Sources tell AppleInsider that Apple is scheduled to introduce the next generation of their iMac personal computers in July with availability in time for the late educational buying season.
Apple introduced the iMac personal PC in May of 1998, but the product line has seen very little cosmetic alterations in its three year life span. The computer maker has relied on increases in component speed and size, such as faster processors and larger hard drives, to sustain significant revenue intake over that time.
Sales of the iMac have successively become less impressive over the past year. The consensus among industry analysts is that the PC maker needs to do something radical to spice up interest in the iMac line, as the once revolutionary innovation of a compact and translucent all-in-one desktop machine is no longer pulling the demand that it did 3 years ago.
That much is indeed true, say sources employed by Apple, who claim that changes to the next line of the company's iMac computers will be "bigger and more apparent than ever before."
Though it is unconfirmed by sources who can be considered reliable, its been said that the new line of iMacs are being designed with some of the same ideals as the company's new Power Book G4. One of the highly rumored features is said to be a wide-screen display, ideal for home video editing in iMovie.
Aside from the rumored wide-screen, sources say the iMac will acquired a 133MHz bus, sport processors with speeds of 533 and 633MHz, and finally pack a NVIDIA GeForce2 MX graphics processor for superior gaming performance.
Sources are referring to this revolutionized line of iMacs as the OS X iMacs, as they say these will be the first of the units to ship with Mac OS X pre-installed as the core system.