So now that the boxed versions of MobileMe are available from Apple, and from other resellers like Amazon, I figured I’d better see what that actually means for .Mac users like myself that haven’t really been paying too much attention.

Fortunately, if you haven’t been following along, you can get up to speed fairly quickly with the Apple .Mac To MobileMe Transition FAQ on Apple’s website. This document should answer most of your upgrade questions if you’re a current user.

Bottom line — if you’re currently a .Mac user, you get the service upgrade without having to do anything. A couple of other decent items to note:

• Your .Mac subscription will be automatically upgraded to MobileMe at no additional cost.
• Individual subscription storage doubles from 10GB to 20GB.
• You may continue to use your current mac.com email address to send and receive email just as you do today. If you have any email aliases at mac.com, they will also continue to work.
• All of your existing iDisk files will be available on MobileMe iDisk.

And a couple of things you should be aware of

• As part of this transition to MobileMe, some features are being discontinued: Web access to bookmarks (bookmark sync between your Macs and/or PCs is still supported), iCards, .Mac slides, and support for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther sync.
• iPhone users: You will need to update to software version 2.0 or later to enable push mail, push contacts, push calendar, and push bookmarks. This software update will be available when MobileMe launches.

All this and much more at the Apple .Mac To MobileMe Transition FAQ on Apple’s website.

As soon as the announcement was made, and the Apple Store re-opened, we purchased one of the new iMacs released last Tuesday, August 7. We got the 24″ model with 2GB of RAM and a 2.4GHz dual core processor. It’s funny to see the same speed processors as what we were buying 5 years ago, even if the are dual core.

I am the editor that suggested that Apple would delay release of the new iMac until after Leopard was released. I also suggested that the brushed aluminum look was being phased out. It appears I was dead wrong on both counts.

The new iMac supports an upgraded intel chipset (Santa Rosa -based) as well as a higher maximum RAM capacity. The new machine boasts a quasi-retro brushed aluminum look with an exceptionally glossy display. There has been plenty of talk that the new display is too glossy, but we disagree: It is stunningly beautiful.

To get a better idea of what most folks would be buying, we decided to get a machine more closely aligned with most of our readers budgets. So, we set a price ceiling of $2,150 to purchase a new iMac, and test it. We opted for the 2.4 GHz machine with 2GB of 667MHz RAM. The smallest HD a consumer can buy these days is a whopping 320GB SATA HD! Needless to say, we didn’t feel like we were buying a budget machine, even though we purchased toward the lower end of he 24″ iMac spectrum.

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Is this the new iMac keyboard?: ”

Engadget and several other sites are reporting a possible first glimpse of the new keyboard which is to accompany the rumored new iMac computers. This first glimpse follows the path of previous rumors and lends some credence to the idea that the new iMacs will feature a brushed aluminum finish. A word of warning however, as the picture does have “Photoshop” embedded in the exif data. This picture would be easy enough to fake.

(Via Engadget.)

Various sources are claiming that a new iMac is on the way. Furthermore, there are several rumors that this new iMac will be bundled with a new Apple Keyboard. These same sources claim that the new iMac will probably be brushed aluminum, and much slimmer than the current iMacs. More rumors claim that the 17″ model will be discontinued. Finally, these rumors claim that the new machine will be released in mid August.

Now, our side of the story.

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