Sounds like you are pretty excited. ;)

I just bought my first mac 4 weeks ago [13inch MBP] and I love it so far. As soon as I find a job I want to get a nice 27inch iMac.

Unless you buy this iMac, or this screen from Apple for a grand:

http://www.apple.com/displays/

You can have as many PC's and BD players you want, and you will not be able to see the image at the same quality. If you don't care about the screen, don't by an iMac.

If you want to watch the BD at the best possible quality, your eyes will need to be looking at an Apple display. It seems like a waste to spend $1000 on a screen alone, when for $699 more, you get an i7 Computer connected to the back of it.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/G0GF0LL/A?mco=MTU0Mzg4OTg

You also don't need a BD player to watch HD movies. You can buy them from the iTunes store. They are compressed, but compressed well. iTunes HD plus Apple display is greater then BD plus any other display in my opinion.

And lastly, the mini displayport on the back takes a signal in. you can just use this if you want too:

http://www.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=508267

And hook anything you like up to it.

Just to correct myself here, Dell does make the same screen (in matte and not gloss however).

http://www.amazon.com/Dell-UltraSharp-U2711-27-inch-Widescreen/dp/B0039648BO/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285514502&sr=8-1

It's still over a grand, so the argument holds true. You just don't have to be looking at an Apple display.

You're sure putting a lot of stock in Blu-Ray players.

Personally, I use my computer for other things... like working. And OS X fills that requirement very well. So does Windows 7 but I prefer the built-in features and programs of OS X over Windows.

So I was just looking at an iMac (not to purchase it), regarding what all comes with it.  If all you did was upgrade your computer to the 27" screen, you paid $2200.  With some further analysis, could you please explain what software "came" with the mac for absolutely zero cost to you, because with what I'm seeing on their website, it looks to me like you have to buy their software, which is what I originally believed.

Also, I looked up all the software you described.  You really gotta be more specific.  The visual studio can range from like $50 to $10,000 depending on the version you get.  The SQL server can change on whether or not you get the $15000 one that covers 25 computers.  Also, you are listing all of this software, are you inferring the mac comes with all of this necessary software for free?  If they came with $1000's of software for free, I'm pretty sure they'd have a little bigger portion of the market.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/developers/#xcode

The Snow Leopard disk you get with a new Mac, has all those tools on it. The people at Apple who made iLife, Snow Leopard, iWorks, Aperture, and most every other Mac application used the same version of Xcode you get for free on the disk. If you're looking to put iOS apps on the app store, you pay a fee, but you can still develop those for free and use there simulator.

You can get a set of free tools from Microsoft to develop, but if you want to do anything serious, you need to buy them. Don't get me wrong, Microsoft makes some great development tools, but the only thing inexpensive from that company, is there desktop OS's. These tools are not cheep.

Also, those two development platforms are not the only games in town. Java development is huge, and you can do that on anything. If MS stopped selling development tools tomorrow, most people would migrate to Java, and not Apples Objective C stuff. I am only doing so, because I want to develop for the iPhone/iPod Touch, and iPad.

Apple has 14% market share, so not bad. 66% of all computers over $1,000 are Apple computers, so there market is more then some people might think.

My Mac right now is a 17" laptop. It's a core duo 2.1Ghz, 2 gig of ram (maxed) with a 256Meg video card. (ATI X1600). The 27" iMac is far more powerful than that. Also, I got it refurbished for $1899

http://store.apple.com/us/product/G0JP0LL/A?mco=MTkwMzU2MjQ

If you're a developer sitting at home wondering how you can make something yourself and sell it, the App store is amazing. For the cost of a Mac a developer fee ($599 for the Mac Mini Refurbished  $99 to put 5 apps on the store), you get everything you need.

Right now, I could develop something worth a dollar, post it to the store, and instantly have over 120 million customers. Apple sells over 6 million iOS devices a month. All I have to do is setup an account with Apple, submit my app, and I am done. I don't need to worry about distribution, taking credit cards, publishing. Apple takes care of all this, and only charges 30%. All I need to worry about outside of those costs, is marketing. With all the apps out there, you need to somehow get some viability towards yours. if I could get just 1 out of 200 people to buy my app, that's half a million bucks. Not bad.

Anyway, if your looking for a high end gaming rig, Apple doesn't have a solution for you. If your looking for just about anything else and don't mind paying for intangibles that come with Apple computers (first class support, free training at Apple stores, awesome warranties, etc), these computers have you covered.

For me, it's a great value.

Well, I got the iMac, and it's awesome.

Only issue I have right now, is my HD 5870 does not work with the Displayport. I come to find out no one seems to have gotten the HD 5870 to connect to a Displayport device with the Displayport.

So, I have opened a ticket with the manufacturer to see what they want to do to fix the problem. The card is still under warrantee, so i asume they will just give me my money back, being the card does not operate as advertised.

They make a version of the 5870 that has 6 Mini-Displayports on it, and those cards will work. I offered to pay the additional $100 that card costs if they wish to swap.

I will let you know how it all goes :)