Yesterday, Steve introduced the new iMac to the press at Apple’s One Infinite Loop location. The press were the first to see (and the world the second, thanks to live blogging) the new iMac. It is absolutely gorgeous. It almost looks like a giant iPhone, so much so that I tried to drag a window on the new iMac across the screen and was rewarded with a fingerprint on the glass display.

I stopped by the Apple Store to check the new iMac out in person. The glass front with blackout trim is very iPhone, with a covering over the bottom exposing a black glass Apple logo. The edge is aluminum, and looks very classy against the black glass. The back of the iMac is black plastic. Overall, the weight of the 20” unit is pretty hefty, more than I would have expected. I guess glass and metal weighs a lot.

The black glass emphasis on the iMac is a precursor to the new iLife applications inside. More and more applications from Apple are showing up in the Black Glass style that we see on many of the iPhone applications. I hope to see a lot of black glass in the new Leopard OS since it looks clean and isn’t as bright as the silver/white. I almost see them using it to differentiate business applications (Pages, Numbers) from entertainment applications (Front Row, Apple TV, iPhoto, iMovie). If so, that’s just great.

The new keyboard is seriously cool. Instant click, very low key travel, I can see myself using that keyboard on a PC as well, it’s just that good. Kudos to Apple for making the keyboard that much better. I only wish they had a wireless version of the 101-key available, since the only wireless version available today is the narrow one without the separate cursor/numeric keypad. Mind you, I’ve been on laptops for so long I almost never look to find a numeric keypad, but I write code and really enjoy my cursor control keys adjacent the main keyboard.

I managed to get out of the store without buying one (thus keeping wife aggro in check at the same time) but I can see myself acquiring on in a couple of months when Leopard is standard.