omitted slots.

The back of the hemisphere has a long line of ports for different devices - five USB ports (two on keyboard), two FireWire ports, 10/100 Ethernet, the 56Kb modem and a mini-VGA port for connecting an external video monitor.

Hard on the heels of the new iMac, Apple quietly launched its new G4 model.

The now-axed Cube got carried away by its own gimmickry, but the latest G4 concentrates on the inside of the box.

The top-end model has dual 1GHz chips and a new Nvidia GeForce4 MX graphics chip, which also ships in the 933MHz configuration.

While some Pentium machines are claiming speeds well over 1GHz, the differences in the Apple architecture and operating system means the new G4 will leave Pentiums in its dust.

Apple claims a dual 1GHz G4 Power Mac runs Photoshop 72 per cent more quickly than a 2GHz Pentium 4-based PC.