The iMacs are coming!

Apple cut the smallest display out of the product loop, redesigned the enclosure in aluminum and glass – which may be part of their new environmental initiatives, and added a glossy display, new keyboard and a few smaller features to the iMac lienup today. Looks nice. Notice one thing, though:

The border around the display itself is now black. TV salesmanship 101 was that a black border around the display was always preferred by customers over a silver or white border, because the darker frame increases the perceived contrast and color definition of the display to the average eye. Many people will now say that the new display looks sharper or brighter, if only because there isn’t something light-colored hanging around the edge of the display.

The other thing that jumped out at me (and as part of the iLife demonstration as well) is that the redesign very deliberately looks a lot like the iPhone. Flat metal, black border, shiny Apple logo… if we get more changes like this, it will become only more apparent that we’re looking at a product family.

John Siracusa’s annual WWDC bingo card for the year has been posted, and I’ve already got mine printed and ready to go while I keep up with the live feed at work on Monday.

In case you’re unfamiliar, this has become a tradition in the last few years with the Mac faithful. We dream about the wonderful things that are going to be announced either at WWDC or at Macworld, we get our hopes up to stratospheric levels (my big hope for Monday is a new iMac running Leopard), and then we sit over the keynote presentations like hawks, waiting for tidbits of news to make us excited.

I know of no other group in geek-dom that behaves quite like this.