Retailers End-Of-Life iMacs, New Units Due

Circuit City venues on the west coast began moving inventory even earlier, dropping prices and discontinuing the current iMac part numbers in their systems. "Circuit City has dropped its prices on the current iMacs, which now sport price tags reading $749.96 or $949.96 as opposed to $749.99 and $949.99," sources said. "Anything that is marked with a price tag ending in .96 cents is on clearance and will not be restocked. This means new part numbers, new units."

More recently, Apple, via their online store, has announced a $200 instant rebate on iMac DV+ and iMac DV Special Edition models. According to sources, Apple's iMac DV line is expected to consist of fewer offerings in the near future as the company hurries to include CD-RW and hybrid DVD/CD-RW drives as standard. However, the top of the line iMac is still expected to sport DVD playback.

With Apple's newly found practice of internationalizing their major product announcements, sources close to the computer maker say to expected the new line of iMacs, among other things, to pop up during the third week of February at the Macworld Expo in Tokyo, Japan.

It should also be noted that, as of the company's past fiscal quarter, Japan is one of the only markets where Apple sales are actually increasing. And with the overall success of small form factor Apple machines in Japan, an announcement overseas is almost imminent.

According to sources, the new units will sport a slightly revised logic-board capable of accompanying faster G3 processors and possibly a revised 7400 G4 processor in the high-end units. All models will ship with Mac OS 9.1 as standard.

More information will be forthcoming when it is made available.