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Flat-panel iMacs in Apple's Future?
WinkyN writes: "A story on Yahoo! is claiming Apple might release a flat-panel iMac for release in early 2002. Analysts for Morgan Stanley who cover Apple say the computer manufacturer has placed orders for component parts to build such a machine (in fact, build about 100,000 of them a month). Perhaps Steve Jobs will announce this at Macworld Expo in January?"
After all, they *DID* stop selling any monitors but flat screens...
And hell, they can make them smaller, and in new shapes, they could do a lot of things with the shape, since they aren't limited by the size of the CRT and the heat problems inherent with monitors in close proximity with other computer pieces...
Besides, If the release another "flower power" imac, and you were stuck using it, wouldn't *YOU* want it smaller/easier to hide?
Ex
..it's called an iBook.
But seriously, why would Apple sell such a thing? It would have to be comparable in cost to an iBook, the LCD being the most expensive part.
It would probably be a snazzy box, but would the price be right for a low-end machine?
Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G
IMO, imacs are cool because of the translucent plastic that lets you see the inside of the CRTs. A flat panel would just be like any thin PC spray painted fruity.
15 to 1 says it's got some sort of water cooling.
How many people that buy consumer-level computers upgrade them? Very few.
I have a website. It's about Macs.
Imagine all those soaps and shows where people only work with iMac's instead of real computers... they all have to upgrade to avoid to look dated! Sell WB stock now!
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
You could upgrade the imac's monitor the same as any other computer; buy a new monitor and plug it in.
How long before MacCentral, MacRumor, MacAttack, or whoever releases a "secret" pick of this new flat-panel iMac. I'm eager to claim that the picture is a fake Photoshop job, and that there's no way this will ever exist, only to be proven wrong a month later.
This has got to be the most common Apple rumor in recent years. The flat-panel iMac is always predicted at every major MacWorld Expo, and so far it hasn't materialized. Maybe it will this time, but Mac rumors have been so far off in the past that a lot of people don't pay attention to them anymore.
So would it look like this http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTool s/item-details.asp?sku=D158-1008 only in different colors then? Is this really that new of a concept? These things have been in the last few Tiger catalogs I've gotten.
-J
Say hello to "iFlat"
Oh yeah, I think I read that the new iMac would be completely solar powered and hovers weightless whereever you want it totally negating the need for a desk. And it reads your mind, all thanks to the new G6 processor. ;)
today is spelling optional day.
http://www.acorncreative.tv/imac2.html
I'll take any of them.
There was speculation that is the reason Apple raised the price of it's high end iMac last time. That way when the transition to a flat panel iMac came around it could remain at the same price upon release and still be considered the 'entry level' mac.
Apple can both save on shipping costs and bill their new iMac's as semi-portable...
hell, they're small enough now that with a retracting power cord and wireless mouse/keyboard that they might as well be.
With some depthwise space savings from the removal of the CRT, and the removal of the weight from the glass, they could throw a cord retractor and keyboard/mouse dock on the back of the thing...
Anyhow, it's about time, I think that's going to be a killer machine. (As long as I don't buy an iMac and get a dead friggin pixel in the center of my screen)
Think about what they've done in the past couple years:
Nice hardware, growing in leaps and bounds as the market for those things matures (pc133, yes it was late, and yes, it's slower than DDR, but hey, better than pc100), nice processors, removing all relic hardware as necessary (USB instead of ADB, etc). Apple has always done this. Making the powerbook g4 was the next step, making a laptop just slightly less powerful than a desktop, *AND* has a battery life to speak of.
Nice software: OS X. BSD core. No need for them to figure out how to reinvent the wheel with their crappy old OS's--Simply change a few widgets, and call it Darwin, then add a GUI, and Voila! instant OS. With a *LOT* of software available, not to mention the 20 billion BSD hackers, the people that'll keep the Darwin OS up to snuff.
Totally reengineered interface--Finally a command line that doesn't suck! And for that matter, a GUI that doesn't suck! And multitasking! And all sorts of neat widgets that make techies and non-techies alike scream out "I WANT ONE!"
Giving computers to schools, making great leaps in hardware, standardizing their video system. I see this as a incredibly brilliant move for Jobs.
All in all, more power to them... They may live, they may struggle, or they may die. They are pushing the user's into a whole new realm; DVD-R's in affordable systems, laptops that don't suck, and keeping up with technology a lot better than they used to.
Ex.
See this story over at the Register
So, with the price of LCD panels dropping, it's the obvious next step... but it just isn't a breakthrough (except getting it done at a price suitable for iMac).
Its about time Apple put a flat panel on their mac. Now it'll look even more badass through the transparent top, and maybe there'll be room for expansion slots. In any case, the flat panel will make it much easier to lug around without having to change the overall form factor.
Now all they need to do is make the thing as cheap as the original imac and we're cooking.
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
While the reported component order gives the rumor slightly stronger legs, don't forget that Apple already buys lots of 15" LCDs for their 15" Studio Display. It would be very interesting to know how many of these monitors Apple currently sells per month. Perhaps the additional 100kmonitors/month is simply forecasting additional demand?
Think back 15 years. We had the Mac, Mac Plus, Mac SE. In recent years were the iMac, iMac DV, iMac SE. Apple loves to re-use concepts -- my old toaster Mac had a SuperDrive.
I'd love to see an iMac equivalent of the IIci or the LC3. Flat panel, compact desktop case, one or two expansion slots, and much cheaper than the pro towers. Basically, what the Cube should have been. It can be done. They have the technology. But is Lord Steve willing to do it?
Yet, since I saw a G3 in action two years ago at my uncle's place (he is an artist), I got interested.
Now, my old laptop (P120/32MegRAM, running Linux) is getting really old. How long will it live? 6 months perhaps, but replacement is probably due next year? I didn't make up my mind yet, but an iBook is now definately an option! I want to try OS X, Yellow Dog Linux, perhaps even NetBSD. Plus they look good!
If they can get *me* interested in their hardware, they must be on for a comeback: two years ago, I would have laughed a Mac user in the face...Now I say: cool show me how it works.
The idea is to replace the original iMac. How upgradeable was that? Macs in general are not designed to be über-hackable. They are aimed at designers and the like, for whom k3w1 looks are more important than k3w1 internals.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I'll bet you a ThinkGeek T-shirt that there won't be water cooling. I take size large, thanks.
Mr. Ska
When the iMac was unveiled it was considered by many to be nearly revolutionary. Whether you agree with this sentiment or not is another issue. However that was (I believe) in 1998, and it's nearly 2002 and the iMac of today is visually almost identical to the 1998 firstborn Bondi Blue iMac. Yeah, there have been color changes, hard drive upgrades, speed bumps, memory increases, and now even a slot-loading cd/dvd/whatever drive, but the external appearance is pretty much unchanged. Normally this wouldn't matter for a computer, but the iMac was a hit because of its style.
So it's time for something "revolutionary" again. I've heard rumors of the flat panel iMac from lame sites like Mac OS Rumors since at least the end of 1998. Actually this particular rumor (and its failure to materialize) was one reason I stopped reading MOSR and its ilk and realized what garbage they were.
So if Steve Jobs unveils a flat panel iMac, it won't be a big surprise. The difference now will be if he doesn't, analysts will be disappointed and Apple's stock price will probably take a minor hit.
rooooar
Right. They'll announce it between the new Apple PDA and the Disney buyout.
And then Hitler will build a snowman.
--saint
Granted, Gateway, HP, etc have come out with flat panel consumer PCs, so the fact that Apple can stir up a bunch of rumor news with a flat panel product may leave some scratching their heads wondering what the big hoopla is. Think about the iPod. Yeah, there are plenty of mp3 players out there, but it took the design team at Apple to create the best one. Apple took their time, and GOT IT RIGHT. The same can be said for the next iMac. It may have the same specs as some other machines out there now, but it'll make everything else look like junk when it comes out. Obviously I haven't seen it, but knowing Apple's track record I'm sure it'll be amazing.
The trouble with LCD iMacs is the education market. Schools don't buy iMacs just because they are cheaper than iBooks, they buy them because they are more durable.
The abuse that a computer takes in a school setting is enough to make me cringe.
Still, I like the idea of having a LCD iMac. It would be cool for me, I'm just not sure that it will work in the education market. (Yeah, I know. Maine just bought 38,600 iBooks. Still, most schools buy iMacs.)
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
Shipping even more flat screens has definitly interesting side effects. This means that Apple wants to lower the prize (for themselves) and it means all flat screens will be cheaper, and I am hoping it will be cheaper faster. This implies that I could, the next time I want a new computer, two at least 19", LCDs together with my brand new nVidia GF++.
So, everybody who doesn't care, or are mac maniacs, go buy one of these;)
OS X. iDVD. iTunes. Final Cut Pro 3.
Sure Apple is know for their design aesthetic, but they have some really cool technology too.
that they advertise the damn thing.
The new iPod commercial actually has a blip of OS X, and yet it is a mere 2 second glimpse.
Sad.
Reminds me of the same situation that AMD is in.
Great product, little or no exposure to "the unwashed masses/joe+/or jane 6 pack".
It almost seems to me as if they are taking the "female" tact of "if you don't know, I'm not going to tell you"...
(hint: never come back with 'If you don't tell me, how am I supposed to know'...big mistake... more pain than "yes, your but does look big")
Both make great products (amd/apple) but in the AMD the hardware needs exposure, with Apple, their new os (OS X, naturally) is in *dire* need of some air time...at least more than 2 seconds.
And "flat panel" imacs...well like the G5 rumors, I'll believe it when I see it.
Oh, whatever happened to "I/we don't comment on unreleased products."?
I'm suprised Steve Jobs has not repealed that policy and said, yes we will have a G5/flat panel Imac/whaterver rumor...but it is slated for release *after* 3 or more years.
IOW, beat the users and rumour mongers with a clue stick and the truth.
Yeah?
Cheers.
Moose.
.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Apple will award you with a large cash bonus after you become their premiere PR agency.
...in bed.
Apple's chips simply run too slow
don't be so foolish. the correct term would be a lower frequency (as denoted by the unit of measure, MHz/GHz)
this is not an indication of speed, it is an indication of how many cycles per second it has.
speed comes from how many operations can be performed per second or even howmany can be performed per cycle. Athlons perform more operations per cycle that P4s do, and G4s perform more operations per cycle than either of the two.
now when you multiply how many operations per cycle by the number of cycles, you get the number of operations per second, you can then make statments about speed.
if a P4 executes 1 operations per cycle and has 2 billion cycles per second, that is 2 billion operations per second.
if a G4 does 3 operations per cycle and operates at 667 Mhz, that is also 2 billion operations per cycle. both chips operate at the same speed, one however has a higher frequency that the other.
the speed of applications is irrelivent to the most part because each chip has their own optimizations that a program can take advantage of. I say for the most part, because you can compile an application with no optimizations for the architecture and then it would be possable to get a fel for each chips speed, however, the instruction sets are diffrent and one instruction set could be more efficient that the other, in which case you do not get an actual feel for raw speed of the architecture.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
speed comes from how many operations can be performed per second
Don't forget to take into account what you can accomplish per operation. Sure one architecture has the same number of cycles at half the frequency, but if the other architecture takes fewer operations to perform the same tasks, then it's faster. I think it's useless to try and compare different architectures. Just go with the one that works for you.
Apple Insider has a story on this, as well.
It's true that this has been rumored for quite some time, and nothing has come of the rumors. The key reason that Apple Insider seems inclined to believe it this time is essentially that:
It's no surprise that a major change to the iMac is coming. What has been difficult to nail down is exactly what will be changed, and when these changes will occur. What has precluded this product from being introduced is component availability and prices: AppleInsider sources have revealed, however, that the prices of key components has reached an acceptable level at which Apple can sell the new iMac at a price palatable to consumers and still retain profitability on its most popular line.
We'll see...
* * *
It is a dada story -- it has no moral.
HA..funny....floppys have been done at apple for a while.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
no and yes, Task switching, which Windows does, just smoves resources from on application to antoher giving the application in use about 95% of the system resources.
MultiTasking, which unix does...I don't know about Win XP.....allows the resources to be used equaly and concurently by all applications.
just because you can click on another windows and keep the other one viewabel does not mean that you are multitasking, that is why the system lags in windows when you have a game running then all of a sudden you get a IM from a chum, the resources are taken away from the game and give to the IM client.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Why does the Slashdot community automatically tear apart everything Apple does? Would it be so hard to admit that they got it right with Firewire, got it right by popularizing USB, got it right by deleting the useless floppy drive, got it right with Quicktime, got it right with the (new) iBook and Powerbook g4, and got it DAMN right with OS X? Seriously folks, look back at all your knee-jerk reactionary posts over everything Apple and do some thinking. Point me to major innovations that have not been driven by Apple and then try using a new Mac. Have you ever USED OS X on a new Titanium? Have you ever tried to copy even 64MB over USB to a Rio, and then copied 2 GB to a firewire drive in the same time? Try using Final Cut Pro, iMovie, DVD Studio Pro... This site has become a bunch of first-post, bash-everything, small-minded jerkoffs.
They're going to have to redesign the whole thing if they want flat screens, because the box isn't flat on the front. Either than, or they'll have to make curved-panel displays.
Of course, an iMac box would look really weird without the CRT, because it would be mostly empty, and they probably can't just make the box smaller, because they need vent space. So they'll probably have to come up with a special new shape.
It seams like they haven't been doing much lately (as much as other manufacturers),
I don't what you mean by "lately" I guess if you mean the past couple of months all they have done is open more of their own retail stores, speed bump their hardware, come out with a new MP3 player, update their OS, multimedia and MP3 software - which i guess is "not much" when we are talking about apple. But I don't know of any other manufacturer that does as much as Apple even on a "slow" day - the PC manufacturers are mostly just assembling and reselling new products from Intel and Microsoft whereas Apple does more of it's own hardware engineering even contributing (a little) to the PowerPC chip design and makes it's own OS (a Unix "for the rest of us"), a whole host of multimedia software and every year or two takes enormous risks coming out with inovative hardware which is either a spectacular success (iMac, Titanium PowerBook) or a spectacular (but cool) failure (the Cube)
But back to your original question: Is apple actually going to attempt a huge come back?
Yes, everything they do is designed to attempt a huge comeback. They started their own retail stores with the stated goal of significantly increasing market share. They take risks with such strange hardware and their own excellent software because they aren't looking for a product that is "good enough" but are hoping for a blockbuster. They have had some spectacular successes with this strategy (Most notably the iMac which singlehandedly broght them back from the grave) and some spectacular failures (the Cube - which was a failure but was still "cool")
It's a still-born connector.
No USB 2.0 support in XP, and Intel is moving towards IEEE-1394.
I reckon that Apple will put a higher speed Firewire in all the new desktops in January along with faster G3s and G4s, might call the new G4 a G5 and do an LCD iMac, but USB 2.0...no biggy.
Missing? They just finally got rid of the d@mn things and you are trying to bring them back? Let me say again: good riddance to floppies. If you still actually use floppies you can just buy a seperate reader and let the rest of us continue on into the 21st century.
I read the internet for the articles.
Unfortunately it's not that simple. P4's and G4's both have lots of optimizations that allow them to detect low-level parallelism and thus execute instructions in parallel. The G4 is arguably a bit better at this, in part because it has a RISC instruction set and thus has more flexibility in the ordering of instructions, compared with the Godawful x86 instruction set which often takes several cycles to execute.
The other major advantage that a G4 has is altivec, but I would argue that this isn't as great an advantage as Apple claims. True, it's cleaner and faster than MMX or KNI in the Intel line, but the difference isn't *that* great, and more to the point many developers aren't taking advantage of it. So while you can get a 6x speed boost on seti@home or photoshop, it's not going to do much for your run-of-the-mill applcation.
Finally, in terms of overall speed, I think it's ludicrous to claim that Macs are 2-3 times faster at the same clock rate. True, it's somewhat faster at the same clock rate due to a simpler instruction set, shallower pipeline, and other reasons, but I simply don't buy a 3-fold performance advantage. On average, a 866 G4 is probably equivalent to a 1 GHz or maybe 1.2 GHz P4. That's still substantially slower than Intel's top-of-the-line 2 Ghz P4's.
Apple has been very successful at selling the idea of a "megahertz myth," and to a certain extent they may be right. But honestly, better architectures can only push you so far. If the chip is doing fewer cycles per second, that *has* to be a handicap.
So I would say Macs at the moment are slower than their PC counterparts. They also happen to be less power-hungry, have better industrial design, run a better OS, be easier to use, etc. That's why I bought one. But I don't think we should be doing Apple's PR job for them. The G4 is a fast chip, but it's not *that* fast.
So true. I'm in the same boat (life-long PC user).
Next year I'll be replacing my desktop with a laptop, because I absolutely need a laptop now. If I were to buy now, I would buy the Titanium. It's an incredible little machine, and not overly pricey given its abilities.
As an engineer (-to-be) I think the Titanium is technically amazing. It's got a great-looking screen, a fast hard drive (for a laptop), REALLY good battery life (5 hours *average*? I've never seen a similarly equipped Wintel laptop last anywhere near that long) etc. It's also pretty light (5.5lbs). I'm just blown away by the thing.
I'm hoping, though, that Dell comes out with a Wintel laptop that can compare. I don't know if it's feasible, though, because of the fundamental difference in hardware architectures. The thing is, I need some school-related software that exists under Windows only. Oddly enough, if Dell doesn't make a laptop like the Titianium, I'll forgo my needs.
That certainly used to be the case. Interestingly, however, Apple has gone out of their way to make the iMac and the iBook almost completely trivial to upgrade, at least if you're doing the most common upgrades (RAM and an Airport card). In other words, now that hard drives are getting to the point of being "big enough" (many fewer people are getting to the point of being squeezed for hard disk space even in the age of mp3s) and video cards are "fast enough", if you build everything else in, you really can make all reasonable upgrades possible for a person armed only with simple instructions and a US quarter.
In essence, people are empowered but not hassled, which could basically be Apple's new slogan.
Babar
There are big wins in switching when you make the whole machine. The box size goes down. Shipping cost goes down. Shelf space at retail goes down. Power supply size goes down. It's a bigger win for Apple than for the Wintel crowd.
I'm just surprised that Apple didn't do this before the holiday shopping season.
what differentiates the iPod from a host of other less expensive alternatives?
size, speed, industrial design, interface design, battery life...
you don't agree?
first off, I was not making any clames as to what is what, I was just siting mathmatics. second of all I was targetting only the operations per cycle, not any of the optimizations...read the whole post and you will see where I discount this as a way to truly measure speed. and , how can you say that fewer clock cycles has to be a haddycap? if a G4 does 3 operations a cycle and those operations are more efficient than X86, then you are not haddycaped at all, you operation level is eaual per second and your operations are more efficient......even if they used the same instruction set, if you did 3 operations per cycle 667 MHz equals the exact same performance that a 1 operation per cycle 2.0 GHz chip has.
the fact the the G4 instruction set is better and more efficient that X86 only adds to the overall speed at which you can get stuff done in the real world...but as for raw speed, a 3 operation/ cycle G4 at 667MHz is as fast as a 1 operation per cycle P4 at 2.0GHz. math does not lie my friend, it does not lie.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The problem with USING all that cool Mac stuff is that it costs MONEY. Sure you could grab the software somewhere, but the hardware is so overpriced compared to PC hardware.
Apple has a different business model than somebody like Dell. Apple has an entire platform to develop. They provide free, ad-free internet services to their customers. They provide quite a bit of free software. They host open source projects. These things cost money to create and maintain. This money comes from the margins. Basically, you pay more so Apple can develop a better experience.
A company like Dell, however, is primarily an assembly service. They don't have product development in the same sense that Apple does. Dell's products are defined largely by Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, IBM and component manufacturers. The actual machines and experience end up being very similar to that of other manufacturers, so Dell effectively competes on the sale rather than the product. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with this -- it's just a different business model.
The fact that Apple and Dell have different approaches to selling computers is good. It means we have choice.
Apple is profitable and has well over $4 billion in cash, but if you look at their actual profit on per-quarter basis, they aren't raping customers and just watching the money pour in. They're doing constructive things with it.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Have you taken any EE classes? In Computer Architecture you study different processor architectures.
If you claim that one processor has a better risc design, and allows more flexibility, then HOW can you claim that it will take less operations as well???????????
Being RISC means you break down complex operations into MORE instructions that are SIMPLER. This is where the flexibility comes in, because you can order your operations more efficiently in your pipeline to avoid resource conflicts, and utilize more of the resources available. Since you have more instructions that are simpler, usually you clock the hell out of it. Otherwise how can you be running a slower clock AND get better performance? RISC usually means you need to execute MORE instructions, NOT less...
If you talk about x86 being CISC, then that means it takes LESS instructions to execute, but they are more complex. Usually to accomplish this, your instructions CANNOT utilize resource sharing, otherwise you will NEVER be able to pipeline your instructions. Given this, it means the instruction MUST finish in one clock cycle. Hence typically a CISC processor is supposed to be clocked lower than a RISC processor.
Now before anyone pipes in about the P4 being 2 Ghz, let me mention that the P4 actually has a RISC core... So that is why a P4 clocked at a HIGHER clock is performing about the same as an Athlon with a LOWER clock, because the P4 needs to execute more instructions. The benafits will be realized when/if Intel can runaway from AMD in terms of clock speed.
Of course, I boiled this all down to explain here, but you get the point...
Compaq?
Apple got credit for copying itself. The iMac is a sleeker version of the Macintosh 128k.
Not that the iMac isn't cool, I think that computers that come in square boxes are what is needed for computers, but anyone who thinks it's a change from what apple was doing before is simply wrong. They just brought the old style into the 21st century.
Apple's failure was not allowing clones of its hardware
:)
I can't think of a worse time in the platform or company's history than during the point that clones were available. It was an absolute mess. Part of the problem was that none of the manufacturers had any interest in actually expanding the market. They just took Apple's best customers while Apple was left to foot the bill for platform development. Clones elminated a lot of the core value of the Mac.
Cloning was in direct conflict with the Mac experience, philosophy and culture. It may have seemed like a good idea on paper (largely people assumed if it worked for x86, it would work for the Mac), but in practice, it just didn't flow right. The platform is undoubtably in a more stable position today.
and they had a fully operational 486 booting Mac OS, complete with desktop and even Quicktime movies with sound
Welcome Mac users, to the wonderful work of IRQ conflicts and COM2.
Controlling hardward and software helps integrate, but not innovate
Actually, just the opposite. Things like iDVD, iMovie and AirPort worked immediately upon introduction (and therefore added value) due specifically to the fact that Apple controlled both the hardware and software.
The fact that Apple owns and maintains its own platform is at the core of its value proposition and ability to differentiate from other manufacturers. It provides choice in the industry.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
the 500 MHz G3 is nearly as fast as the 1 GHz P3
I don't suppose you'd care to back up that hysterically funny claim with any actual benchmarks, eh?
A 500Mhz G 4 can, on a very good day, when the moon is in jupiter and there are no clouds, just about barely keep up with a 1GHz P-III on certain benchmarks. (Where "certain benchmarks" basically means "Photoshop Unshark Mask and nothing else.") A G 3 is not getting anywhere near the 1GHz P-III, nevermind the 1.4GHz P-4.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Given the additional cost of an LCD screen, a flat-panel iMac would cost about the same as an iBook. And performance-wise they're almost the same. I don't see much of a market for a flat-panel iMac as long as it doesn't provide better performance than the iBook.
--Bud
Is this really that new of a concept?
Is what a new concept? Nothing has been introduced yet. And regardless of what they do introduce, one major difference is that these machines will be designed to run Mac OS X.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
They also got rid of the fan at some point (yes, it had a fan in the past) and a faster front side bus.
I know! Let's make a little cube with no fan and a big LCD panel for it...
Oh, wait, that flopped. Mostly because of the price. It's not time for a "revolutionary" new Mac, but a successful one :-)
Depends on what else is released then. Also if the new iMac costs a lot more then the old one I expect bad things to happen.
If you need to run Windows software, get Virtual PC. Costs about $100 plus the cost of whatever version of Windows you are running. It is slower than getting a real machine, but you get all the Windows programs you want in the Ti box.
One of my co-workers has a Ti, and it just flat out rocks! The only problem is poor AirPort reception, but I guess that should be expected since you are sticking the antenna inside a Ti shell.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Dell is almost as overpriced as Apple! Sheesh.
Sure, you can go down to your local cheap computer dealer and get more bang for your buck, but then you'll probably end up with cheap components that won't run Linux, may crash under Windows more often.
Local cheap computer shop? I build all my own boxes, buying best-of-breed components from various places and end up with a box that has higher-end components than those put in that overpriced Dell bitty box.
I just priced out the following system for
$550:
1.4GHz Athlon
256 MB RAM
40 GB HD
15" Monitor
64 MB ATI RADEON
SB AWE64 Sound
52x CD-ROM
Firewire
10/100 Ethernet + Modem
Shoot. I for an extra $100 or so (bringing our total to $650) I could have gotten a 17" monitor. This even includes the translucent case!
Heck, I could throw on a DVD-ROM or a even CD-RW drive and still be under your price.
Oh, and AMD processors have far more bang-for-the-buck than comparable Intel CPUs.
My journal has hot
Except that it wasn't remotely this easy, or this simple. They actually updated the display language from display postscript to display pdf, which I know is a minor change since one is much like the other, but then they reimplemented all widgets under the new system. They also developed an Old-MacOS-API-in-a-box for NeXTStep on Mac, and the resulting bundle of everything is called MacOSX.
You know, I hate to have to be the one to point this out, but Luna doesn't suck either. Oh, sure, it looks like someone in fisher-price's art department developed a theme for windows, but you can change themes all day, even to some fairly convincing aqua themes. With GlassXP and a geforce or radeon card, you can have arbitrarily hardware-alpha'd windows (though some things don't work like you might like, like transparent video windows or transparent windows OVER video windows) and you can, quite frankly, make windows look like anything you want in much the same fashion as using windowmaker or some other highly-configurable window manager, using StyleBuilder and StyleXP. My windows Theme is a work in progress that's looking better and better all the time. Heck, you can even use PNG images with the alpha channel utilized in your themes.
Let's not forget the feature set of windows' GUI, either, besides silly alpha features (which I am nonetheless quite fond of) - It's based on motif, more or less, (note the popdown menu on the left, which in Win 3/NT 3 even looked like Motif) so it provides an interface familiar to windows users and CDE users alike. It supports all the usual operations for windows, the taskbar has grown up quite a bit and now supports grouping, there's a virtual desktop manager included with Power Tools for XP, and so on.
That's true, but their price point still seems a bit high to me in most cases. Comparing the iMac to a PC doesn't seem to do the PC justice just because of the PC's basic modular, expandable nature, which you are paying for; If the PC were as unexpandable as the iMac, it would be cheaper. However, it's built to be expanded (at least slightly) and it's made with off the shelf parts which means that, unlike most mac hardware which has "graced" our desktops over the years, the hardware is all pretty much the same these days, which is also a nice feature.
With all this said, I do think that the current Mac hardware is fairly sexy. I do however think I'll stick with PCs. You can build a dual athlon XP pretty cheaply now...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
good theory.
Except they quietly reintroduced the low-price iMac two months after they removed it.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The sold there apple IIc as portable. Even put a handle on it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
>as much as i hate apple. i have to say that they >come up with some pretty creative products. The >posibilities are endless when you take out the >huge tube of a CRT. Yes, the possibilities ARE endless, when you take out the [cathode ray] tube out of a cathode ray tube. yes, I know what you meant. :)
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
It evidently needs to be said again. The G4 is the G3 with Altivec and SMP. They're the same chip otherwise.
Er, no, that did not need to be said again. It didn't even need to be said in the first place, because it is completely false.
The G4 is not, in any way, shape or form, just a G3 with an AltiVec unit bolted on the side. Completely different math unit, radically different instruction pipeline, bigger caches, additional registers, SMP support (the G3 cannot be used in SMP systems), wider memory bus, more execution units... you name it, it changed -- even moreso in the 7450 and 7410 than in the 7400.
Please do someresearch before spouting "facts" liek this.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
besides the people who buy macs want something that looks cool. they don't care about functionality and software.
I have purchased 4 macs in the last 7 years. I CARE about functionailty. I CARE about software that works. I'm a graphic designer and film student. Yes, Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator, Premiere, AfterEffects and the rest all exist for WIndows, but I get far more general protection fault errors and blue screens and crash inducing errors in Windows than I ever do on a Mac while using these apps. These apps working at peak efficiency is how I make my living and they just work more reliably and faster on the Mac.
Sure, I don't have the gazillions of games, unintuitive ftp clients or Barbie virtual makeover software, but then again I don't have the time to fuss around with what I consider trivial nonsense. I need to be able to get my work done with minimal fuss, check my email, surf the web, etc. My Mac's work... period.
Pooty tweet
A) All Macs can boot from CD - except a few non-factory-installed, non-boot-enabled, user-installed CD drives. B) If you think it's hard making a bootable CD on a Mac, you're foolish. Step one: create read-write disk image with (included) Disk Copy application. Step two: copy existing system folder into it. The one you boot off every day will work, or the one on the Apple-supplied boot CD. Step three: install, if you wish, other software onto R/W disk image (disk repair tools, whatever) Step four: burn CD either with Disc Burner (supplied) or Toast. Easy. Hold down C on startup or choose CD in control panel as boot disc. Firmware updates come over the internet from Apple - they're about 200KB. Easy as pie. You can also add THAT to the boot CD you're creating. ALSO, you don't need a boot CD to update firmware - it updates it, you restart - during the reboot, it checks it, makes sure it's good, and installs it. Not all Mac users are idiots, nor are all x86 users geniuses. Both worlds have their share. By the way, I have not needed a floppy drive on any Mac for 3 years, I don't own a single disk.
Depending on the requirements of that Windows-only software you have- Consider Connectix VirtualPC for Mac OS/Mac OS X.
You can get the Titanium, use it in Mac OS/OS X for almost all tasks, and for those one or two pieces of software, launch VPC and Windows ( or VPC and Linux for x86, or OS/2, or....)
Go and get your hands on a Titanium. Nothing Dell brings out is going to be as nice an implementation of the same concept.
two words- IBM Thinkpad.
IBM is in the black quite nicely, thank you.
I wish you had defined the word "equivalent" in the sentence where you claim Apple charges twice as much for the G4 as for an equivalent Wintel computer.
Did you read the article where Eric S. Raymond assembled the best Linux box and the hardware cost upwards of $8000 US ?
While I don't think a G4 in it's current form is worth $8 large, I don't think there's anything wrong with them charging the $1700 for the low end G4. It's the same price you'd pay for what I consider _equivalent_ Wintel hardware (not the cut-rate trash most places carry.)
So yes, please clarify qualitative terms when you're writing a post. It makes your points much easier to understand and agree or disagree with.
You know what I hate about Apple hardware? It's all too cool! Every time they come out with something (or rumor it), I want to go buy it. *sigh* Being a 16 year old is no fun at all ;-)
Oh, and then once I buy it; they come out with something cooler! Darn it!!
My other car is first.
Why does someone have to do this everytime there's an article on Macs?
Because most (not all) Mac users can't make a legit comparison. Your iMac would cost hundreds more if it came with what the Dell comes with (disclaimer: I am not a Dell fan. I'm just using them for comparison consistancy). Here's a more reasonable comparison:
iMAC - $1499:
G3 700MHz
256MB RAM
60GB Ultra ATA drive
CD-RW Drive
RAGE 128 Ultra w/ 16MB
10/100BASE-T Ethernet
56K fax modem
13.8-inch (viewable) monitor
Tons of cool softare (office, jukebox, etc.)
Dell $1108:
P4 1.6Ghz
256MB RAM
80GB Ultra ATA HD
CD-RW drive
16MB ATI Rage Ultra
3COM 10/100 NIC
56K fax modem
16" viewable monitor
APC SURGESTATION PRO
Tons of cool softare (office, jukebox, etc.)
Although the packaged software is a bit hard to quantify (iTunes etc.), both systems include a very competitive offering. Essentially, for $400 less, you don't get Firewire, but you DO get 20 more Gigs of HD space, a significantly faster machine (faster bus speed + faster CPU - please no lectures on the mhz myth), a significantly larger monitor (2.2" larger), and an APC surgearrest powerstrip (~$35 value).
So, go ahead and argue based on quality of product, but when it comes to the bottom line, a Mac is still priced at 20-30% higher for a less compelling hardware package.
Finally, the following statement is rash:
Sure, you can go down to your local cheap computer dealer and get more bang for your buck, but then you'll probably end up with cheap components that won't run Linux, may crash under Windows more often, and you won't get any support from the manufacturer
You can also go down to your local computer dealer and buy quality components (probably much better then what Dell uses) and STILL come out ahead. It's ignorant to assume that just because a machine is built from inexpensive parts that it's going to "crash a lot" and be incompatible with popular OS's. I've built all of my machines this way with no problems. Actually, since Dell (and other OEM's) use a lot of proprietary hardware, there's more of a chance that they won't be compatible with Linux. Granted, all of this is moot for the general consumer, but Apple is missing out on a HUGE niche - the "build it yourself" geeks like myself.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
> Comparing the iMac to a PC doesn't seem to
> do the PC justice just because of the PC's basic
> modular, expandable nature, which you are paying
> for; If the PC were as unexpandable as the iMac,
> it would be cheaper.
I think people also buy iMacs for their expandability, but what they appreciate about the expandability is that it already has great "add-on" software and hardware in it from the start, and adding more software and hardware is easy (drag-and-drop software installs, plug-and-play hardware installs, easy-access expansion doors in the cases). I mean, all of the ports are right there on the side, attractively presented to the user. People who never looked at the back of their PC are looking at the FireWire port on their Mac and going "that's where you plug-in a camcorder or hard drive" because when they do that, it just works. It's already been set up for that before they get the machine.
For example, a non-technical friend of mine gave up trying to add software and hardware to his PC because he didn't enjoy all the work involved, and he was generally always suffering from one problem or another with Windows, anyway, and "didn't want to make it worse". He got an iMac and added a printer and scanner himself, no problem. He adds software all the time. So he actually told me that the iMac's "great expandability" was one of the things he liked about it over the PC, second only to the fact that it crashed less than his PC. Also, I got one "help desk" call from him in the past two years with his iMac, versus one a week when he had his PC.
So to say an iMac is "not expandable" is really looking at it from a PCI board / geek hacker perspective. For many people, it's the most expandable system they've ever used. That's part of why they're still selling more than a million iMacs a year, even in this economy, even with CRT displays in them, even with all the empty MHz you get on the PC side. It really serves the needs of the users who buy them.
Want a real revolution?
Stop producing desktop machines cause the laptops are just as good, ramp up production to drop costs.
Make a range of 'digital hub' servers for home and small office - file-sharing, internet gateway type things. Or maybe multi-user servers and ibook-like thin clients that connect to them. Schools would love that and so would families with 2+ kids.
'Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson...'
I've been using nothing but Macs for a few years now, but I have VirtualPC to run old DOS and Windows software, or the occassional little freeware or shareware utility that's Windows-only and halfway interesting. Also to test Web sites in a Windows environment. Windows is entirely more usable on a PowerBook Titanium than on any Windows notebook. It runs quickly, and you get five hours of battery life, and when Windows crashes, you don't have to reboot, just restart VirtualPC. You can keep multiple Windows disk images, too, so if you have an app that runs best with DOS, use it with DOS, or runs best with Windows 98, then use it with that disk image. You can even run them simultaneously, and they start up instantly because they save their state to disk. And, with Mac OS X running it, you can run your Windows apps next to Mac OS X apps, Classic Mac apps, Java2, and X-Windows/UNIX apps. Very, very flexible, powerful solution. VirtualPC also enables you to control Windows itself with AppleScript. You can make an AppleScript that takes a document and works on it in five or six apps before giving it back to you, and some of those apps could be Windows apps.
The transition from MacOS 9 to MacOS X is almost done. As soon as March 24, 2001 comes around, every computer should boot to MacOS X by default. All Apple really needs to do is get aqua hardware accelerated and their apps ported to MacOS X. After that, Apple doesn't have much to do beyond bug fixing.
Whatever happens in January is a mixed bag. The G5s might come out, or they might speedbump the G4s. Either way, the holy grail of mac users everywhere will finally come to light. That's right....we'll FINALLY be at 1000mhz or even above! Can you believe it!?! But anyway, in my opinion it's essential that the G5s are released. Besides the fact that it should be a lot faster than the competiton, Apple needs to get G4s in their consumer lines.
If Apple was going to make a killer show, they'd show flat panel imacs with a 867, 933, and 1ghz G4s in them with G5s in the professional models at 1.2, 1.4, and 1.6ghz. And not only that, they should show the crowd a 1.6ghz G5 beating the snot out of the fastest Pentium 4 in....no guys, not Photoshop, but Quake 3! Macs have always sucked at providing gazillions of frames per second. It would be the first time a mac performed better than a PC at gaming. It would be a fair test and a lot more fun than Photoshop.
But anyway, don't trust Cnet! In fact, don't trust anybody but Apple! Last time the guessing was this extreme was at Macworld in July, which was the biggest letdown in Apple history. People were saying that 1ghz G4s with DDR-ram, MacOS X 10.1, flat panel imacs, the whole nine yards would be there, but it wasn't. Treat this as the same type of thing. If Apple hasn't announced it, it doesn't exist.
Since the iBook and a flatscreen iMac would be almost the same product, I think Apple should kill the iMac and make the iBook more ergonomic; give it a desktop-sized keyboard and optical trackball. They should make the backlight in the screen switchable on or off for extended battery life. All combined, those changes should make Apple's cheapest system far more attractive.
> Apple has a long tradition of breaking compatibility
> ever few years.
One of my favorite Mac OS X demonstrations was where they ran the original Mac's software on a Mac OS X Mac, including a beta version of MacPaint that was dated 1983. This is GUI software, remember? How many GUI apps are you running even from 1993?
When Apple switched CPU's, they built an emulator for the old CPU into the OS. When they switched kernels, they built a compatibility environment for the old software. Also, the Mac software is really worth having. Mac-first titles include Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, Word, Excel, Director, iMovie, Final Cut Pro, iDVD and lots more.
The AirPort cards in iMacs are there so:
- it can be a base station for other computers
- you can use it anywhere that has AC power, without having to run any other cables to it (most everybody has AC power jacks in every room, but only a few also have Ethernet or phone jacks in every room)
Very handy.
Actually the current iMac designs uses the heat from the CRT to *cool* the motherboard. Whacky, eh? In an example of Apple "thinking differently", their engineers added airflow openings to only the top and bottom of the machine (not the sides), so the heated air around the monitor rises, sucking in cool air from below the machine. The result: no fan is needed, so the machine is very quiet.
On average, a 866 G4 is probably equivalent to a 1 GHz or maybe 1.2 GHz P
:)
Good 'ol probably, he never lets us down.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Maybe they're planning a comeback of the cube in the iMac range! Might make sense, fitting G3 components would be cheaper than G4 (less heat considerations), they could release a low-end external display, a bit of styling and bingo - a cool box that doesn't cost too much. I think it would sell like hotcakes.
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Not only are there all the warrenties to deal with but you also have to buy an operating system to run your spiffy new box. Windows XP Professional
:)
I don't have to purchase Linux or *BSD, and downloading a copy of that certainly won't land me in jail.
My journal has hot
Thanks for answering seriously.
I would argue that picking a Dell over an IBM machine is picking cut-rate trash, but then, that's a judgement based on my experiences with both over the years and in recent months.
Leaving that aside, a 1.6hz is more equivalent to the G4, and the spec numbers show it. Spec numbers were mentioned elsewhere in the comments on this article-
Even if spec numbers don't satisfy the argument, more important are the tasks you use the computer for. For example, Cleaner5, which I use for compressing DV into something that can be streamed neatly. A p4 1.4ghz side by side compared to the g4 takes literally 5 times as long to complete compressing the video.
It's not just about Photoshop and as others have said, just one Photoshop filter- there are many benefits that simply depend on what applications you'll use it for.
Getting away from graphics and video related applications, look at server applications for a moment. Stronger server: p4 or IBM RS/6000 ?
My bet is, RS/6000. The RS/6000 is running AIX, and uses a consumer grade chip (used to use 604e PPC. Now, uses PPC750, also known as G3.) The G4 running Darwin or OS X has good reason to be effective as a reliable and robust server- it could be considered for the purposes of this post as a cut-rate RS/6000.
The Mac crowd is a very different crowd, stereotypically, than, say, the Slashdot crowd. What was the Apple Cube? It was an iMac for serious graphic designers. They hated being cut out of the "iMac coolness" b/c of the iMac's all-in-one design (which included a video chip too shoddy for serious design), and Apple tried to pitch to the "crowd that wanted cool". There weren't enough that finally bought into the idea, but when I see a Cube sitting on a desk it's invariably sitting on a desk of someone more worried about image than doing the most efficient computing.
2 77).
Apple's not as much about delivering that which is most efficient (though many of their all-in-one solutions, most notably DVD burning and "music management", are just that) but about bringing aesthetics to the world once dominated by beige towers. People don't get excited by the iMac's innards (ever tried playing Quake 3 on a 400 MHz iMac with the un-upgradable 8 meg ATi card? Heck, Apple took the unsupported upgrade slot _out_ of the third revision of the iMac!) -- they get excited by the statement owning a "Dalmatian spotted" machine brings with it.
And there was a huge letdown after the last MacExpo didn't deliver a flat-screen iMac. One fellow even [reportedly] demanded to see Jobs and tore down keynote equipment (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=13298&cid=76
Apple sales are driven by arguably overpriced hardware that looks cool. The new iBook sent Apple's stock up quite a bit when it was released -- essentially an underpowered laptop that can barely make its way through the requirements of Mac OS X 10.1.(*) The iPod falls into at least two of these categories (overpriced and cool).
Whether or not including an LCD seems to suggest people should be buying [and Apple should be supplying] a souped-up iBook, Apple has their mark right on the money. Apple users like cool. Flat-screen, all-in-one is cool. Not exactly form over function, but form with function, and now we get to watch Sony, Compaq, Dell, Microsoft and friends play catch-up again.
(*) Ask me -- I bought a new iBook with the 500 MHz G3. It's underpowered, but I love it. With Netbeans, it's a great Java development platform, and iTunes2 with the CD-RW in the iBook make for a great "single-vendor provided solution". Crazy Mac loyalist!
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Quote from the article:
;^)
There is also a possibility of the DVD-R/CD-RW SuperDrive becoming available as a BTO option on this new iMac, therefore bringing DVD movie creation to the masses--a long held vision of Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
...
the price of the Combo drive model, probably bringing the grand total of the loaded model to $1599
***end quote***
Two things sound fishy. One, I think iDVD is written so that it _requires_Altivec, which means forget using it with a G3. Certainly it's all 0's and 1's so there's no reason iDVD couldn't be written for the G3, but I'm betting it'd be painfully painfully slow -- especially with only 128 megs of RAM. You should try iMovie or QuickTime Pro on a G3 and then a G4 running at the same speed.
Second is the price. Sixteen hundred clams for a DVD *burning* solution? I don't think so. The external version of the drive still costs $700 all by itself (http://all4dvd.com/) and this machine would have to have more than the bare bones hardware inside to do the churning.
This isn't to say a flatscreen iMac isn't coming, but a flatscreen consumer model that burns DVDs for $1600? Unless the new G3 has some new instruction set I haven't heard about, I kinda doubt it. Least they didn't claim it would have dual processors...
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
That's good to hear, I read a review that said the rev 2 reception was like 10% better (but still pretty sad).
Of course, I should have expected Apple to figure out a solution- they seem to always do without fucking everything else up.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.