Every so often I feel the need to issue a “don’t buy a Mac this weekend” advisory. This is one of those weeks. Actually, if you’re in the market for one of Apple’s powerful MacBook Pro notebooks or Mac Pro towers, you can probably disregard this advisory. However, this is not a good weekend, in my opinion, to drive down to New Hampshire or visit Apple’s online store to purchase either an iMac. Here’s why.

This week Apple issued invitations to the press to come to their campus auditorium next Tuesday, August 7th, for a special Mac product announcement. Not iPods or “the Phones We Do Not Speak Of”, but Macs. Computers. In typical Apple fashion, they didn’t mention which computers they were going to talk about.

But I have some ideas. I think they’ll announce new iMacs. The last major revision to the iMac line came last fall, when a 24-inch-display model was added. Since the iMac went Intel, its processor architecture has paralleled that of the MacBook Pro notebook. The iMac’s had faster DVD burners, bigger hard drives, and more powerful graphics processors, but it can afford to, having more space and no battery and power concerns.

The MacBook Pro recently received faster (up to 2.4Ghz) Intel Core2Duo processors with an improved bus and memory architecture, nicknamed “Santa Rosa”. I think it’s almost certain that Apple will announce new iMacs with the Santa Rosa architecture.

I also see in my crystal ball that the iMac’s form factor (computer-ese for “how it looks”) will get a stunning facelift. The current casing is a legacy from the iMac G5, which had to have extra room for cooling the hot-running G5 processor. Now that it sports the much cooler-running Core2Duo, the new iMac will be much thinner than the current models. Gone will be the area below the display, which now bears the Apple logo and contains some of the components. Even more than they do already, they’ll appear to be just a display sitting on your desk.

It’s possible that new, thin keyboards will debut as well, with keys resembling those on Apple’s MacBook laptops.

It’s also possible that Apple will either announce improvements to or the discontinuation of the Mac mini line. That’s kinda fuzzy in my crystal ball at this time. But, at this time next week, we’ll see if my crystal ball’s “got game”.