The iMac makeover

New desktop model sports a suave aluminum finish and an innovative keyboard

Let’s face it—the iMac, Apple’s flagship consumer desktop Mac, was long overdue for a face-lift. The thin-display-on-a-solid-foot design first arrived on the scene in August 2004, as the iMac G5, and survived through the January 2006 Intel transition (the iMac was Apple’s first Intel-based system).

Sure, Apple has made some major improvements inside, but it’s been three years since the iMac has gotten any cosmetic enhancements. That’s definitely changed with the latest round of iMac updates.

The iMac makeover

New desktop model sports a suave aluminum finish and an innovative keyboard

20- and 24-inch Aluminum iMacs

With large displays, room for a lot of internal storage and RAM, and a striking new design, the latest iMacs are a nice step forward -- and a good value to boot. Performance gains are minimal over the last Core 2 Duo iMacs, but as computers that straddle the line between consumer and professional systems, they give enough to people on both ends of the spectrum to be worth serious consideration.
First Look: First Look: iWeb '08

We wrap up our first looks at the components of iLife '08 with a rundown of the changes in iWeb. The web-publishing tool's biggest additions come in the areas of Photo Album management and Web 2.0 technologies.
First Look: First Look: iDVD '08

Steve Jobs didn't spend much time on iDVD when unveiling iLife '08, but that doesn't mean there weren't changes to the DVD creation program. Jeff Carlson looks at what's new in the latest version of iDVD.
First Look: First Look: iMovie '08

Forget everything you knew about iMovie. Apple has reinvented its digital-video editing application for iLife '08. Jeff Carlson takes a tour of the new application to see what's improved over past versions of iMovie -- and what's missing in action.
First Look: First Look: GarageBand 4

When Steve Jobs unveiled the latest version of GarageBand, he spent most of his presentation talking about the new Magic GarageBand feature. But there's more -- much more -- to the new version of iLife's music creation software, Christopher Breen discovers.
First Look: First Look: Keynote '08

If you pay close attention to Steve Jobs' public presentations, you'll have already seen one of the major new additions to Keynote '08 in action -- path animation. But Franklin N. Tessler finds that there's a lot more to the updated version of Apple's presentation software than that one addition.
First Look: First Look: Pages '08

Our look at the changes in the iWork '08 suite concludes with Pages, the word-processing and page-layout tool. Jeffrey Battersby finds that the major additions to Pages -- namely, better compatibility with Word, a contextually-aware formatting bar, and much-improved tools for tracking changes -- make this iWork component a viable alternative to Microsoft's Word.
First Look: First Look: Numbers

Pages and Keynote have a new suitemate in Numbers -- an application that adds an Apple-like approach to spreadsheets. Rob Griffiths takes an initial look at this new app, exploring some of its major features and comparing it to Microsoft's Excel.