After months of speculation and rumor, Apple officially unveiled the iMac G5 at Apple Expo in Paris. Designed by the iPod team, the new iMac integrates an entire computer into a single flat-panel display, which Apple touts as the world's thinnest desktop computer.

The iMac G5 is two inches thick, with a 17- or 20-inch widescreen LCD. "Just like the iPod redefined portable digital music players, the new iMac G5 redefines what users expect from a consumer desktop," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "A lot of people will be wondering 'where did the computer go?'"

The new iMac features a fast system architecture, with a PowerPC G5 processor at up to 1.8GHz and a system bus at up to 600MHz, AGP 8X graphics with a 64MB NVIDIA GeForce FX5200 Ultra, 7200 rpm Serial ATA hard drives at up to 250GB, and support for up to 2GB of DDR400 RAM.

The system includes three USB 2.0, two FireWire 400, optical audio out, and line in ports. Support for Airport Extreme and Bluetooth is available. On the software side, the iMac G5 comes with iLife '04, which includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and GarageBand, and Mac OS X 10.3.

The iMac G5 begins shipping worldwide in mid-September. The 17-inch model features an 80GB hard drive and is available with a 1.6GHz G5 processor and combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive for US $1,299; or a 1.8GHz processor and 4x SuperDrive for US $1,499. The 20-inch model with a 1.8GHz processor, 4x SuperDrive, and 160GB hard drive is US $1,999. All models include 256MB of RAM, 10/100 Ethernet, and a 56k modem.

More information can be found on Apple's iMac Web site.