Look what arrived on our doorstep today! That's right -- the shiny, expensive new iMac that's now equipped with that funky custom and / or overclocked 3.06GHz CPU. Take a look at us wildly unboxing and handling the behemoth in the gallery below, and get a load of its fairly impressive Xbench scores after the break.

Following this morning's iMac introduction, speculation has been rampant as to whether Apple got an early shot at Intel's upcoming Core 2 Duo Extreme X9100 chip. The X9100 is meant to usher in the "Montevina" Centrino 2 era, and boasts significant less power consumption than its forebears, in addition to those spiffy new clock speeds. Well, it turns out the new iMacs aren't Montevina, but instead a special-made 45nm Penryn 3.06GHz chip with a 1066MHz frontside bus. That means most of the juice of the X9100, but at 55 watts instead of 44. This chip exclusivity has been a bit of a pattern with Apple, and one which we're sure its competitors are quite appreciative of.

Read - Electronista
Read - TG Daily

Yup, another Apple store outage reveals yet another bump in product specs. This time, it's the iMac getting the treatment just as Geeksugar and our own sources predicted -- on a Monday though instead of Apple's customary Tuesday morning approach. So what's new? Well, for starters you're now looking at the latest Core 2 Duo Penryn processors. For the same starting price of $1,199, you now get a 20-inch iMac with 2.4GHz proc, 128MB of ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics, 1GB of memory and a 250GB 7200RPM disk. The top of the line 24-inch model now sports a 3.06GHz processor, 512MB of NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS graphics, 2GB of memory, and a 320GB 7200rpm disk for $2,199. Rounding out the specs across the lineup are Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 802.11n WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet, built-in iSight cam, and 5x USB 2.0 (which includes the 2x on tethered keyboard) and 1x Firewire 400 and 1x Firewire 800. Same size, same weight and available now... yes, right now.

We're not ones to peer too deeply into the Apple crystal ball, but Geeksugar says that spec-bumped iMacs are due on Tuesday, and the timing seems about right. Nothing major, apparently, just a speed bump and some bigger hard drives, but prices should stay the same. It's still just a rumor, of course, but Geeksugar was right on the money about that MacBook / MacBook Pro bump last time around, apart from saying that multitouch trackpads would hit all of Apple's portables. Perhaps some Best Buy / Future shop employees will let us take a peek in the database and let us know what's up, hmmm?

Update: We've gotten a couple sketchy reports that entries for new iMacs are in fact popping up in retailers' systems, but it's getting hard to focus what with all the grains of salt we've taken.

Although Apple has said that it's still on track to ship 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008, it looks like that rumor about scaled back production may have been true after all: several analysts are now reporting that the company's pulled back iPod touch, iPhone, and MacBook production for Q1. Of course, Apple is known for managing its channel inventory pretty ruthlessly, so it's not known if this is a permanent decrease or just a reaction to what some analysts are calling "overbuilding" in Q4, but there is some good news out there -- strong sales of the iMac have led to a forecasted 35 percent production increase. You know, the last time the economy soured, Steve promised that Apple would "innovate out" of the downturn -- we'd say some new MacBook Pros would be a fine start this time around, eh?

[Via X-bit Labs, thanks Mack]

Tidy, huh? If you're an iMac or Apple Studio Display owner then you'll see the immediate appeal of this LowKey Stand from Macessity. Constructed of 0.1085-inch thick steel "power-coated" to match your rig, it neatly hides your new slim Apple keyboard from view. There's also a powered 4-port USB port up front which helps to offset the stand's $60 price a tad.

Apple's always enjoyed patenting the near-absurd, just to get us speculating in the wrong direction or to give its thousands of patent lawyers something to do during a slow design cycle. We can't really imagine Apple has this pair of "products" prepped and waiting in the wings of Macworld, but it's still fun to look. First off we have a MacBook dock that conveniently looks just like an iMac. Not much explanation is needed, you just slide the laptop into the side of the iMac and start desktoping away on the big screen. The second patent deals with a quite familiar keyboard concept: OLED screens in every key. It's not the first time an Apple patent has overlapped with a Lebedev design, but who knows how it'll go down if Apple tries to build one of these Lebedev-ish ideas -- Apple patented this keyboard concept about a year after the Maximus concept was first shown off.

Read - iMac MacBook dock
Read - Apple Maximus

Sure, it's not the real thing, but those of you aching for a taste of Steve's "research project" touch Macs can now order up the latest and greatest iMacs retrofitted with touchscreens from Troll Touch. The company's been putting its PSRT touchscreens on all sorts of displays for years, and much like the ModBook, the tech pretty much just works. Pricing for the new iMacs starts at $2499 for the base 2.0GHz 20-inch model and runs up to $3899 for the 2.8GHz 24-inch Core 2 Extreme, while those of you who want to upgrade your existing machines can get in on the action for $1099 (20 inch) or $1599 (24 inch). Shipping now, apparently.

Not a moment too soon, Apple has apparently delivered on its intentions to squash that annoying freezing bug that plagued some of its latest iMacs. Available now for Leopard (iMac Software Update 1.3) and Tiger (iMac Software Update 1.2), the update reportedly "provides important bug fixes and is recommended for 20- and 24-inch iMac models with 2.0, 2.4, or 2.8GHz processors." Unfortunately, we're given absolutely no elaboration beyond that, so for any of you out there still limping by on a freeze-happy machine, why not get your download on and let us know if your troubles do indeed vanish?

[Via PCWorld]
Read - iMac Software Update 1.3 for Leopard
Read - iMac Software Update 1.2 for Tiger

One of our readers dropped us a note to tell us that his new 24-inch iMac was exhibiting condensation build up behind the screen: he's not the only one, with a few people on the Apple Support forums and elsewhere also reporting the problem. Our tipster says that condensation builds up in the lower corners, goes away, and then comes back when the surrounding environment drops in temperature. Moisture plus computers doesn't compute, so make sure to report the issue to Applecare if you're seeing the same issues. Hopefully Apple will step up and publicly recognize this as a fault sometime soon.

[Thanks, Lee B.]

Read - New iMac condensation inside screen (Apple Support)
Read - Condensation behind iMac glass (DPreview)
Read - iMac Aluminium Condensation (MacInTouch)

Although this doesn't seem to relate to the janky LCDs that some users were seeing on their 20-inch iMacs, Apple has admitted that at least some of the newest machines do have an issue. Reportedly, an Apple spokesperson stated that a "small number of iMac users have made us aware that a recent software update can sometimes cause their iMacs to freeze, requiring them to restart." Apparently, the machines become "unusable, requiring a hard reset in order to recover," and Cupertino is currently "tracking down the root cause of the bug." So, if you just so happen to be moments away from chucking your new iMac through the nearest window over this, restrain yourself -- a software update with the cure should be coming "later this month."

Apple took some flak a few months ago for shipping 18-bit LCD panels in the MacBook and MacBook Pro -- a hue and cry that reached its inevitable conclusion with a class-action lawsuit over the "sparkly" and "grainy" quality of the screens. Well, it looks like Cupertino isn't too fazed by the uproar, because it appears that the new 20-inch iMac is shipping with a similar 18-bit panel -- and, not surprisingly, prompting the same type of complaints. We're not sure how widespread the issues are, but we're starting our lawsuit clock...now.

[Via TUAW]