Like we said, considering what the machine manages to do, we don't feel overly strongly about the look of the iMac G5 either way, so we're standing well off to the side while those who are a bit more pro or con on the subject hurl opinions, insults, fists, lawn darts, etc. at each other. And guess what? There are actually quite a few others here on the sidelines, but instead of relaxing quietly to the soothing soundtrack of witty barbs and the occasional shriek accompanying a lawn dart-related maiming like we are, they're all excitedly huddling around well-worn printouts of the new iMac's tech specs and jumping up and down. See, these are the guys who wouldn't care if Apple shipped a consumer desktop that was fuchsia and chartreuse and molded from the hindquarters of a hippo with psoriasis, because 1) they're professionals, not consumers, and 2) they can't get down to business with a desktop that just sits there. These are the Road Warriors, and they need Apple's pro portables, otherwise known as PowerBooks. And many of them are practically foaming at the mouth right about now.

The thing is, not all of them are foaming for the same reasons. Some are just apoplectic that Apple has broken its longstanding tradition and released a consumer Mac that outpaces one of its pro ones; even the current top-of-the-line PowerBook only packs a 1.5 GHz G4, and now the entry-level iMac (at less than half the price) has a 1.6 GHz G5. Sure, you pay for portability, but as far as we can recall, this is still the first time in recent memory that a consumer Mac has shipped at a faster clock speed than a pro model-- let alone with a next-generation processor, to boot.

The other guys, though, are foaming with anticipation, because they're seeing all the guts of a G5 Mac crammed into a system that's just two inches thick. And after hearing time and time again (from Apple, no less) that stuffing a G5 into as tight a space as necessitated by a PowerBook is still waaaaay off in the future, the new iMac would seem to be the proof that a G5 PowerBook isn't as distant a dream as they've been led to believe. Granted, there are still hurdles to clear; for one thing, two inches is about an inch thicker than a PowerBook can realistically get. But keep in mind that while the 17-inch LCD that Apple uses in its PowerBooks and its displays are probably the same, the backlights placed behind them are not-- Apple tends to use brighter and bulkier backlights when it doesn't have to worry about saving battery power. So a fair chunk of that two-inch thickness in the iMac G5 might be backlight-related, and therefore irrelevant in a PowerBook G5 discussion.

There's also the matter of all that extra space underneath the iMac's screen, which would obviously make a 17-inch PowerBook nearly four inches deeper, and no one's going to lug something like that all over creation. But keep in mind that the iMac's speakers live in that space, and bounce sound downward off the desk; we have no idea how much of that space those speakers take up, but bearing in mind that a consumer desktop (especially one touted as "built for iLife") has to have some decent sound to it, there's at least a chance that eliminating those particular speakers might allow the footprint to shrink a little. And don't forget that the iMac's entire power supply is internal! Ripping that out in favor of the traditional PowerBook AC adapter ought to free up a lot more room.

Room for the battery that'd have to be added, that is. Hmm. Never mind.

Whatever. Look, no one's suggesting that Apple can just toss a hinged screen on an iMac, spray-paint it aluminum, throw it in a black box, and ship it as a PowerBook G5. But considering that the only systems in which we've seen G5 processors running to date are the Power Mac (with its nine fans, four thermal zones, and an enclosure the size of Montana) and the Xserve (which is at least thinnish-- but over two feet deep), the iMac G5 is clearly a massive leap forward towards a PowerBook G5 from those two behemoths. At a time when the rumor mill is only talking about the next PowerBook revision only upping the G4 from 1.5 GHz to 1.6 GHz, the iMac G5 represents hope that we really will get to see 64-bit Mac portables shipping sometime before our grandkids go on Medicare. And that, we feel, totally justifies a few flecks of mouth foam here and there.