Apple made good on their 2005 Intel partnership with the announcement at MacWorld 2006 in San Francisco that its latest iMacs will feature the new Intel Core Duo processor.
In a surprise guest appearance, Intel CEO Paul Otellini wearing a white clean room suit joined Apple CEO Steve Jobs on stage during the opening keynote. While holding a 12-inch silicon wafer Otellini said: “Steve, I want to report that Intel’s ready.”
Otellini then revealed himself to the MacWorld crowd by taking off his helmet. Jobs than said that Apple has been working nights and weekends to make sure the new Intel powered iMacs are delivered in record time.
After the unveiling of the new iMacs, Jobs emphasized to the audience that “the products look the same.” He said that Apple did not want to change an award winning design.The 17- and 20-inch models will also maintain the same price points as older models.
“So what’s different,” Jobs asked.
It’s Intel’s Core Duo processor. This chip, according to Jobs, will make iMacs faster than Apple G5 machines. “There’s two of them,” Jobs said referring to the number of chips inside the computer. He added that Core Duo chips would be 3.2 times faster than older iMacs.
Besides dual-core processors, the new iMacs will have a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing out-of-the-box. An Apple Remote will also be available with the new iMacs so that users can view content from across the room.
The new iMacs start at US$1,299 and will be available to authorized Apple resellers.
Every new iMac comes with iLife ’06, the next generation of Apple’s suite of digital lifestyle applications featuring new versions of iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD, GarageBand and introducing iWeb, a new iLife application that creates Web sites with photos, blogs and Podcasts and publish them on .Mac for viewing by anyone on the Internet.
The new iMac will also ship immediately with Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.2 running natively. The Tiger OS includes Safari, Mail, iCal, iChat AV, Front Row and Photo Booth. It also includes a software translation technology called Rosetta that enables users to run most Mac OS X PowerPC applications seamlessly.
Jobs also confirmed that Microsoft has committed to delivering Office for the Mac for a minimum of five more years.
The new processor was the main part of the iMac announcement, but the computer will also come standard with a SuperDrive for burning professional-quality DVDs, 512MB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory expandable to 2GB, hard drive storage capacity up to 500GB, and ATI Radeon X1600 PCI Express-based graphics with 128MB of GDDR3 memory. The new iMac includes built-in 10/100/1000 BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet for high-speed networking, built-in AirPort Extreme for 54 Mbps wireless networking, built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate), a total of five USB ports (three USB 2.0) and two FireWire 400 ports. The new iMac now includes mini-DVI video output to connect up to a 23-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. With mini-DVI and the new iMac’s extended desktop mode feature, users can increase their available screen by more than double previous versions.
