Mac User Elite Hate New iMac Design But Don’t Say Why.

The iMac is ready for a facelift. It’s time for Apple to deliver a new iMac; slimmer, faster, sleeker, and without the ugly plastic chin at the bottom.

Will the new iMac be brushed metal like the MacBook Pro? The Mac elite hope not.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the iMac. Is there a cooler design for a PC anywhere on the planet? I don’t think so, but I read with great amusement Jeff Smykil’s thoughts on a new iMac design.

In summary, Jeff pines for anything except brushed metal as that will make his elite tastes get all queasy. Should a new brushed metal iMac be introduced soon, he expects the audience to reach for vomit bags.

What’s wrong with the iMac that makes it need a new design? What’s wrong with Apple’s classy brushed metal design in the MacBook Pro line and the Cinema Display line?

Is the design so bad as to cause nausea and loathing from the Mac user elite? Apparently.

In recent years, Apple has segregated the pro Macs from the consumer Macs by using brushed metal for the former, and plastic for the latter. The iMac appears to have been designed along the lines of a very big iPod, both in shape and free use of plastic.

The iMac is a few years old already and in need of a facelift, particularly in the area of the Jay Leno chin below the screen on the front.

Relative to Apple’s very classy but over priced Cinema Displays, the iMac is fat and needs a diet.

So, what’s wrong with brushed metal? Jeff scoured the web’s rumor sites and came up with an alleged iMac redesign—or to make all the elite at ArsTechnica cringe. Or become nauseous. Or vomit.

Some expect a new iMac soon, devoid of chin, minus the 17-inch entry-level model, and with a thinner brushed metal look, ala the Cinema Displays. That’s fine with me, but not for the elitist of the Mac faithful who, apparently, are not required to justify an opinion.

I’ll tell you why I like such a design, but the elite won’t tell you why it’s bad for you—other than induced nausea. The Cinema Display design, in brushed metal, is classy, sleek, thin, durable, almost timeless, elegant, and understated, yet fully utilitarian.

I challenge you to find that combination in any other desktop computer system.

Traditionally, the iMac has been considered a consumer machine, therefore, beget from the land where plastic rules. I submit that the high end iMac, especially the 24-inch model, is closer to a pro-sumer model (Sony gets away with that term for their high end, almost pro HD video cameras), therefore, a metal enclosure is not only acceptable, but expected.

It’s been nearly three years since the iMac had a facelift. That’s an ice age in high technology design, so I expect a facelift for the newer, faster, sleeker iMac for that reason alone—minus the white space plastic chin on the front.

Without the chin, Apple won’t have to pay royalties to Jay Leno, or Charlton Heston, or Courtney Love, or whoever inspired designer Jonathan Ives’ iMac face.

I don’t mind a forceful opinion about design from a popular online site, but it would be handy to follow up said opinion with reasons for the formulation of such. Perhaps that’s why they’re the elite and I’m not.