Call it the September surprise. But with all the Mac geeks focused on what Apple has up its sleeve for the “It’s Showtime” event on September 12, the entirety of the Mac rumormongering underworld completely missed the posting of several new iMac models and Mac Mini speed bumps on Apple.com this morning.

Chief among Apple’s updated systems is an iMac with an integrated 1920 x 1200-pixel, 24-inch display that blurs the line between consumer and professional hardware in Apple’s line-up. The new iMac looks to be a real monster, with a 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 4MB Level-2 cache, 1GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, SuperDrive, and an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics controller with 128MB of VRAM. It’s selling for $1,999 and is available now through Apple.com.

In addition to the big iMac, Apple has updated 20-inch and 17-inch models starting for as little as $999 (check out the configurations and prices on The Apple Store.) The company did a Mac Mini processor bump, so all configurations, even the $599 version, now come with Core Duo processors.

Of course, this still begs the question: What exactly does Apple have planned for said Showtime event? Speculation runs from such mainstays of the rumor sites as the Apple iPhone to the HD iPod (kinda like the RoverTv, recently reviewed here.) But, for this Apple watcher, I’m thinkin’ the show’s all about iTunes – the movie service. Speculation has been making the rounds that iTunes will offer downloadable, DVD-quality movies you buy for $14 and burn to a blank DVD. Some form of Digital Rights Management (DRM) will probably prevent you from burning more than one copy.

I can see this, but I’m thinking something more like HD-quality TV and movies streamed on demand are also a possibility. Apple has already demonstrated it’s ability to successfully stream HD quality video with it’s QuickTime movie trailers, so why not full-length movies and TV programming? No worries about some hacker breaking your DRM, and HD quality would be quite the draw for prosumers desperately looking for HD content. All you have to do is plug that Mac Mini into your DVI- or HDMI-equipped HDTV screen and you’re in business. At $599, the Mac Mini is actually cheaper than most of the announced HD DVD and Blu-ray decks. And you can use a Mac Mini for a lot more than just watching television.

Okay, maybe the odds of this happening next week are slim. But, what can I say? I like to dream big. And it does make sense. As much sense as Apple adding scheduled TV recording to Front Row, similar to what Microsoft has offered in Windows XP Media Center Edition for a couple of years now. Although I’d say the odds of that are even slimmer than iTunes HD-on-demand.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 6th, 2006 at 5:14 pm and is filed under HOME, TECH, HDTV, MULTIMEDIA, DESKTOPS, MAC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.