It’s fair to say that Apple has been on a roll, and the new iMacs introduced today are sure to be a big hit. The Thunderbolt interface is being widely adopted by peripheral manufacturers, and the across the board updates to processors and graphics while keeping prices the same as the previous models is a good thing.

There is a difference between the 90-10 crowd as we like to see it. 90% of people want to use computers for email, web browsing, Facebook, photo management, basic business, and so on. What these people generally need is encompassed nicely in the iMac line. THe other 10% are content creators, whether hobbysit/prosumers or creative professionals, and that almost always means a need for greater horsepower, expandability, and other things that would not necessarily make an iMac the ideal choice.

That is, until Thunderbolt.

Thunderbolt is what used to be called “Light Peak” up until it was rebranded with the launch of new Macbook Pro’s a couple of months ago. It promises a new world of screaming-fast data transfers. The claims are extreme: 10 gigabit per second transfers (both upload and download!), dual protocol support, and power over the cable.  Thunderbolt, is truly the interconnect of the future, at least Apple and Intel see it that way.

The technology will be included across the entire line of Macs from now on, but Apple is just one of a bunch of companies with plans to support Intel’s technology. Thunderbolt devices will slowly trickle out of major industry players over the coming year.

It’s going to be an uphill battle for the standard — the USB faithful won’t go without a fight. This is why Apple refused to use USB 3.0 in its’ Macs. In our opinion, they should have supported uSB 3.0 and introduced Thunderbolt, the difference in speeds and functionality still puts Thunderbolt way ahead of anything else. Why not have the best of both worlds?

The 27″ iMac is a real head turner, and the top of the line model will set you back $3,649, and that’s with the specs you see in this screen cap.

Is it too much for what you get? It doesn’t seem to be that bad, actually. We’ll take a closer look at the reality of the hardware and cost in an upcoming post, but considering the 27″ Cinama Display is $1000 by itself, the overall cost seems reasonable for Apple.

More to come, and we hope to do a review on one soon, with an eye towards answering the question of if this would make a good machine for, say, the new Final Cut Pro and LightWave or Cinema 4D. Will it? It sure looks like it might.