Seriously! Couldn't they wait until my flight landed?

APPLE HARDWARE REFRESH COULDN'T COME AT A MORE DISTRACTING TIME!!!

Just as I am about to board the flight for Jupiter on Tuesday, Apple decides to drop some serious hardware refreshes. I knew it was coming - seriously, how often is Gruber wrong? - but what a bummer nonetheless. The iPhone is has a best in class web browser, but interestingly enough Apple does not have a mobile page adapted for viewing on an iPhone. Come again? I know, it makes no sense. Luckily, even with AT&T's crap-tacular downloads speeds, I had plenty of time to pinch-zoom and double-tab the finer details of the refresh.

Verdict

• iMac - the 27" is totally worth it if you have a plastic iMac. Yuck, that's so 2007. Get rid of it. Even if you have a Mac Pro, get rid of it. Order one of these 27"ers with a Nehalem (that's Core i7) and go to town!

• Magic Mouse - pass on this one. It has #Fail written all over it's capacitive touch body. I can't believe there's no pinch to zoom controls. WTF, it's on your glass trackpad and iPhone/iPod Touch (@idiots I'm referring to the iTouch). Inexcusable!

• Plastic Unibody MacBook - What, no black model? What, no price drop? What, no new hardware? What, you dropped the Firewire port and no SD slot? Engadget says your new glossy unibody enclosure scratches. Sorry, a superior battery life ain't going to help you. #Fail.
  What I don't get is Apple learned this lesson with glossy plastic Nanos. Remember how they scratched when you put them in a fucking case? Remember what an embarrassment that was? And you put us through it again? Double #Fail.

• Mac mini - #Fail. Apple clearly wants to use the mini to say they have a low end Mac, but really to upsell you to the iMac 21.5". But hey, if you're going to get the low end iMac, you're going to feel like an ass because the 27" is SUCH a better value. And if you get the base model 27", you're going to feel like even more of a donkey if you don't upgrade it to a Nehalem. Wow, that got expensive real fast!

• Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server - why oh why would a consumer buy this? Can't figure that out. I want it so that Double A and I can have a private but shared calendar between our iPhones and Macs.

Definite #Win for an IT guy who wants to maximize the value of his prior purchases, but I digress. Also, not sure if anyone talks about this. Wiki Server 2 is a good SharePoint competitor! Again, pretty useful for *private* (That part is key!) communications between Aimsters and I. Otherwise, Google Wave has me hanging 10. By the way, anyone want to Wave with me? I've got invites... Getting back to my point, $999.99 for a consumer to share calendars and have a collaborative web site with hardware that is near-impossible for them to perform even the simplest of upgrades smells of #Fail. Can I buy Snow Leopard server and install on Fusion? Will Apple's licensing even permit me to do that... hmm, I think it will. Oh wait, 1 year old iMac can't hold more than 4 GB of RAM. #Fail!!!!

Final Thoughts

I know what you're thinking. Kingston, you arrogant prick, why did you not boot up the laptop and connect to airport WiFi? Actually at the time I didn't think about that, but you're right, that is a good idea.

Obviously, you just can't beat the value the 27" iMac with Nehalem and 16GB of RAM affords you. There really is nothing else like it on the market today. What people fail to realize is that design is not just appearance, rather it is the way it works. The new iMac is a remarkable design that can't be beat. Go Buy It!

Wait, no Solid State Drive option?! Don't buy it!