Okay, before I return to bed for another two hours, here are my honest first impressions (all of this could change tomorrow, the more I delve into it and view it with fresh, "next day" eyes):
1. It's unattractive
2. It looks like 400 unimaginitive mock-ups I've seen where the Cinema Display was used as a jumping-off point. Just doesn't seem to be Apple's style to raid their own closet...I truly expect(ed) more from Apple.
3. Nowhere near as "huggable" as the jellybean, and nowhere near as visually striking as the sunflower iMac G4. From the front, it looks exactly like an eMac stuck on a popsicle stick. WTF?
4. All that talk, two years ago about "glomming the guts onto the back of the display" and "horizontally mounted drives"...what happened? That's all this thing IS!
5. I'm glad they kept it white. Goes with the iPod and keeps it firmly in the mind of "okay, this is how 'regular guy' machine".
6. The specs are nice, and the price drops (17" for $1299 and so forth) are great! If I gave a damn about desktops anymore, yeah...I'd certainly get this over any tower/display combination, hands down.
But overall, I'm not blown away. It looks like someone's Photoshop-tweaked mock-up (stick a slot on the side, some ports on it and call it done).
Just seems to say "take the easy way cop out" to me.
Again, let me sleep on it and view it all tomorrow and get more into the specs. But at 6:05am, September 31, those are my honest, heartfelt initial first reactions. Wanted them on record.
If advertised and pushed properly (playing up that iPod angle), now that the holidays are approaching, this could be interesting...
We'll see.