It’s New iMac Day!

It’s no secret at all: I love my not-so-little 20″ iMac. In the past, though, I always viewed the iMacs with a bit of disdain. I realize they were instrumental in completely reversing Apple’s fortunes 9 years ago, but they always seemed a little on the wimpy side to me. And even though the first Apple computer I ever purchased was an iMac DV SE, the truth is that I was always drooling over the latest Power Mac to come down the assembly line. That was a real creative professional’s computer, or so I thought.

I don’t think that way anymore. My iMac is — and I say this with no hyperbole whatsoever — the finest computer I’ve ever worked on. I’ve had it for a year and a half without any issues whatsoever, it’s as zippy as ever, and the crisp display and gorgeous industrial design still take my breath away. As a result of this experience, I’ve become rather obsessed with the latest happenings in what is now my favorite computer line.

And so today, Apple announced the latest update to their iMac line, and it’s a doozy.

Further refining the design of the previous iMacs, the new iMac sports an aluminum enclosure that brings the “consumer” machine inline with their other products like the Mac Pro, MacBook Pro, and iPhone. The 20″ and 24″ displays use the new “glossy” screen that has been used on the MacBooks. The new enclosure is even thinner, while containing more processing power than before (up to 2.8GHz, thanks to Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors), and there’s even a brand new keyboard (pictures of which were leaked several days ago).

As is the case with many of Apple’s products, it’s tempting to seek out all of the little things. Then again, Apple is a company that’s obsessed about the little design details, as they realize that even the most seemingly insignificant detail still adds to the overall impression. In other words, nothing can be left to chance. It’s one of the reasons why Apple’s products consistently look and feel more polished and realized than many of their competitors’ offerings.

For example, the new iMac’s case is made from a single sheet of aluminum, meaning that there are no seams or screws (with the exception of a single screw used to access to the memory slots). The built-in iSight camera looks virtually invisible on the new design, blending perfectly into the black frame surrounding the display. And speaking of that frame, it does looks a little odd, I’ll grant you. But I bet it does wonders in helping to draw out even more contrast from the display.

I do have a few questions, though. How the does the new glossy screen do with glare and smudges? Does the new keyboard feel less flimsy than it looks? And perhaps most pressing of all, how long until I can afford one?

The new iMac wasn’t the only thing that got some serious upgrade today, however. Several of Apple’s software titles received significant boosts: iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, and iWork. I was especially impressed with the updates made to the .Mac Web Gallery, which allows you to create online photo galleries from your iPhoto collection.

You can see one of the new web galleries in action here, and to put it bluntly, it kicks Flickr’s ass. It uses a lot of Flash and AJAX-y goodness, and the result is quite beautiful. And once again, it’s all about the small details.

For example, slide your mouse over the “Family Reunion” photo, and you get an instant preview of the photos contained within the “Family Reunion” collection without actually loading that collection. And if you load the collection, you can view the photos as a list, a mosaic, a slideshow, or as a carousel — which, if you’ve used the latest version of iTunes, is very similar to Coverflow.

Like I said, it kicks Flickr’s ass. I don’t know if it kicks it enough to make me want to plunk down for a .Mac account, but it’s still mighty impressive.