Time Canada Shows New iMac

Kira-Baka writes "Okay, Time Canada screwed up big time. They have pictures of the new iMac which will be released tomorrow during the Mac World Expo keynote on their front page. it is likely that they will be getting a letter soon so though..." I'll be posting a full report on the keynote and other MacWorld goodness tomorrow as it happens. Time Canada seems a bit slow, but in short, think little pod of iMac with superdrive and flat panel screen. Update: 01/07 13:22 GMT by T : Several readers have pointed out that the story can (for now) still be found mirrored here, though it's been pulled from the Time site.

Comments

irc.appleinsider.com

[orque]

#appleinsider if you want to talk about it now

The date

[Tuzanor]

The story date is set at January 14, 2002. This must have been one really bad accident. Either way, somebody is in deep shit.

Re:The date

[bigpat]

nah... Magazines pre date their issues, so I'm betting this was okayed by apple for release, but probaly is a few hours early.

Re:The date

[Tuzanor]

Canada is not an insignificant market.

I know, i live there! ;-)

Re:The date

[daeley]

The story date is set at January 14, 2002.

That's the problem with the Metric system. I know it's all 'logical' and stuff, but you can never tell what day it actually is. Frickin' Canadians.

Oh and by the way..... ;-D

Re:The date

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the biggest mistake to come out of Canada since Celine Dion.

Re:The date

[Drishmung]

Hmm, methinks we are all being played for suckers. The leak feels staged.

This will be the main event at the keynote, together with iPhoto, and I gather the 1GHz+ G4 towers will also be announced. But then... there will be "one more thing", and what it is I know not.

I still don't know why the keynote was moved forward a day, nor what all the Star Trek references betoken.

Re:Will anyone explain to me...

[gutter]

Jonathan Ives, Apple's lead product designer.

Not what I had pictured

[Calimus]

I've had to give it to Apple in the past, they have come out with some damn nice looking machines. However, this time, I looks like they have run out of idea. To me this thing looks like a blob of clay with a flat screen LCD jammed on it by a stick.

While I am very impressed with the lack of footprint this design brings, It's just not very appealing to me. To top it all off, I thought the Imac was a PIA to upgrade the ram in, I can't imaging how careful you must have to be with that LCD monitor wavering about above it. Maybe it has a nice access door so you don't have to flip the thing over or something.

In closing, I know I'm gonna get the stamp of flamebait, but this thing just really isn't eye appealing. Bring back the mac cube, at least it was a shape geeks could get into.

Re:Not what I had pictured

[cowscows]

The original imac, and this as well, were never invisioned as something that geeks could get into. Neither their shape or their technical specs were meant to inspire awe and praise from the likes of the slashdot crowd. Eye appealing is a fairly subjective thing. I also think that the couple small pictures on that site aren't really fair to judge it by. It doesn't give much of an idea about how input/keyboard/mouse is handled, among other things.

That being said, it reminds me too much of the light that the dentist puts in my face. I hate the dentist.

Re:Not what I had pictured

[Squeeze Truck]

I'm not sure the floating panel was an asthetic decision. I'm think it was designed to:

- Take up less space, and

- Be easy to move around.

I watch TV and movies on my clunky 17" PC monitor, meaning I have to spend about 30 seconds rotating the sucker without knocking things off my desk.
If this iMac is designed to be used as more than a desktop computer for doing the budget, (say for showing movies, playing music, displaying pictures for digital cameras) then this floating monitor looks really really usable.

Re:Not what I had pictured

[overunderunderdone]

I've had to give it to Apple in the past, they have come out with some damn nice looking machines. However, this time, I looks like they have run out of idea.

This is exactly what I thought when the original iMac first came out. I thought it looked like an ugly cheap plastic joke and I was sure I was witnessing the end of Apple Computer. At the time the initial reaction of many geeks was the same as mine. Of course as it turns out that the target audience loved the look, it looked better in person than it did in pictures and it sold like hotcakes singlehandedly bringing Apple back from the financial grave. It just goes to show why Steve Job's net worth is counted in hundreds of millions and mine is $3.67 after taxes.

Now I see the *new* iMac and my initial reaction is the same - what an ugly (not so)cheap plastic joke. But this time I'll reserve my judgement until I get a chance to see it in person and see the reaction of the people who are it's intended audience (not me, or people like me.) Don't get me wrong I'm not deferring all sense of aesthetic tast to Steve Jobs. He and Apple have certainly gotten it wrong before both with looks (the original iBook) and with price (the Cube) But I hope as I look at this thing that despite my initial reaction that they have again hit it out of the park in a way that I wouldn't have dared with my more conventional sense of aesthetics.

Re:Not what I had pictured

[medcalf]

Bring back the mac cube, at least it was a shape geeks could get into.

I just have to ask: did you buy a cube?

Re:Not what I had pictured

[jgerman]

Eye appealing is a fairly subjective thing. I also think that the couple small pictures on that site aren't really fair to judge it by

Well eye appealing is not necessarily a subjective thing, hence the golden ratio. That's why furniture is made in certain proportions with the decorative bits at certain places. Not that I'm saying that there is no personal preference at all involved but humans as a rule are programmed to find certain shapes visually appealing.

SuperDrive

[skroz]

It has probably been said before, but when I hear "SuperDrive" in association with a macintosh, I still think of the first line of Mac 3.5" floppy drives that could read both Mac and PC formatted media. Of course, the filesystem wasn't supported in the OS of the first few machines with the drive, but eh.

Re:SuperDrive

[Nick Number]

It has probably been said before, but when I hear "SuperDrive" in association with a macintosh, I still think of the first line of Mac 3.5" floppy drives that could read both Mac and PC formatted media. Of course, the filesystem wasn't supported in the OS of the first few machines with the drive, but eh.

The ones I thought of were internal hard drives that came in some Mac SEs. They were pretty cool at the time, though they were only 20 or 30 megs. I remember being very envious of a friend who had one when I was stuck with a Mac Plus with two floppy drives and an external HD.

Re:SuperDrive

[Dahan]

The internal hard drive in Mac SEs was never called a SuperDrive... as skroz said, the SuperDrive was the 1.44MB floppy drive (aka. FDHD). An upgrade from the standard GCR-only 800K double-density floppy drive to the SuperDrive was available for some Macs; I think it involved replacing the IWM floppy controller chip with the SWIM, as well as installing a HD floppy drive.

when apple sues Time Canada...

[cygnus]

...i wonder if they'll be able to countersue for medical expenses related to removing Steve Jobs' foot out of their ass.

Re:when apple sues Time Canada...

[fobbman]

Maybe Jobs can use the same proctologist when he goes to have his head removed from his ass. This thing looks like a makeup mirror at the beauty college.

Ok.. I will be the first to say it.....

[lunchm3at]

Umm.. Its ugly as sin people... cmon

Re:Ok.. I will be the first to say it.....

[aka-ed]

Looks like a table lamp. See?

An ugly one.

Re:Ok.. I will be the first to say it.....

[DrNibbler]

I have a feeling that it's the machine that my mom will love. I've been trying to get her a PC for some time now and her complaint is always "that ugly 'hard drive'" meaning the case...

With the footprint on this beast and the simplicity of the MacOS I suspect that this will be the machine for her.

Re:Ok.. I will be the first to say it.....

[ThatComputerGuy]

I agree that it doesn't look great...

Now, if Apple had managed to pull off something like this, that would've been really cool.

17" Wide-Screen, 800Mhz G3, CDR/DVD, Integrated Sub(!), and Remote Control. I can't imagine what said sub would've done to the computer's internals though.

Wow.

[SuperRob]

You know, I really can't deal with Macs. It's mostly the software. I've always admired the hardware design.

This is really nice. It's low-profile, technologically "edgy".

I'm sure Slashdot is going to cruicfy Jobs, and probably me for saying this ... but I like it. And if I could stand OSX ... I'd probably buy one.

Re:Wow.

[gutter]

The whole point of server OSes is that you don't have to be at the console to update. Apple (and Microsoft, for that matter) can take their Software Update control panels/web sites and shove them, because they're useless for me in a corporate IT environment. I want to push my updates, damn it.

Actually, you can install Apple's updates remotely using commandline tools. If you run Software Update on one machine, you will be able to find the update package in /tmp. (I don't remember offhand where it goes exactly).

Once you have the package, it's fairly simple to install by hand. Inside the wrapper folder they consist of a pre-install script, a pax archive, and a post-install script. It should be fairly easy to write a script to run the pre-install script, unpax the archive to disk, and run the post-install script.

Re:Wow.

[seanadams.com]

You know, I really can't deal with Macs. It's mostly the software. I've always admired the hardware design.

So go buy one, and put YellowDog or LinuxPPC on it.

I'm typing this on a G4+CinemaDisplay, running Linux. If you haven't seen X11 running on a digital TFT at 1600x1024, you're missing out. This is wicked cool hardware, and the MacOS, for those who prefer it, is just the icing on the cake.

Re:Wow.

[clontzman]

So buy one and demand that Apple give you back $129 for the OS you're not using.

Re:Wow.

[hearingaid]

I don't use OS X, but Software Update on OS 9 is capable of updating automagically: just tick Update software automatically and untick Ask me before installing new software, set a schedule, and it'll auto-download, install, and reboot if necessary.

Not really a cool thing for a fileserver, but if you're just running webservers, where a second or two of non-availability doesn't hurt anything really, then it's fine.

Re:Wow.

[hearingaid]

Hmm. And you couldn't somehow authorize the scheduler with the root password? IE make it so that the scheduler (a) requires the admin/root password and (b) when it runs, runs as root?

If not, then this sounds like a feature request, because OS 9's blind updates are actually rather handy.

Nice

[abahta]

Wow, looks nice. That's the first iMac I would love to have on my desk. I'd still need to see the specs first, though.

Also, check this out: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?s=9b448943 1fd0dd8256bd428a175b4f4e&postid=3565275&t=6786#pos t3565275

ooohhhhh shit...

[CokeBear]

If you're a webmaster at timecanada.com, I suggest you start cleaning out your desk now.

ooohhhh shit... Steve is gonna be pissed.
Heads will roll because of this.

Re:ooohhhhh shit...

[rbeattie]

"...the dazzling, never-seen-anything-like-it, ultra-top secret computer perched before him."

What a complete screw-up! Yeah - I'd say Steve's gonna get just a little peeved over this one. Isn't this the 2nd time that Time's done this in the past few months? IIRC, Time was the one who blew the whistle on "Ginger" too...

-Russ

Re:ooohhhhh shit...

[ahde]

news sources used to try to "get the scoop" instead of "sell the product", so in a twisted, antiquated way, TimeCanada.com did *good*.

Re:ooohhhhh shit...

[loraksus]

oh come on, the article is a apple (and jobs) ad for christ sakes, I honestly doubt this was leaked as much as "be nice to use and we give you a scoop"

Re:ooohhhhh shit...

[Sentry21]

I disagree totally. Consider the following points.

1. If Steve Jobs were an idiot, he wouldn't have asked when the article would hit shelves. Jobs is not an idiot, ergo he knew, as does C|Net , that this is also in this week's Time (US) magazine - which hit newsstands on Sunday in New York.
2. Jobs probably had a tough debate with himself. Either he could deny a story for Time until after the launch - meaning waiting until next Sunday when it would've been to late - or he could let Time put it on shelves and websites, and let a few people see it (but not as many as will see it tomorrow), and have their new product front and centre on every newsstand on the continent come Monday morning. I'd hate to leak it early, but I'd hate more to sensationalize late. I'm sure Jobs felt the same.
3. What could Apple possibly do, other than deny interviews from Time Magazine? Unless they had a contract (which I doubt), then this is perfectly acceptible reporting. It's not slander or libel, it's an article as true as can be accepted. If Apple doesn't like it, they can lump it.
4. I sincerely doubt there's a single webmaster that controls this sort of thing. Likely the webmasters write/debug the scripts that drive the page, and the editors and so on are the ones that actually do the posting/managing.

Time isn't in trouble, and Apple will be more glad than not. Jobs knows how to work the media - and people in general - and I'm sure that Time/Warner will be happy - people are probably going to snap up Time Magazine like it's going out of style.

--Dan

Re:ooohhhhh shit...

[rune-bare-rune]

Blame Caa-nadaaa! Blame Caa-nadaaa!

:-)

Re:ooohhhhh shit...

[Nyarly]

More amusing is the seemingly general contention at Slashdot of all places that AOL/TW is going to be running scared of Apple.

I've always had a soft spot for Apple, but every release from Apple reported here seems to be followed the following thread:

1. "Man, this doohickey sucks! It's smaller, slower, more expensive, than the Doohickey 2000!"
2. "Too right. Not to mention it doesn't work on Linux. Or even Windows!"
3. "Yeah, which explains why Apple is pretty much dead."

So, I'm amused by the contention that "almost dead" Apple holds enough sway to get half of Time Canada canned, or that they'd want yank all their advertising from the largest english media consortium available.

Pictures.

[ImaLamer]

I don't seem to be seeing the pictures. If you are talking about the cover page of Time - it's not big enough.

I want 1024x768 resolution pictures of this thing inside and out. I guess I'll have to wait for the manual.

In case Apple kills it, here's the text

[ehintz]

Somebody braver than I can mirror photographic evidence... ;-)

Remember when computers used to be cool? Deep inside One Infinite Loop, the Silicon Valley address of Apple Computer's Industrial Design Lab, they still are. Never mind that the Valley is a grim place these days and that the gold rush has given way to the deep funk. Forget that the Internet bubble has burst, and that Ma and Pa investors are wearing a what-were-we-thinking? grimace of fiscal remorse. Right here, right now, sitting on a butcher-block table, bathed in the sunlight that pours in through spyproof frosted-glass windows, is-repeat after Steve Jobs now-the quintessence of computational coolness, the most fabulous desktop machine that you or anyone anywhere has ever seen.

O.K., maybe that's overstating it somewhat. Maybe that's overstating it a lot. But it's hard to remain impassive when you're sitting within the reality-distortion field that surrounds Apple's evangelical CEO when he's obsessing about the dazzling, never-seen-anything-like-it, ultra-top secret computer perched before him. This is the new iMac, the long-awaited successor to the best-selling, candy-colored, all-in-one computer that revived Apple's consumer sales and signaled that the boss and co-founder was back and badder than ever. This new iMac, Jobs says, "is the best thing we've ever done."

Of course, this is Steve Jobs talking, and he says that about every new product when it's ready to launch. With him, it's always a revolution. But even when he's wrong, you can be pretty sure that whatever he and Apple are doing will quickly be copied by the rest of the PC world. So what if you don't have a Mac? Pay attention: what Jobs does is often the shape of things to come.

Besides, this time he really means it. This time we need a revolution. This time the computer industry is in free fall and, all around, the makers of desktops and laptops are frantically cutting one another's throats even as they cut costs, vying to be the cheapest box on the block.

Not Apple, though.

Jobs is betting the company that what consumers most want from technology is control of their digital lives. And what better way to do that than with the smartest-looking, easiest-to-use, best-engineered computer there is? The time is right, he says. We are wallowing in digital cameras and camcorders and MP3 players that get harder to use, not easier. The thing that will connect us to our gadgets needs to be a digital hub, a computer designed to simplify our lives. This, Jobs says, is what Apple was meant to do-and it's what no one else in the PC world is doing.

So damn the recession! Build it, and they will come. "Victory in our industry is spelled survival," says Jobs. "The way we're going to survive is to innovate our way out of this."

Now before you leap to your feet and shout amen, consider this: Apple, which has been innovating and rebounding since Jobs' return in 1997, has nevertheless been struggling to retain the small market share it still enjoys. This time Jobs and the company he built and nurtured and adores really, truly need a hit.

The new iMac, which Time took for an exclusive test run recently and which will be unveiled at the annual Macworld convention in San Francisco this week, could be just the thing. Like many PCs today, the new iMac is built around a flat-panel display. But instead of taking up precious desk space like a typical flat monitor, the iMac's screen floats in the air, attached to a jointed, chrome-pipe neck. It's also rimmed by a "halo," a translucent plastic frame that makes you want to pull it toward you-or push it out of the way. Jonathan Ive, chief of Apple's ID lab, says he designed it so that you would want to touch it, want to "violate the sacred plane of the monitor." The chrome neck is articulated and bends while maintaining the angle of the screen; it connects to the computer, an improbably small hemisphere at 26.4 cm in diameter-somewhat bigger than a halved cantaloupe. The machine bears an uncanny resemblance to Luxo Jr.-the fun-loving, computer-animated swing-arm lamp that starred in a short film by Pixar, the fabled computer-animation studio that Jobs runs. (Pixar creative chief John Lasseter has also made the first new iMac ad.) "It looks a little cheeky," says Ive. It looks alive.

Can it make Apple's fortunes grow, though? The original iMac, which was launched in May 1998, sparked a 400% Apple-stock surge during the next two years, and has sold more than 6 million units. It was also Jobs' first home run since his return to the company the previous year after 12 years in exile. Now that Apple's stock has fallen back to earth and retail stores are clamoring for something new to stimulate sales, Jobs needs to swing for the fences again.

The situation is far from dire. Apple has more than $4 billion in the bank-enough to wait out the recession-comparatively little debt and millions of fanatically loyal users who will give up their Macs only when you pry their one-button mice from their cold, dead fingers. But Apple's annual revenues have dropped from $8 billion to less than $6 billion, and the company continues to lose market share to the Microsoft-Intel-dominated world. A little more than 4% of new PCs sold in the U.S. are Macs. (Don't ask about worldwide sales, where Apple has actually slipped to less than 3% of the market, from 5.2% five years ago.) With Microsoft's antitrust troubles tabled for now and a new operating system, Windows XP, that's stabler and simpler to use than ever, Apple will be hard pressed to attract converts.

A misstep can be fatal in the fast-moving computer business. And Jobs, a perfectionist when he settles on a project, tends to get his ideas from his gut rather than, say, focus groups. Some analysts argue that Apple should abandon innovation in favor of building a cheaper box; a $500 iMac would fit the bill. Others say the company should have pursued the post-PC dream and started turning out Internet appliances, tablet PCs or personal digital assistants, as competitors have done. Instead, Jobs' gut tells him that the PC isn't dead at all. It tells him, in fact, that what people really want is a better PC. That what they really want is a Mac.

There comes a time in every important Jobs project, usually when the thing appears to be finished, that he sends it back to the drawing board and asks that it be completely redone. Some people say this trait is pathological, a sign of his control-freak perfectionism or his inability to let go. "It's happened on every Pixar movie," Jobs confesses. It's also what he did when Ive presented him with a plastic model of what was to be the new iMac. It looked like the old iMac on a no-carb diet, a leaner iMac in the Zone. "There was nothing wrong with it," recalls Jobs. "It was fine. Really, it was fine." He hated it.

Rather than give his O.K., he went home from work early that day and summoned Ive, the amiable genius who also designed the original iMac, the other-worldly iPod music player, the lightweight but heavy-duty titanium PowerBook and the ice-cube-inspired Cube desktop, to name but a few of his greatest hits. As they walked through the 1,000-sq-m vegetable garden and apricot grove of Jobs' wife Laurene, Jobs sketched out the Platonic ideal for the new machine. "Each element has to be true to itself," Jobs told Ive. "Why have a flat display if you're going to glom all this stuff on its back? Why stand a computer on its side when it really wants to be horizontal and on the ground? Let each element be what it is, be true to itself." Instead of looking like the old iMac, the thing should look more like the flowers in the garden. Jobs said, "It should look like a sunflower."

This might have irritated some people. But Ive synchs with Jobs, readily playing Sullivan to his Gilbert. Ive, the son of a silversmith, likes to talk about industrial design "as product narrative. My view is that surfaces and materials and finishes and product architecture are about telling a bigger story." The story the new iMac wanted to tell, he says, was about a flat display so light, fluid and free that it could almost fly away.

He had a good working sketch of the new design within a day. But engineering the machine-squeezing all the gear into the little box that Jobs wanted-took nearly two years.

There are some things in the world of Jobs that you can rely on. On warm days, he will always appear at work shoeless and in hiking shorts. The rest of the time, he will always wear Levi's jeans, no belt and one of the hundreds of black, mock-turtleneck shirts a clothing-designer chum made for him many years ago. (Not having to worry about what to wear to work every day allows him to concentrate more on work, he says.) And he will always take any opportunity he can to lay out the wider context, the framework-and how Apple fits in. Pull up a chair, because Jobs is about to paint you the big picture.

The way Jobs sees it, the world is entering the third phase of personal computing. (For those of you who haven't been following along, the first era was all about utility-folks using their thinking machines to do word processing, run spreadsheets, create desktop graphics and the like. The second phase was about wiring all those machines together on the Internet.) Now that we're all interconnected and productive, we're ready for the next great era: people using computers to orchestrate all the new digital gear that has steadily crept into their lives.

At this point, Jobs likes to draw a diagram, which begins with an outer ring; he draws gadgets on that ring. "We are surrounded by camcorders, digital cameras, MP3 players, Palms, cell phones, DVD players," he says. Then he draws a computer in the center of the ring. "Some of these things are plenty useful without a personal computer. But a personal computer definitely enhances their value. And several are completely unusable without a PC-a PC meaning a Mac, in our case."

Now he fixes you with his famous pay-attention-here stare and furrows his Salman Rushdie eyebrows: "We believe the next great era is for the personal computer to be the digital hub of all these devices."

Here's how it works. Take digital cameras, which sold even better than retailers expected in 2001, despite the recession. "The problem is," says Jobs, "the minute you plug them into your computer, you fall off a cliff. It's just a complete mess on the computer. We decided that this was our calling-a place where we can really make a difference."

If the new iMac functions as well as it's supposed to, it will simplify your digital life like no other machine can. You can buy a PC with a flat-panel display and a built-in DVD burner for around $1,800, the same as the equivalent iMac. But it won't work as well. In part, that's because Apple gives away a number of core programs (iTunes, iMovie, iDVD and, starting this week, iPhoto) that allow you to control your creative life. They do what other PC software does. But they do it better.

Apple's secret, which doubtless comes from Jobs' early flirtation with Zen Buddhism, is knowing what to leave out, understanding that in the complex world of computers, less is way more.

For instance, iPhoto, a program for handling those digital pictures, is superior to anything else out there for the amateur. How? When you connect your camera to the iMac, archiving pictures happens automatically-the pictures are uploaded and organized by "roll" and archived together as thumbnail images laid out on one endlessly scrolling digital contact sheet. A slider on the side of the contact sheet lets you instantly enlarge and examine hundreds of pictures at a glance, the better to find the one you're hunting for. This works far better than the PC alternative, which would have you manually labeling each picture you archive ("Joe at the Beach") or accepting a meaningless default name, like A2393745. (Best feature of the new program: point-and-click together a 10-page photo album of your favorite pics, pay $30 and an online publisher will print and mail you your own hardcover book.)

Manipulating video-distilling those 90-min. tapes of mind-numbing music recitals and awards banquets into amusing, fast-moving 3-min. shorts-is almost as simple on the new iMac, which features a fast G4 chip, just like Apple's top-of-the-line machines. When you're done creating your masterpiece (with iMovie), you can copy it onto a DVD (with iDVD, of course). A DVD burner is squeezed into the high-end $1,800 model. While it's hard to come up with a perfect Apple-to-PC comparison, a top-of-the-line Dell Dimension 8200, with a flat-panel monitor and DVD burner (plus a faster Pentium 4 processor and much larger hard drive), costs $2,200 and will occupy much of your desktop and part of the floor.

But if PCs are clunkier than Macs, they have the great virtue of being ubiquitous. While Jobs' Apple may indeed make the most innovative, easy and fun-to-use computers, most consumers want what everyone else uses-big, cheap PCs that run Windows. A case in point: the ice-cool-looking Cube, introduced in July 2000, was a disaster for Apple, partly because no one, not even the Mac faithful, wanted to spend $1,799 on it (monitor not included), no matter how gorgeous and cutting-edge it was. That was probably a pricing mistake as much as anything else-Apple's gross profit margins (the difference between what it costs to make and market a thing vs. how much you charge) have been huge under Jobs. This time, however, with the new iMac, Apple is really keeping the costs down-something it can do because it controls much more of what goes in the box than the typical PC competitor, which buys virtually all its components from third-party sellers.

Still, at $1,299 for the entry-level iMac, the product could be priced too dearly to attract many converts from the PC world. "It's unlikely that any specific product announcement by Apple will have any immediate impact on the company's position in the market," says Al Gillen, an analyst who tracks Apple for IDC. While he hadn't yet seen the new iMac, in Gillen's view, the battle over the desktop standard was won long ago by the Windows-Intel forces.

And Apple's operating systems aren't helping. In fact, they are steadily losing market share, he says, pointing to recent data that suggest Apple OS's accounted for only 3.6% of new license revenue in 2000. Worse, IDC projects that they will amount to even less in 2001. By contrast, Microsoft's share of Windows licenses has increased during the same period.

Forget innovation, some analysts tell Apple. The most important thing Jobs can do is embrace the Dark Side and find other bridges to the Windows-Intel world. Says Gillen: "It's no longer a matter of which product is better but rather which world do you need to work in." That is, if you use Windows at work, you will use it at home. Instead of packaging cool, creative applications in each iMac, critics say, Apple should give people a Windows emulator so they can run PC programs if needed.

Yet the Internet, which was engineered so that every kind of computer could connect, has gone a long way toward making Apple computers compatible with everyone else's. And while it's true that most computer programs come out for Windows machines first and Macs second (if at all), that's not so important as it once was. All bread-and-butter programs, such as Microsoft Office, are available for the Mac. And in the entertainment category, the trend is to do one's video gaming on dedicated consoles like the GameCube, Xbox and PlayStation2, not on the computer.

Indeed, Carl Howe of Forrester Research believes the Internet has helped Apple make headway in the platform wars. "I think Apple doubling its market share is entirely possible," he says, citing a Forrester report that shows Apple had the highest satisfaction and buying index among large companies in North America. The premium they paid to own an Apple (one that is now shrinking) didn't seem to matter much. "Price is the last refuge of the marketer. It's what you sell when you don't have anything else to differentiate you," says Howe. "If prices were all that we cared about, we'd all be driving Hyundais." As Jobs likes to point out, BMW and Mercedes-Benz occupy a similar niche in the automobile market, but no one dismisses them as niche players.

"Every time we've brought innovation into the marketplace, our customers have responded-strongly," Jobs says, claiming that it might not be so hard as it sounds. "We only have to attract 5 out of the other 95 people who use PCs to switch, and Apple doubles its market share." That, of course, would buy the company that much more breathing room.

The original iMac did bring converts into the Apple tent. Besides, if all goes according to plan, merely by surviving Apple could grow into other areas. Jobs believes the shake-out in the computer industry will result in Apple's being one of four computer makers left standing. The other three? Compaq and/or Hewlett Packard, Dell and Sony. The rival he's pursuing most aggressively is Sony, which not only makes stylish computers ("They copy us like crazy!") but also makes plenty of digital lifestyle products. "I would rather compete with Sony than compete in another product category with Microsoft," he says. That's because Sony has to rely on other companies to make its software. "We're the only company that owns the whole widget-the hardware, the software and the operating system," he says. "We can take full responsibility for the user experience. We can do things that the other guy can't do."

One example is the iPod, Apple's stylish music player and its most recent foray into the consumer-electronics business. Jobs says Apple is on track to break analysts' best estimates and sell $50 million worth in the last quarter of 2001 alone. The cigarette-pack-size MP3 player is so popular that people have been coming into Apple stores to buy their first Macs, just to use the iPod, he says. (The company launched its own retail stores last year-Jobs redesigned the floor plan at the last minute, of course.)

Are other noncomputer appliances on the horizon? "We have some ideas," says Jobs, adding that Apple would enter the marketplace "where we think we can make a contribution." For instance? Jobs sits back, smiles and declines to elaborate. Clearly, he's already working on something new. You can bet it's the best thing that Apple has ever done. -With reporting by Rebecca Winters/New York

iDVD

FEATURE Create your own DVDs, just like the pros. Copy movies or slide shows of pictures onto a disc, and mail it off to Grandma. Any DVD player can play it

ADVANTAGE A DVD burner is built into the high-end iMac. That and the iDVD software make the whole process push-button simple

iPhoto

FEATURE Organize your digital pictures, and easily crop and edit them. Or create a 10-page photo album, which Apple will turn into a hardcover book for $30

ADVANTAGE Takes the pain out of archiving photos. Scalable thumbnail pictures are organized by "roll" during each upload. Find what you want at a glance

iTunes

FEATURE Play your CDs, or quickly convert them to MP3s, which are cleverly organized. Comes with an excellent, built-in selection of Net radio stations too

ADVANTAGE Automatically synchs with the iPod, the stylish portable music player that holds more than 1,000 songs

iMovie

FEATURE Turn a 90-min. home videotape of tedious music recitals and birthday parties into a dazzling 3-min. film. The software makes anyone a Spielberg

ADVANTAGE "Firewire" connection ports and the G4 chip work with the software to let you manipulate video clips as easily as pushing peas around on your plate

THE MAN AND HIS MACHINES

From the beginning, Jobs tried to bring computer power to the people. Even when exiled from Apple, he was obsessed with finding ways to make technology friendlier and easier to use

1976 Steve Wozniak builds the Apple I, a circuit board that Jobs sells for $666.66

1983 The first low-cost mouse appears on a personal computer, Apple's Lisa. While Lisa is an expensive flop, the mouse survives

1984 The first Macintosh, at $2,495, has a mouse, a keyboard and a small beige case

1985 Jobs, ousted from Apple, founds NeXT, a maker of Unix machines known for their sleek cubic design. But the company fares poorly and is purchased by Apple in 1996

1986 Bailing out a brilliant band of computer animators who worked for George Lucas, Jobs buys Pixar, makers of Toy Story and Monsters, Inc.

1997 Jobs is brought back to a shriveled Apple as "interim CEO." He cleans house, streamlines the product line and jumps on the Internet bandwagon

1998 The low-cost computer for the masses called iMac is launched. The i is for Internet. More than 6 million are sold, making Jobs a hero and boosting Apple's stock price 400%

1999 The iBook arrives, a bulletproof laptop for the school market. Critics say it looks like a toilet seat

2000 The PowerMac G4 Cube sets a new high-water mark for cool. But at $1,799, not including the monitor, Cube sales sink

2001 The introduction of the iPod, an elegantly simple digital music player, signals Apple's move into consumer electronics

What do you want from technology?

[PeterClark]

Did anyone's eyebrows raise at this quote? In regards to the "halo," the plastic frame around the screen, we read:

Jonathan Ive, chief of Apple's ID lab, says he designed it so that you would want to touch it, want to "violate the sacred plane of the monitor."

Err...I don't exactly think I like the idea of "violating the sacred plane of the monitor." Kinky.

:Peter

Re:What do you want from technology?

[WebMasterJoe]

I think this might be what he meant.

But is it fanless?

[rtaylor]

Yeah, looks ugly but you have to give them something for the display.

Lets put it this way, if its quiet (fanless) it may replace the laptop I usually have sitting on the corner of my desk for email, webbrowsing, etc.

Best is, they might switch to INTEL?

[All Dat]

There is an article here: http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/15616.html That talks about apples possible announcement that they will move to Intel chips, dumping motorola. Might be vaporware, but if not, well, you heard it here first folks. Worth a read, and it makes sense anyways.

Re:Best is, they might switch to INTEL?

[Jeffrey Baker]

"They" have been saying that since the Gil Amelio days. That is how the Mac rumor mill works: come up with as much outrageous bullshit as possible, and repeat it in a tight loop. If ANY of it EVER comes true, they will shout "SEE. We TOLD you so!".

Re:Best is, they might switch to INTEL?

[ImaLamer]

Yes!

But I heard they were going to only make MacOS for Intel [x86] chipsets.

Actually I heard it first... um about 7 years ago.

Re:Best is, they might switch to INTEL?

[ImaLamer]

No, i meant i heard that apple is going to start using Intel chips.

It's a stupid rumor that comes up everytime apple is in the news for something.

Re:Best is, they might switch to INTEL?

[banky]

Won't happen.

First, it would mean ostracising all those old-school, "megahertz means nothing" PowerPC addicts with MacClassics hot-rodded to run OSX. It would really be a bad scene, as well, having to maintain 2 versions of their code. Yes, Darwin is portable to i386, but big deal; NT4 was portable to PowerPC too. Didn't see many Blue-And-White's running NT4. (look on your NT4 disks to see the MIPS, PPC, etc. directories!)

Second, one of the nice things about the Mac platform is the integration between hardware and software. Software can control the bootloader and nvram dynamically. I have not seen anything on x86 that lets you, for example, change the boot device. This may seem like a trivial example, but it means a lot when dealing with hardware, drivers, etc.

I had the notion that, perhaps, there is nothing unique about x86. It's a processor. Perhaps Apple has contracted with someone to build an x86-based mobo, that uses OpenFirmware? In other words, bring all the coolness of the Mac hardware to the PC world. The problem is, of course, its not a PC anymore, except that you will be able to swap cards between machines without flashing the BIOS of the card. It's possible, but I would think someone would have mentioned it.

Although clever wording "it's not a PC" could really be useful here. It's an Intel based machine, with more-or-less commodity hardware, that's not a PC. Might be interesting, but I doubt it'll happen.

Re:Best is, they might switch to INTEL?

[ajv]

It wont happen, but not because of technical difficulties. The NT kernel is easy to adapt to and has booted in the past from machines sporting various non-BIOS arrangements, like Digital's axp AlphaBIOS, SGI's Visual Workstation (which used ARC prom's on a not-at-all-like-ia32 architecture), x86-based ccNUMA machines like Unisys/HP/IBM 8, 16 and 32 way boxes which use a freaky custom BIOS that runs 2, 4 or 8 times on each 4 processor node until the OS can take over, IBM's PowerPC NT workstations (PowerSeries 440 and 8x0's and certain RS/6000's which used ARC firmware based upon Motorola's portable firmware). So for Apple to make a piece of hardware that suits the Mac first and NT second is no biggie. It would be up to Microsoft to port XP and .Net Server to the platform in the long term as long as Apple provided the technical details (hah!).

As long as OpenFirmware (or whatever they might choose) can run something like another program like an EFI thingy, or get all the initial files needed into RAM and then let the NT kernel take over as per normal, will mean users have multiple operating system support out of the box. But as Apple of the last five years has consistently refused to co-operate with hardware partners and those trying to make a go of the platform (Be for example), I doubt this course of action.

If I was Apple, I wouldn't be targeting ia32 except to keep Bill Gates awake; I would be keeping an eye out for ia64. The associated ia64 platform has a number of interesting technical features, including not least the lack of a traditional BIOS, and EFI / GPT based disk management, which allow far more Mac-like behavior than old style MBR disks.

And realistically, an ia64 port would give them the ability to make IBM/Motorola their bitch when it came to 64 bit processor supply. At the moment, only IBM make POWER architecture 64 bit processors (like the RS64 III, mainly in low volume, are multi-chip, and they are HUGE and relatively power hungry compared to the G4), and Motorola would probably dearly love to ditch a smallish player (in units consumed, particularly when you divide deliveries over an entire year) like Apple and concentrate on making money on embedded PPCs instead.

Re:Full story Link

[jpmkm]

Yeah, I had trouble clicking on that big picture on the front page. Thanks for the link.

not just new iMac - also iPhoto

[davebo]

The Time Canada article also spills the beans about iPhoto - long-rumored "digital photo management" software for the Mac.

The "big feature" (besides easy management/sorting/viewing of digital photos): you can arrange your own photo album, doctor it up nice & pretty like, and with a click of a button, a $30 charge on your credit card, and a week or so for the mail, you'll get a hard-covered book of the selfsame album.

Neat.

Re:not just new iMac - also iPhoto

[maggard]

FINALLY the iPhoto is going to ship! This has been a big bone of contention between Apple and Adobe but I for one can't wait.

My father got a Canon Elph S100 last year (and gave me a S110 this year so I'd stop borrowing his) and he's been struggling with photo tools. He's a bright guy, indeed did a lot of the originial stuff on computers in business etc. but tossing him into Adobe Photoshop, even Adobe Photoshop Elements is just sooo wrong.

iPhoto from all rumors is what he needs - something to lay the photos out, fix them up a bit (Extensis Intellihance is great for him, hope iPhoto supports Adobe plugins), then put together some galleries to post or send to relatives. Heck, on my todo list for today is pull a bunch of pix off of his hard drive (6 ~10MB .psd's no less) then arrange them on a single-page montage for him.

Cable-modems & remote control software aside a good sturdy photo management tool with Apple's simple & intuitive design (yes not to *everyone* but if you use their stuff regularly it does have an enormous amount of internal consistancy) will do well. Heck I've started thinking of advertising my services at some high rate to folks who got digital cameras last year or this and are stuck trying to get them to work, print out decent shots, post them online.

Apple, if the iPhoto is anything like iTunes & iMovie then hurrah - you've just sold my Dad a new iMac if I have to go get it for him myself.

Next stop 1930's?

[michaelmalak]

The first iMac looked like a 1970's dumb terminal. This one looks like a 1950's television set. Extrapolating, I can't imagine what the next iMac will look like, since TVs weren't prevalent in the 1930's. Oh wait...

Re:Next stop 1930's?

[nathanm]

My first impression was it looked like a table lamp. Look at this picture.

I'm not a big fan of any of the iMac designs. But I could sure go for one of those Titanium Powerbooks.

Re:Next stop 1930's?

[PapaZit]

Obviously, it'll look like an old radio

A nice finished wood exterior, big-ass speaker in the main enclosure, and a wall projector in place of the dial. You'll put this giant enclosure next to the easy chair in the living room. It'll communicate with your other entertainment equipment via a sophisticated but quasi-proprietary wireless interface. It will be the home entertainment device that everyone has been dreaming of. And it'll cost a fortune.

Meanwhile, Microsoft will come out with a cheap plastic box that you can stick between your DVD player and your receiver. It'll have many of the same features, but it'll look worse, crash more, and cost 20% of what the Apple version costs.

Everybody will want the Apple version, but when it comes time to buy, they'll come home with the Microsoft version.

Time did the same with Segway (It/Ginger)

[Therlin]

Time did the same thing with the Segway. They posted the pictures and article the night before on their website.

The only difference is that I doubt Apple/Jobs will give them any more exclusives from now on.

iMac and a side order of fries, please

[Konster]

Interesting to note that the concept sketch took only a day, but to squeeze the hardware into the small untit took almost two years. "He had a good working sketch of the new design within a day. But engineering the machine-squeezing all the gear into the little box that Jobs wanted-took nearly two years." But, it costs a LOT...even with a gee-whiz flat-screen. "You can buy a PC with a flat-panel display and a built-in DVD burner for around $1,800, the same as the equivalent iMac." also... " Still, at $1,299 for the entry-level iMac, the product could be priced too dearly to attract many converts from the PC world." So...$1200 - $1800 for an iMac? Don't get me wrong, I'm a PC user, but I do like Apple's hardware, and Mac OS X is OK, but $400 for an iPod, $1,800 for an iMac? Apple prices its products to high to make a convert out of me. Plus, it looks like a lamp. It lacks the OOH AAH factor that the original IMac had at launch.

Re:iMac and a side order of fries, please

[Tide]

Actually, the entry level iMac is $799, the new iMac starts @ $1299 - $1799. A computer in the Mac world that came with a DVD burner and LCD screen ran about $3100 today, tomorrow its $1800. A bit better, no?

Re:iMac and a side order of fries, please

[buysse]

$1200 -- Time Canada! That's about current iWhack prices, in real money. (No offence intended to the Canadians).

Re:iMac and a side order of fries, please

[dangermouse]

This isn't the first "it looks like a lamp" post... but I'd like to know why that's a bad thing.

The less intrusive a PC is, the better, IMO. Same goes for all home electronics. That's why people buy TV cabinets with doors on them.

Screwing Up? No, that's Journalism

[Dredd13]

How is it "Screwing up" when they're reporting news, and doing it before other sites and news sources do it?

Maybe it's not when Apple would have wanted it, but Time did "the right thing" from a journalist's perspective. They "broke the story", which is what journalists are paid to do.

Re:Screwing Up? No, that's Journalism

[cygnus]

How is it "Screwing up" when they're reporting news, and doing it before other sites and news sources do it?

well, it's great for us. but they probably were given access to products and info based on their signing an NDA, which would preclude them from jumping the gun like this. so they screwed up in the legal sense.

They "broke the story", which is what journalists are paid to do.

er, no. they aren't paid to do that when they'll cost their company thousands of dollars in lawsuits.

Re:Screwing Up? No, that's Journalism

[Dredd13]

...based on their signing an NDA...

Show me a journalist who signs an NDA, and I'll show you a journalist whose on food stamps the following week, and without an NDA there's no "lawsuit".

Re:Screwing Up? No, that's Journalism

[cygnus]

Show me a journalist who signs an NDA, and I'll show you a journalist whose on food stamps the following week, and without an NDA there's no "lawsuit".

dude, you really don't know what you're talking about. tech journalism is much different than 60 Minutes.

Re:Screwing Up? No, that's Journalism

[Dredd13]

But there's no evidence of an embargo.

Note the language: "An exclusive"... after 9am tomorrow, it's not an exclusive, the entire fucking planet will know it. The only way Time could know it was an exclusive is if Apple told them so.

So what do we have? An article coming out exactly when it was supposed to (while it was still exclusive), and with apple's full knowledge and consent (because that's the only way Time would know it was exclusive).

Other than the conjecture of a bunch of Apple fanboys, I don't see any evidence of any embargo that Time would have agreed to.

D

Re:Screwing Up? No, that's Journalism

[Sentry21]

This isn't really about tech journalism - in fact, it's barely about tech at all.

The article, like the iMac itself, is not about technology, but what you DO with the technology. This is the big thing that makes Apple great - they avoid 'technology for technology's sake'.

The article is about what you can DO with the iMac, how it was invented, and the philosophy behind it.

--Dan

Re:Screwing Up? No, that's Journalism

[Dredd13]

Please submit your evidence of an embargo violation. Be detailed and cite your sources.

Everyone's so quick to point out "how evil Time was" in reporting this, but nobody's yet offered a shred of evidence that this wasn't part of the "exclusive" arrangement. Remember that "Exclusive" only applies until other folks get their eyes on it tomorrow morning, and Time got an exclusive. Now, it's not quantum physics to make the leap that Apple expected Time to go with it right before MWSF. One might even suspect that - given that Time's street date is Monday, and that Jobs pushed the keynote ahead a day to Monday from Tuesday - that this was planned all along.

D

Re:Screwing Up? No, that's Journalism

[erlando]

Maybe it's not when Apple would have wanted it, but Time did "the right thing" from a journalist's perspective. They "broke the story", which is what journalists are paid to do.

Funny thing is.. They didn't "break the story". Look at this article. Then look at the date..

Maybe this is an intentional "leak"

[Artifice_Eternity]

Time Canada is owned by AOL-Time Warner. Who do both Apple and AOL-TW see as one of their biggest competitors? Microsoft.

They are natural allies. Maybe Apple is letting them start the buzz a little early. Anyway, I doubt that such a major media outlet would post a big story like this early by mistake. And if they had, I think it would already have been taken down by now.

Re:Maybe this is an intentional "leak"

[jcr]

Maybe Apple is letting them start the buzz a little early.

That strikes me as highly unlikely, to say the least.

-jcr

Re:Pixar Logo...

[Nerftoe]

Ever see the full anim with that light character?

Yep, you can view it here. The lamp's name is Luxo.

Re:Now Imagine...

[Graymalkin]

Or more specifically an Appleseed cluster of these...

Luxo the iMac?

[TheBracket]

Is it just me, or does anyone expect this thing to jump around the desk trying to find a ball? It really does look like a desk-lamp... I wonder how much light it produces?

Re:Luxo the iMac?

[toupsie]

That's why the codename for the new iMac was iLamp!

bring back the style of NeXT

[green pizza]

Am I the only one that wishes Apple would dump Ive's "style" in favor of the classy NeXT machines?

Re:bring back the style of NeXT

[cygnus]

Am I the only one that wishes Apple would dump Ive's "style" in favor of the classy NeXT machines?

yes. those things were huge. they were the size of a small fridge. i rather have something like this, that i can push out of the way when i don't need it.

Re:bring back the style of NeXT

[green pizza]

NeXT machines came in two formfactors: cube and slab. The cube was 12 inches on each side. The slab was a pizzabox 14" deep, 14" wide, and 2.5" tall. Where I come from, that'd be a pretty tiny fridge. I used a Turbo Color NeXTstation for three years, almost zero footprint as it sat under my 17" monitor. Classy as all heck.

Re:bring back the style of NeXT

[foobar104]

Am I the only one that wishes Apple would dump Ive's "style" in favor of the classy NeXT machines?

I don't know. The NeXT cube gave the impression of being carved out of granite. Good for a server or a supercomputer, but as a workstation it was just kind of silly.

The magnesium case burned nicely, though.

Re:bring back the style of NeXT

[jcr]

Well, I love my NeXT slabs, but I also love the Ti Powerbook, the current Mac tower design, and the previous "wall street" PB's as well.

I think Ive does amazing work. Have you *held* an iPod?

-jcr

Re:bring back the style of NeXT

[cygnus]

The slab was a pizzabox 14" deep, 14" wide, and 2.5" tall.

oh, point taken. sorry.

but you *could* fit a lot of *pizza* in that amount of space..

Re:bring back the style of NeXT

[Strider-]

I dunno, my Cube makes a nice foot stool, and the machine itself is a great smart terminal, once you compile OpenSSH on it. :)

Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[krmt]

My number one rule with people is that they are generally lazy. People are often too lazy to even look at a Mac, let alone use it long enough to try and understand how to work it. No start button? My God! What do I do?!? It can't run my kid's games? Well, forget that! It takes a relatively rare kind of person to make the switch from PC to Mac, and a clever (albeit weird) new design isn't really going to matter much.

The other thing I have issues with is the whole "digital lifestyle" concept that Jobs keeps pushing. Why is it that you have all these commercials, from Apple, Microsoft, HP, and others going on about how easy it is to create shit on your computer? I just don't understand. Yeah, plenty of people create with their computers (God bless 'em) but the majority of the people out there are still astonished that they can actually buy a device to copy their friend's CD's! Combine that with the fact that most people actually consider themselves far too busy to go about creating some stupid coffee table book or movie, there's no way this will fly. I like the iPhoto idea for actually organizing things, but I'm skeptical that it will matter in the long run, as people will just use the free (Windows) software that came with their camera.

Apple could do very well, the possibility is always there so long as they keep up what they're doing, but it would take some serious serious blunders on Microsoft's part, the likes of which we've never seen before, to make people switch.

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[krogoth]

As some people pointed out about the iPod, they aren't trying to sell this to every single person (like Microsoft always does). They know their market is small.

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[elmegil]

I dunno. The description of going from my digital camcorder to a DVD, from my digital camera to a fairly organized set of photos (without having to come up with my own damn naming/organization scheme) or even a book of photos for $30, really make me drool. If I could get even roughly equivalent apps for my PC, I'd be running for them (feel free to make recommendations :-).

So far my experience trying to do stuff with my camcorder just to get it to VCD has ended up with horrible quality crap, and I have more poorly organized digital pix than I can shake a stick at. Yeah, I can use tools like photoshop or paint shop pro to generate thumbnail pages, but I still have to come up with names for all that crap. If you believe the Apple hype, they have a scheme that lets you sidestep all that. I wish someone would port their software to the PC world. 'cos I ain't switching to a Mac at this late date--too much tied up in my windoze software (same argument goes for Linux btw, feel free to chastise me profusely).

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[evand]

My mom is looking for a computer to call her own, and I've been trying to steer her toward a Macintosh. Why?

First of all, her needs are simple. She needs to check her email, surf the web, and use a word processor. With Mail.app, Internet Explorer/OmniWeb, and AppleWorks, her needs are fulfilled.

Additionally, Macs really are easier to use than the alternatives. How did I install Office v.X on my iBook? I dragged the folder that had "Drag this to your hard disk" written next to it to... my hard disk! Uninstallation? Drag the folder from my hard disk to the Trash!

I can definitely see one of these new iMacs sitting in our kitchen where the Audrey (shudder) is now, and I can see my mom writing email, surfing the web, writing letters, editing movies from our HandyCam, and burning DVDs on it, all without much intervention from me beyond teaching her the basics.

That's truly a beautiful thing.

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[krmt]

I agree with you, and it's one of those things that makes me really sad about this industry. You can have the absolute best product out there, way ahead of the competition, and you're still relegated to a mediocrity. The amazing thing about Apple is that they're so good that they're still alive, despite these problems.

There's no doubt that if iPhoto works as advertised, it's going to kick ass. The problem is, most people will remain ignorant of it, and we're all the worse off for it.

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[krmt]

But how many are even going to go to that trouble to learn how to use these things? There's no doubt that they're better executed than anything on Windows, but so is the whole of the Mac OS, and it still has a meager market share.

The lazy masses are too lazy to go against the status quo, especially when they see Microsoft ads touting XP's video making capabilities. It doesn't matter if it's as good, XP has what they think they want (even though they never end up using it to make movies or whatever) and it's what they have used at work for the past decade. Why switch? This is the great lesson to be learned from Apple's past, and it should not be ignored.

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[daeley]

AHA! I'll bounce off that broad, flat surface and be in a lot of pain!

Your sig is strangely appropriate given your attitude toward switching OS's.

What software are you so tied up in to not try something else? Not a flame, I'm just curious.

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[enkidu]

But how many are even going to go to that trouble to learn how to use these things?

You're seriously missing the point. It's no trouble at all! You don't have to learn how to use these things because it's so darn easy. Have you ever used iTunes? How about the iPod? I picked up the iPod and in under one minute figured out how to change the playlist, adjust the volume, and navigate at blinding speed. The interface is truly intuitive and easy to use. I haven't worked with iMovie or iDVD, but iTunes is pretty sweet.

The lazy masses are too lazy to go against the status quo, especially when they see Microsoft ads touting XP's video making capabilities. It doesn't matter if it's as good, XP has what they think they want (even though they never end up using it to make movies or whatever) and it's what they have used at work for the past decade. Why switch? This is the great lesson to be learned from Apple's past, and it should not be ignored.

So what should Apple do? Just give up? *Not* try to increase it's market share? Apple has opened boutique style stores where people can come in and actually see how easy it is to use iTunes, iMovie, iPod etc. Microsoft has had it easy until now because they've been able to follow Apple's tail lights to add new features. But now Apple is starting to innovate on the hardware side (FireWire, iMac, iPod...) and Microsoft isn't positioned to do the kind of Hardware+OS integration that Apple can do. Apple may be able to pull away enough to start gaining market share. Hey, the Powerbook is *still* the sleekest, coolest laptop on the market in my book.

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[Elwood P Dowd]

As the Beatles said: No no no, you're wrong.

Digital devices do encourage people to be more creative in a particular special way. Since there's no cost per photo, per song, or per movie, people do less self-censorship. I've seen otherwise unartistic people making interesting movies and taking artistic photos with their digital cameras.

However, you're probably right in a more important regard. I don't think that many of these people would have considered it a selling point of their digital camera. They never said "Now I'll get to do all the art photography I've always wanted!" But it just worked out that way.

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[Ratbert42]

Uninstallation? Drag the folder from my hard disk to the Trash!

I recently installed Basilisk II, an open-source Mac emulator (68k macs only so far). Despite the fact that I used to use Macs back when the IIfx was the hot machine and A/UX was the unix on macs, I still have a hard time believing the way MacOS works. I refuse to believe that IE4 and Netscape don't install crap all over the drive. I'm still looking for the uninstaller. It's got to be there. That and I only created a 200 meg disk image. I figured that wouldn't let me do much, but I would add other disks. Crap, my stripped-down Win98 base image in VMWare is over 150 megs. But I've got MacOS, IE4 with Outlook, Netscape3, Wordperfect, and a dozen other apps and I'm still not taking up 100 megs.

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[elmegil]

1) Most expensively, Photoshop. I don't want to have to spend that money again for a new OS, and as far as I can tell I can't just buy an upgrade for Mac.

2) Several games, particularly half-life, Tribes 2, Worms (name your version).

Beyond that, it's not just particular TITLES of software as it specific COPIES of software that I'd have to buy AGAIN despite the fact that the copies I have work just fine. Quicken for starters, but several shareware utilities that I've paid for etc. I guess that goes back to item 1, but while that's one big ticket item, this is many smaller ticket items that end up costing nearly the same amount if not more.

Does that answer your question?

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[Rand Race]

Hence the scoop given to Time... probably in exchange for a cover spot. Apple's ad-wizards are some of the best in the business, and they are doing their damndest to get some info into the heads of the consumer mass. They've done a fair job with the iPod, although I personally detest the 'advertise via annoyance' method (die Dellboy die!), and I imagine they'll do well with this. But Apple really needs a "holy shit" type product for their spin boys to pimp... I'm not sure this is it.

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[daviddennis]

I was always irritated by ugly fonts on Linux. Yes, I know, they were supposedly improved, but it's a ton of work to get them to work, and I can buy a Mac with MacOS X and get stunningly beautiful text on the spot without tinkering, while still running emacs and all my Unix CGI stuff.

I finally feel like I can use an alternative to Microsoft without apologising. ("No pre-emptive multitasking" or "Ugly fonts, no non-obscure software"). That's pretty darn cool, and it really does look stunning.

As does the new machine, although I'm holding off for a new PowerMac dual processor since I need the power.

D

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[daviddennis]

Have you actually tried using Microsoft's video editing package in XP? I played around with it in Fry's, only to give up in disgust. It's awful. I think they just wanted to check that box on their feature list with as little thought or investment as possible.

Sony's MovieShaker is better, but nothing comes close to iMovie in usability and capability.

Apple is trying to get people who enjoy doing creative stuff on their computers, like me. At least with me, they've hit the bullseye with products like MacOS X and Final Cut Pro, a simply fabulous video editor.

Remember, a doubling of their market share is still less than 10% of the market. Would 10% of the population like a more creative computer? I think they would. And that's all Apple really needs.

D

Re:Digital Lifestyle My Ass

[daviddennis]

I upgraded from Photoshop for the PC to Photoshop for the Mac for the upgrade price. No problem at all per Adobe. If you buy the upgrade for the Mac and have a PC, you call their toll-free number and they will transfer the license to Mac and give you a code.

I'd suggest you visit an Apple store if you live anywhere near one - they are very cool places, with excellent service and lots of cool toys to play with (including a sensational Internet connection).

I played around with Windows XP, and it's better than it used to be, but nothing's as cool as MacOS X.

D

Moving the 'hump'

[stevarooski]

Whats interesting to me is how the 'hump' containing the guts of the machine was simply moved from the back to a new airport-esque base. The article says that Jobs hated the design of a bulge on the back of an LCD screen. What's really gained from moving it to a stand? The footprint shrinks by the width of the screen, but I would bet that the new design will tip backwards rather easily based on the photo. In addition, it looks like an LCD growing out of some sort of egg.

However, for marketing purposes, the fact that it departs so radically from the OLD iMac probably will count in its favor. I'm betting that the machine, combined with (I'm sure) it's ease of setup and phenomenal software (I'm particularly a fan of iMovie for capture/printing) will be a success anyways. Just be careful when adjusting the screen. :-)

Image of imac Mirror incase of /. effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Imac image mirror

There's no such thing as bad publicity!

[LionMan]

Come on, it's not bad for Apple that people see this a few hours earlier than they would.
But, judging from all the flame the design is getting (clay blob ... bumbersome floating panel ... etc.) this is my current Conspiracy Theory (tm):
1) Apple give Time Canada info about their new Mac in advance, but mock up the clay-blob-stick-panel design.
2) Let Time Canada release this early. Naturally /. and/or other news sites will pick up the "blunder" ;).
3) Reveal the /real/ new machine, far more slick and appealing than the old machine or the clay-blob-stick-panel (Apple has a good sense of aesthetics, why would they make something look silly?)
4) News sites will catch the discrepancy. People like the real one. People will talk!

As they say, there's no such thing as bad publicity. But I'm just a conspiracy theorist.

Re:There's no such thing as bad publicity!

[Sentry21]

Come on, it's not bad for Apple that people see this a few hours earlier than they would.

One of the things Steve Jobs relies on is the 'OH... MY... GOD...' factor - that is, pulling something totally out of left field that people start liking just because it's different, cute, abstract, or whatever (like the iMac; I can count on no hands the number of people that could have predicted that).

He's the shock DJ of the personal computer world, bringing you the last and most inappropriate thing you'd ever expect, and making you love every word he utters.

Releasing the surprise early is like getting someone the most awesome birthday present and then telling them about it the night before, but not giving it to them. The effect fades off, and fast, especially overnight.

3) Reveal the /real/ new machine, far more slick and appealing than the old machine or the clay-blob-stick-panel (Apple has a good sense of aesthetics, why would they make something look silly?)

Er... Have you seen an iMac? It was the silliest thing I've ever seen in my life. It also brought them back from the brink of disaster and filled their pockets with untold riches.

They'll release something that looks silly because it's insanely great, and it will sell for that. Apple provides value, not just looks.

--Dan

uuencoded image

[krogoth]

I don't know any other easy way to ASCII-encode a file, so here it is. Copy everything between the '-----' lines to a file with no spaces before, after, or in the lines (after the first) and run 'uudecode -o timecover.jpeg [filename]'
-----
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M;V)E`&3``````0,`$`,"`P8```/A```'!@``$]S_VP"$`!` +" PL,"Q`,#!`7
M#PT/%QL4$!`4&Q\7%Q%QH:&AH7'AXC)2'B,P
M*RXG)RB::9FP@RU*'WTCKP4@S$`0&UG)M,ST6Y>%>?H $U/K"NCHF=:
M+N\NOTB2*]":=$SO1)[090=\[)#0[S[X&G1,ZT6>W//#
MS45KF'2OZMG\RS^61\Q[N
M9T,SDG>L+E/RS^9-,Z9[RGO=_J!=$D?WV>^Q3=[3)Y
MI'R?_]H`"`$!``$%`)%Y&:$XC"U:CI4Q4(8CNK&V-ZRIU/V TE UYEZG[ZR2=&
M*C(0>S0C44MSF#)N$U'D6]E"K[LUS2K2S2)UU:FN"_\`4* A%K=MDL+BY:@MO
M:%SR7AK)C+8DX>O[C?%67C\M>SAOC0$_M;6F9+ML^/; ]L7?[&/:E?#)":3'(
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MG`:#2F'\(H_

Re:uuencoded image

[Webmonger]

"Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited."

They own the copyright to the image. You can take your own picture of an iMac Sunflower (yeah, right!) or make a computer model based on the photo and render an image of that, or draw an abstract painting of it in blood and Orange Crush, but you don't have the right to distribute this particular image unless they explicitly release it into the public domain.

That's the rules. I don't make them up. I wish I did.

Re:uuencoded image

[krogoth]

This? It's just a random stream of characters; I discovered by accident that uudecode can convert it into the right image ;)

Re:uuencoded image

[AtrN]

It's just a random stream of characters

Rather than thinking of it as a collection of bytes it is worthwhile to consider the bytes as a single, multi-precision number. Just as that prime that unzips to DeCSS is a number, the number posted can be interpreted as an image. Isn't it great that copyright law in the digital age lets people own numbers. Most are pretty big (and there's quite a few to go round :) - an average MP3 being around 5 million base 256 digits long - but there are some that aren't so human-unfriendly. What I want to know is what is the shortest number I can own?

Re:uuencoded image

[SubtleNuance]

They own the copyright to the image.

Yeah, but seeing as how /. is a 'news site', and this forum is discussing the new Apple - it would be fair use. Seeing as how /.'ers are not incapable or uneducated in the field, this could also be considered an academic discussion. Sorry, we have every right to re-post and examine that image.

Re:uuencoded image

[gfoyle]

Whatever. Apple own servers have a copy of the image: http://homepage.mac.com/gfoyle/newestiMac.jpg

Re:uuencoded image

[crawling_chaos]

Yeah, but seeing as how /. is a 'news site', and this forum is discussing the new Apple - it would be fair use.

No, it isn't. The Washington Post can't run The New york Times' photos without paying them for the priviledge. You or I could photocopy the image and file it away to remind ourselves of what the new iMac looked like, or to use as toilet paper. Fair use doesn't include distribution, particularly commercial distribution.

Re:uuencoded image

[krogoth]

However, this is an _encoded_ file. Any attempts to decode it are subject to prosecution under the DMCA, and I didn't give permission to anyone to view it - for all you're allowed to know, I'm archiving random data on Slashdot. In fact, Apple can't even check if it is really the file in question :)

Re:uuencoded image

[Webmonger]

Ah, that's a more clever answer.
Still, it strikes me that in a court of law, they could probably determine whether character stream was actually the image in question during the "discovery phase".

This is the phase in which evidence is gathered. For example, in a software copyright infringement suit, you could obtain access to the source code of the allegedly-infringing software in the discovery phase.

$1800 Canadian or US dollars?

[Therlin]

The article says it will cost $1800 which is kind of pricey for an iMac (even if it has a superdrive and an LCD).

But the article is from Time Canada, so could the price be in Canadian dollars? This would bring the price down to about $1128 US.

Re:$1800 Canadian or US dollars?

[trippd6]

If you read the article all the way, it says $1299... I don't know where they got the 1800 (CDN, maybe, i dunno... poorly written in my opinion).

-Tripp

Re:$1800 Canadian or US dollars?

[surajrai]

I am sure that is US Dollars. I don't think that is too pricey given that it has the SuperDrive. The drive itself costs around $500 and given that it has a G4 processor and flat panel...I think that's reasonable.

For comparision's sake, a DELL with a DVD burner and a 15 inch flat panel costs around US$ 2500.

S.r.

Re:$1800 Canadian or US dollars?

[anticypher]

$1299 US dollars for an entry level iMac, going up to $2400 US for a completely tricked out machine. Those prices include the flat panel display.

The machine looks cool. If I could get a solaris X-windows display going on it, I would make one my main network management display machine. Blow away any visitors with how it looks. Out-geek everyone in the company.

Of course, next month there will be a dozen PC clones from china with the exact same look. Within a year, 40% of all PCs sold will be lumps with flat panel displays poking out the top. Apple is the only company still left innovating. Good on them.

the AC

Re:$1800 Canadian or US dollars?

[kilrogg]

But the article is from Time Canada, so could the price be in Canadian dollars?

Well, they mention other $ amounts in other parts of the article, on the last page:

2000 The PowerMac G4 Cube sets a new high-water mark for cool. But at $1,799, not including the monitor, Cube sales sink

Any body remember if this was the US price at the time?

Re:$1800 Canadian or US dollars?

[bnenning]

If I could get a solaris X-windows display going on it, I would make one my main network management display machine.

Done. You can run a fullscreen X server, or run it rootless so X and Aqua windows are side by side.

Re:$1800 Canadian or US dollars?

[medcalf]

Ah, but you can get a Solaris X-windows display on it, by running XDarwin (or whatever it might be called now) which is XFree86 compiled under MacOS X/Darwin.

Why it was early

[neier]

Now we know why Jobs moved the keynote up a day. If Time is published on Monday, Apple would either have had to "debut" the iMac a day after everyone had read about it in print, or ask Time to change their whole publishing cycle. Moving the keynote to occur as the magazine was _supposed_ to be released made everyone happy.

Now it makes sense....

Beat me to it

[ehintz]

I just had that idea too, was about to post it... ;-) Now we can watch Apple's lawyers attack /., that should be fun...

Re:Beat me to it

[bnenning]

Nah, Apple's lawyers are probably busy preparing a nuclear strike on Time's headquarters. I can't imagine Steve showed Time the unit without a very strict NDA.

Re:I remember the days...

[ahde]

I remember when it consisted of a pretty computer package.

Re:Damn the recession?

[buysse]

That's about current iWhack prices, in real money, dammit. I'll probably get tagged as redundant, but hey. It's from Time CANADA, so it's probably $1299 CA.

Re:did they fix it this time?

[CokeBear]

Get off your lazy ass, go to CompUSA, and buy yourself a 2 button USB mouse!

Apple's mouse is not hard wired to the box.

You can even choose which one you want, or get a Microsoft 5 button plus wheely thing mouse if you want!

Lazy bastard

Or just buy the iMac and DON'T switch your OS

[flashms010]

Under the truly amazing VPC 6, you can run Linux, Windows, &etc. I had submitted this story a few days ago, but it was rejected -- there's just too much Apple news lately. FWIW:

New for Mac OS X -- Virtual PC 6 from Connectix looks pretty incredible. As Wired says, "You can load DOS, Linux, OS 2, Windows 2000, 95, 98, ME, XP Home and Pro, and of course OS X and Mac OS 9. You can run any combination; RAM is the only limiting factor." Runs under MacOSX and MacOS9, though under MacOSX you can network different instances of VPC together, for filesharing or network programming. VPC 6 also allows you to "undo" -- revert to past sessions, including reboots (you can't do this in the real Windows). Apple and MacNet2 both review it warmly, and
CreativePro says: "I installed Red Hat Linux 7.1 and 7.2 without difficulty, though the drag and drop functionality does not work in Linux." If you're upset because MS Access or MS FrontPage weren't included with Microsoft Office for the Mac, you can run them under VPC. Prices go from $80 to $200. It's also available for windows.

Re:Or just buy the iMac and DON'T switch your OS

[krmt]

Ah, but you are forgetting primary rule #1: People Are Lazy. They are so lazy that they will not bother to find out about VPC (great product that it is) and they will certaintly not pay extra just to run some software they could have run under windows for cheaper.

Remember, even though Macs are easier and better designed in general than PC's with windows, they are alien to most people. In addition, they are meant to be easy, and how easy are they if you need to buy this virtual PC thing and run both Windows and MacOS at once? Why can't they just run one?

VPC is a great product, but it's a niche product, especially the platform that's meant to be as simple and easy as possible.

not what anyone had pictured

[green pizza]

The iMac only Jobs could love.

Seriously.

This is not a computer for geeks. It's certainly not the computer for schools. And I can't imagine most households wanting something like this when room is plentiful and 18" LCDs (or 21" CRTs) are cheaper than ever. Even die-hard Mac fans are unimpressed.

So, who is Apple targeting? I feel this may set them back *much* further than the Cube.

I wish Apple good luck, they need it.

Re:not what anyone had pictured

[evand]

Even die-hard Mac fans are unimpressed.

Yes, I trust your assessment, because clearly you've had time to extensively poll the hardcore Macintosh community in the 45 minutes since this story "broke."

Don't forget that the design of this iMac is as different from most other things out there as the original was when it was introduced. And I've seen the original iMac everywhere from schools to homes to coffee shops in Key West, Florida.

Re:not what anyone had pictured

[Ryan Amos]

Apple's target market is NOT the geeks. Geeks are going to build their own PC in a cool case. Apple's target are the 30 year old working professionals who shop at Ikea. This kind of stuff fits perfectly with that. Believe it or not, geeks are but a small portion of the American population, and not a very lucrative one for prebuilt computer makers. Apple will let AMD/VIA and Intel fight over the geeks, and they'll go after their own market.

Jobs' Reaction

[TheGreenLantern]

A lot of people seem to be assuming that Jobs is having a fit about this right now, and indeed he may be. But let's look at things from a business perspective, shall we?

- When a small, independent Apple site leaks pics of an iCube, new iMac, possible iWalk, whatever, Steve can get pissed, threaten litigation, and call them all kinds of names.

- When a major magazine publisher, backed by one of the worlds largest media conglomerates, leaks pics of the new iMac, Steve bites his tounge, smiles, and congratulates Time Canada on their "scoop".

Or do you think he's willing to throw away millions of potential consumer eyes he could advertise to?

Ewww...

[SirFlakey]

This is ugly. I hope this is a fake. Maybe even a joke on Steve Job's behalf with the aid of Time and some whacky canadians =).

I want Newtons , N E W T O N S .. not some middle of the line iMacs. If I wanted a cool box that takes up little room I'd have bought a cube with a dvi LCD screen (imho a much more attractive proposition).

Re:Ewww...

[Gogo Dodo]

The NewtonOS is certainly nice, but I wouldn't want the form factor of a Newton. Not in the age of Palms, Handsprings, and HandEras. You can't stuff a Newton into your pocket, but you can with the current PDAs.

Who knows, maybe Palm will do something interesting with their BeOS purchase. PalmOS 6?

Re:Ewww...

[aussersterne]

Damn, I was hoping for a new Newton, too.

Anyway dude, the Newton 2100 form factor is nearly perfect as far as I'm concerned. Natural handwriting recognition is the biggest pain in the ass on an iPaq because the screen is half the size of my hand. I'm a tallish adult male with biggish hands and I get hand cramp trying to hold the current microscopic batch of PDAs during extended use. Plus I run out of space after writing one word. On my Newton 2100, I can take notes using natural handwriting recognition as fast as I can scribble and not run out of screen space waiting for the recognizer, and the unit fits nicely in my palm, unlike a Palm.

And don't tell me that I don't want an organizer that's too big to fit in my pocket, because I don't want a freaking organizer, I want a pen-based computer that I can hold in one hand. The extra real estate (480x320) of the Newton 2100 makes for much better e-book reading, web browsing, note taking, etc. The Palm "any organizer should fit in your pocket" argument blows me away... Who spends $300 on an organizer? You can get a Palm-ish gadget to hold phones and dates for like $20.00 at your local O-Max or O-Depot if that's all you wanted.

IMO, The only way the late-model Newtons could have been improved (I'll stipulate here) is to make them thinner and lighter, but to shrink the WxH dimensions at all (which were largely dictated by the display) would have ruined them.

Basically, any device that fits in my pocket is too small to be useful to me! On the other hand, if it's 640x240 (like the CE HPCs) or 640x480 (like the CE HPC Pros) it's too damn big to carry!

The Newton 2100, the only device ever to fall in betwen these two camps, is perfect, at least for some people.

pictures

[oyenstikker]

just some neat pictures i found on the web.
i wonder what they are?
i know nothing about them, just thought they looked cool, so i copied 'em to my hard drive.

http://129.21.139.1/imac.jpg
http://129.21.139.1/imac2.jpg

Re:Um...it looks like....the cube.

[bnenning]

It's the G4 Sphere! Well, the G4 Hemisphere. Unlike the cube, it's reasonably priced and has a market, so it should do much better.

Note from the webmaster at timecanada.com

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got off the phone with the webmaster at timecanada.com
We had a good laugh about this. Seems he was following instructions that came from Apple... all the way from the top. This was an orchestrated leak, to generate hype.
My personal feeling is that there will be more to the announcements than just the new iMac.

What's copying it next?

[TexTex]

The design on this thing is going to revolutionize the desk lamp industry!

I Doubt It

[krmt]

But what possible benefit could there be in letting it leak? It's not like they would have had to wait much longer, Macworld is tomorrow.

Plus, Jobs is a total control freak who really loves the surprise his keynotes give every year. Given that, I'd say someone fucked up big time.

Re:I Doubt It

[NutscrapeSucks]

" But what possible benefit could there be in letting it leak? "

What possible harm? Nearly all of the target customers won't see this thing until after the announcement, or until it shows up on the cover of Time a couple days later.

Dogging fanboys is not the only thing they worry about over at Apple. Nobody fucked up -- it's a well-executed PR blitz in action. (Plus, Jobs hasn't been on the cover of Time since NeXT launched.)

Besides, the fact they let this leak probably indicates that Jobs has bigger things up his sleeve (G5?).

Computers in Gilliam's "Brazil"

[Dr. Spork]

The pictures remind me of the computer screens in one of my favorite movies, Brazil. Of course, they were supposed to look menacing and spooky... but I can say that I really like how this iMac looks. Like the article says, it would have been much easier to glue a computer to the back of a flat panel display. I'm glad they didn't do it.

Still, even if I were in the market for a Mac, I wouldn't buy this. My desk is plenty big enough for a 21" CRT, and I wouldn't enjoy Aqua as much on anything smaller.

Would that be the _best_? Don't see it

[Roy Ward]

Two things can be meant by this:

(1) Keeping the proprietary hardware, but with an x86 instead of a PowerPC.
I don't see the advantage in changing from a chip with plenty of growth room left (PowerPC) to a chip nearing the end of its line (x86). In any case, with this option, it would be an orphan, because it wouldn't run old Mac software, and still wouldn't run Windows, as there are lots of things done differently other than the CPU.

(2) Move over the the whole Intel-PC architecture.
This would mean throwing out Apple's big advantage - that they can integrate the OS and the hardware nicely, they don't have to put all the kludges in to ensure that their OS runs on a vast array of 3rd party hardware. I think Apple wants to be more than just box makers.

In neither case would I regard this as a good thing for Apple or Apple users.

Anyway, this is an old rumour, and would only happen if IBM/Motorola both dropped the PowerPC and forced Apple to change.

I notice that the web site you referred to also talks about the 'iWalk', which I understand has been pretty much discredited.

Should be called the iSore

[Sean Clifford]

Well, somebody let the cat out of the bag a few hours early. They should rename this the iSore; this is not really what I was expecting from Apple. I hope they have something more interesting to unveil at MacWorld than this. The new iMac looks like a vanity with a roll-top; hope they stick with the current desktop case for the PowerMac.

Not flamebait, just my two cents. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet and I'm all for them trying out new designs.

The heartening news is that Apple is doing well, despite the recession. With $4 billion in the bank, and high gross profit margins, it should weather the storm. I'm looking forward to Windows and Linux software for the iPod (gotta love the FireWire) and with the new G5 and high-end G4's around the corner, maybe Apple can grab some converts among multiplatform developers.

Already you can do work in Windows 2k, Linux, and OSX at the same time at a tolerable speed. With faster processors, DDR-RAM, and other goodies I might just plop down the cash for a Mac in 2002. Anybody else thinking of dropping the Wintel/Lintel platform for the forbidden fruit?

Re:Should be called the iSore

[adolf]

please don't post like this.

it looks like ass.

whos to say?

[Suppafly]

Who's to say they "screwed up" by releasing the review early? It's still up.. I'm sure if Apple hadn't wanted a public review of it by Time then they wouldn't have asked them to check it out and write a story on it.

Re:Puff piece

[HerrNewton]

Take the Newton in its proper context: At the time it was basically the first PDA, a completely new object which could hardly be called a consumer product. (Pro yes, consumer no... the price range was just too high for most people but, unlike a lot of Apple products, that could be justified as the cost was to offset the R&D that went into the little bugger.) Compare with the iPod which is taking a current, popular product to its next logical evolution: making an MP3 player which finds a comfortable niche between size, storage, and price.

And in other news...

[Xenex]

Steve Jobs declares war on Canada.

Bondi blue missiles were seen shooting from a gulfstream jet located somewhere in the Cupertino area...

I can't believe...

[volpe]

...this made it past the lameness filter, yet when I tried posting an entry from the IOCCC, it barfed at me.

Re:I can't believe...

[krogoth]

Slashdot is written in Perl. A reposting of an obfuscated C program was stopped by the 'lameness filter'. Do you believe in coincidences?

Niche Market

[Zoop]

It's kind of weird to see the Emperor of the Clones, Bill Gates, extolling the virtues of creativity, but it's not exactly weird that Apple is doing it. That's its market niche.

They appeal to the long-haired, hippy-types who want to be (seen as) creative. So they probably will have a digital lifestyle, and be far more likely than anyone who buys a Compaq to actually put together a creative album of stuff.

Hell, it's only been in the past two years that Photoshop has gotten good enough on a PC for serious designers to use it. I still have to deal with massive .bmp files from Windows users whenever they want to pass along a photo they've taken. Here's to iPhoto and the digital lifestyle! It's not for everybody, but then, that's why Grandma doesn't have slackware on her desktop.

First CompUSA, now...

[KFury]

First a store-within-a-store at CompUSA, now IKEA!

(Or should that be iKea?)

Apple would be as bad as MS if it ruled

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

No large company can be trusted- Neil Stephenson said it best when he likened Apple to a hippie commune ruled by a control freak Manson-type. While Apple definitely innovates, they have a bastard streak a mile wide.

Au contrair. . .

["Zow"]

If you're a webmaster at timecanada.com, I suggest you start cleaning out your desk now.

On the contrary - when Chris posted the story he said, "Time Canada seems a bit slow", but when I went there, it seemed just fine. That can only mean that this Webmaster not only survived a /.ing, but improved performance of their system in the process. Maybe some heads will roll, but they'd be idiots to fire whoever's running that shop.

-"Zow"

Oh well

[fm6]

I think everybody's overestimating the importance of an Apple product release. This might be front page news to Mac enthusiasts, but to other techies it's only mildly interesting, and to the mundanes...

Consider: why is there even a timecanada.com separate from time.com? Because Canada is struggling desperately to maintain some kind of distinct identity for its media. So TW-AOL is forced to provide a certain amount of Candadian content in Canadian editions of its magazines. And 30 million Canadians don't generate that much news!

Re:Oh well

[kilrogg]

Time canada is just a front company for reselling the Time magazine in Canada with Canadian Advertisement. They add a couple of canadian article (politics, society, etc), but its pretty much the same damn magazine. This article is non-canada based and therefore will also appear in Time (US).

Most Canadians who are interested in this kind of magazine don't read times (this may shock you, but we're not interested in your local US news) but rather subscribe to Macleans.

Re:Oh well

[NMerriam]

They add a couple of canadian article (politics, society, etc), but its pretty much the same damn magazine.

A few extra pictures of beavers, that sort of thing...

:P

Re:Oh well

[SubtleNuance]

Thats why real canadians dont by time "canada", they read there own news magazine: Maclean's Magazine

If your not a Canadian youve probably never heard of it - almost every Canadian does.

Besides, as a post states below, saying Time-Canada is really a cop out for reselling commercial propaganda.

Re:OS X?

[foobar104]

FWIW - My next laptop is probably going to be a Titanium Powerbook - fast, quiet, and with a beautiful display.

And hot enough to burn your lap, and with skins so soft they can be scratched by the inside of a nylon backpack.

The G4 is beautiful, but I'm a little too rough on my laptops to own one. I have an iBook, which cost $1,000 less than my best friend's G4, and I couldn't be much happier.

Just think before you throw out all them bones, that's all.

Re:This is Apple's next big thing?

[Graymalkin]

How is it that some people (including you personally) has said for five years Apple needs to "do something to stay afloat" when they are possibly at this point the most popular they've ever been and show no signs of going out of business? People bought iMacs because you plugged it into the wall and were on the internet cruising your little heart out. Or because they just got a new DV camcorder and wanted to do more with it than use as a paperweight. Apple's been in business longer than nearly every PC manufacturer in the industry and is considered one of the top ten of all of the companies in the personal computer business. How is it they are somehow finacially unstable?

Terry Gilliam is going to sue...

[Jeremi]

Hmm.... add a magnifying lens and some motor oil, and you've got the computers from the movie Brazil

Re:Terry Gilliam is going to sue...

[General_Corto]

That may be true, but remember that the machines that were being magnified were Apple ][-based ;)

Re:Mac Sensationalism

[foobar104]

Of course, they don't ever tell you anything about what kind of DVD burner it is, which is much more important than with CD burners (there are numerous types).

Why is it important? My iMac has a CDRW in it. How fast is it? I don't know. Fast enough to burn a whole CD in about five minutes, which is fast enough for me. I don't worry about it.

My G4 at work has a SuperDrive. It reads CDs and DVDs, and it burns CDs and DVDs. How fast is it? I don't know; see above. I know that I can burn a DVD-ROM and read it in any computer I've tried so far, and I know I can burn a video-DVD and play it in every video DVD player I've tried. That's good enough for me. I don't worry about it.

I don't care what kind of CDRW or DVD my computer has, because it works perfectly every time (knock wood).

x86 has economic advantages over PPC

[Ars-Fartsica]

a chip with plenty of growth room left (PowerPC) to a chip nearing the end of its line (x86).

Apple is the only company buying the Motorola PPC variant in bulk. Motorola is on the ropes now, and will likely charge more that the already premium price it gets for the processors.

The x86 has been at "the end of its line" from the pundits perspective for five years, yet strangely enough the P4 and AMD chips are among the world's fastest processors. There is much more money being spent optimizing x86 compatibility than is being spent on the PPC architecture, and x86 emulation will be around until you die.

This would mean throwing out Apple's big advantage - that they can integrate the OS and the hardware nicely

What does this really mean? FireWire is available in PCs, and plug-and-play is more a function of software. I don't see how Apple's hardware does anything more than create image.

Re:Um...it looks like....the cube.

[Squeeze Truck]

I understand Hollywood likes the look of Macs because Apple gives computers to them for free.

Gotta make sure the apple logo is plainly displayed though, which means lots of shots from the back.

why not just...

[Anonymous Coward]

blame canada?

Re:OS X?

[TheInternet]

OS X is nice, and very full-featured, now just optimize it a little, christ. I'd be much more happy if they had just stuck with the old interface and gradually worked in Aqua.

Why does it matter to you if they do it gradually or all at once? :)

I think this issue is much more complex than it seems. I think there were reasons for doiung Aqua beyond just they wanted to, or thought it would be a cool. When there's a major shift in the underlying technology, you have to illustrate this. You need to do things that make the computer look powerful and special.

It may not seem like it to those of us that have been using computers forever, but software UI design was extremely drab and boring. The audience and uses of computers are rapidly changing. I can see an argument that says there are behavior modifcations that need to be made, and tweaks to make Aqua a little more elegant. But the idea that Apple should have kept Platinum, I don't see it. The stagnant was what really hurt Apple in the 90s.

- Scott

Re:Mac Sensationalism

[Gogo Dodo]

Of course, they don't ever tell you anything about what kind of DVD burner it is, which is much more important than with CD burners (there are numerous types).

The current (as of Sunday) G4s have a DVD-R drive. If I remember right, it's a Pioneer DVR-A03 drive.

As Apple clearly points out that is a DVD-R drive and that it works in standard DVD players. That's really all the consumer cares about: will it work in the stuff that I have now.

No...

[Wakko Warner]

It looks like a Mallomar. Or a really big whitehead.

- A.P.

Possibly a poorly worded embargo agreement???

[enkidu]

After all, it *is* 1/7/2002 EST.

It could be that their *embargo* agreement was poorly worded. Something like: "The undersigned and the organization represented by the undersigned will not release said material until January 7, 2002." when it should have read "January 7, 2002 1100 AM Pacific Standard Time."

In which case, the idiot who cleared the agreement for Apple had better clean out his/her desk.

Maybe the embargo agreement was poorly worded?

[enkidu]

After all, it *is* January 7, 2002 EST.

Perhaps if the embargo agreement said "do not release until January 7, 2002" instead of "January 7, 2002 1100a.m. PST." Time-canada could claim that they released it January 7, 2002.

In which case, the Apple doofus who signed the agreement for Apple should get in nice and early tomorrow and start cleaning out his/her desk.

Re:extremely offtopic

[Graymalkin]

Score: -1 Offtopic

SSI my good friend. Save the HTML file as whatever sort of file your httpd will process server side includes (.shtml in my case). Then add a line a little like this:

<!--echo var="HTTP_REFERER"-->

And blamo you're all set. Note this is a CGI input variable as well.

Eh?

[TheInternet]

How can like the design of something that's closed? It's like saying you admire the way Office uses data structures or the purity of the chemical composition of Coca-Cola as it relates to the original formula.

I think it's more like he's saying "I like the taste of Coke" not the chemical composition.

He's not saying he likes the engineering process of making the machine, he likes the final result. In fact, this is the only thing that matters to non-engineers.

- Scott

Nope

[Onan]

Actually, Apple's always made it quite a point to not purchase (or bribe) product placement.

And the reason all computers are shown from the back when possible is to avoid display refresh interlock issues.

The reason lots of macs end up in movies and television is because macs are used to make a lot of movies and television, so they tend to have them lying around.

Re:Nope

[biglig2]

Similarly, ever noticed that when a print advert mocks up a window it's a MacOS window? Same reason.

Re:Nope

[Squeeze Truck]

Wait, I thought refresh interlock issues were only problems with video cameras. As plain ol' celuloid film has no refresh rate, I don't see how it would apply to movies. (Television is another matter.)

Re:Nope

[Genom]

Don't forget the *nix mainframes running...MAME!

I'm not kidding - freezeframe the scene whrtr the reporter goes back into the building and "hacks" into the alien feed - that's MAME startup code there =)

Uh, yah, right.

[Com2Kid]

"We are wallowing in digital cameras and camcorders and MP3 players that get harder to use, not easier. The thing that will connect us to our gadgets needs to be a digital hub, a computer designed to simplify our lives. This, Jobs says, is what Apple was meant to do-and it's what no one else in the PC world is doing."

Partialy true I guess.

I have a full tower case and I have had a BITCH of a time finding some DECENT front mount USB ports for it. (A kit that fits 6+ in one 5.25" drive bay without me needing to cut something out by hand.)

Ended up having to go with an external hub. :( Great, WTF am I supposed to do NOW with these gazzilion drive bays I have? Bleh.

Still though, the computer is NOT the problem.

Every friggin digital camera manufacturer having to use a SLIGHTLY different mini-USB cord _ARE_ part of the problem.

Piss poor unsupported wireless device connectivity standards are part of the problem. There is NO reason that Damn Near Every consumer keyboard made for awhile now shouldn't have had a built-in wireless transmitter and some rechargable batteries. A docking station for nighttime to recharge the batteries would also have been nice but not neccisary. (mine as well use regular cells though if your not going to have a docking station for easy convenience).

My PC cost ~$500. Back in 1q01. (January of 01 to be more precise).

I could likely get it now for ~$400.

Flip switch, it turns on, enter PW, it goes to desktop with my apps lined up, I click an app, app runs. Run application run.

I am done, I hit the power button and it turns off. Win2K has an auto-ShutDownTheRightDamnWay feature when you hit the power button.

Unforutnatly some piece of hardware doesn't like hibernate mode or else I'd just hit the power button again and it'd go right back to my desktop. (I know what it is, just gotta getup off my ass and install the driver for it. Not using that piece of HW so I haven't bothered yet. ;) )

It works.

Tada.

Simple. As. Pie.

Ok so its 2 and a half feet tall and made outa beiege steel.

But damnit;

/I LIKE BEIEGE STEEL/.

Fuck

I _LOVE_ Beiege Steel.

I can fucking _STAND_ on my computer. It can support over TWO HUNDRED damn pounds. IT IS A REAL MANS FRIGGIN TOY.

It also doubles as a Space Heater. (Man I love AMD. My hands used to get numb in the winter, now they don't. :) )

The 18" Graphics Tablet _COULD_ stand to be wireless though. Heh. Or at least USB compliant. Oh well it cost an arm and a leg as it was, USB support would've cost me even more back then, bleh. (2 or 3 years ago when I first got it.)

My SCSI scanner is larger then these new apple things though. Of course my SCSI scanner also weight ~8lbs (bare minimum, Afga Duoscan T1200) and Win2k seems to hate ANY SCSI card I put in it so hey, heh. Things could get simplier I guess.

Once again

I WANT A DECENT WIRELESS STANDARD DAMNIT!!! Cheap. Easy to impliment. Secure. Perferably *with a variable range selector*. You know. Say 5ft-7.5ft for my scanner and printer, 15-20ft for my keyboard, etc.

I just wanna walk up to my computer and have my Digicams memory card appear on my list of drives.

That'd be keen. That'd Command all Keen.

special request to Apple

[austad]

Drop your fucking prices!!!! I would have purchased a Mac long ago if I could get the same price/performance as I can out of x86 hardware. Seriously, do you think it's better to make gobs of money and sell few machines, or make a small amount on tons of machines? Increasing your market share by dropping your prices can only be a good thing, both for you and consumers. It's no secret that your profit margins are huge.

Everytime I think about a Mac, I just get angry that you want to rape me for one. I'll stick to x86 and linux until you drop your pricing. Until then, have fun with your 3% market share.

Re:special request to Apple

[Sentry21]

There's something you don't seem to understand. In a manufacturing business, you have overhead, cost of goods, and price of goods.

price of goods - cost of goods = gross profit
gross profit - overhead = net profit

They have to make enough on the machines they do sell to pay for their overhead. Dropping their prices dramatically would not make most people switch over - and, in fact, for what you get, Apple's hardware is amazingly cheap (as long as you don't buy ram from them). How many other places can you get a 15" TFT monitor, DVD burner, G4 power, UNIX-based operating system, firewire, USB, 802.11 ethernet, gigabit ethernet (at least on all their other computer models they have now), plus a ton of great software (iDVD, iTunes, iMovie, iPhoto), for $1300?

If they controlled 15% of the market, they could afford to have more lower profit margins, but as it is, their best bet is less higher profit margins.

Notice how the costs of most of their hardware dropped substantially after the iMac boom? More users, more cash, easier to pay for the overhead.

And one last note. People said 'drop your prices!' when the iPod came out - until they found out that the hard drive in the iPod costs as much as the iPod itself does, and you get way cooler stuff with it too (MP3 playback, namely).

--Dan

Re:special request to Apple

[MouseR]

Drop your fucking prices!!!!

Get a fucking job!

Re:Um...it looks like....the cube.

[mr100percent]

That's because the iMac demographic doesn't need to upgrade parts like this, it's easier and cheaper to just buy a new iMac with faster processor, more RAM, better HD space. Besides, with the exception of RAM, everything else is external for the iMac. RAM is in a small door on the back.

The G4's are very easy to upgrade, and the people who want access to the parts are much more likely to buy a G4.

Re:Are you Steve Jobs?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple wants to blame Canada, it's going to have to get in line like everyone else.

Even though it's in Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

Canada is far more wired than the US, and the telecommunications here is more advanced in general.

Even things as simple as pay phones. You can't
swipe a credit card in almost all of Bell Atlantic's pay phones. Any the pay phones don't have digital display. In canada, you can not only swipe your credit card on the phone, but you can buy a smartcard to use the phone at any corner store.

-More people in Canada have broadband access than in the U.S. do to a much higher rate of cable television access.

-Canada's phone infrastructure became 100% digital in the early 80's. It took the US more than a decade to follow suit.

and these are just a few things off the top of my head. Next time don't be too quick to judge!

Re:Even though it's in Canada?

[j-beda]

There is a bit of difference of scale going on here. Such wonders of modernity are a bit easier with 1/8th the population.

Most would argue the opposite. Canada's population density is much lower than that of the USA, and thus it is generally MORE difficult to wire up the spread out communities.

With that said, Canada had significantly higher cable TV penetration earlier than the USA, largely due to the lack of multiple broadcast TV channels in many communities - thus the cable system was much more attractive.

Widespread broadband availability is futher enhanced by some policy decisions to encourage its penetration to smaller communities.

But on the whole, it is more difficult to connect the Canadian population than the USA population, and thus the Canadian government and businesses have more incentive to do so in innovative advanced manners.

Re:Even though it's in Canada?

[j-beda]

Even though there is a bunch of people in "the corridor" between Montreal, Toronto, and Windsor/Detroit, there are still about 2/3 of the population living outside of this region.

However, I don't think there is much of a difference between Canada and the USA in terms of the fraction of the population living rural vs urban. However, the urban centres (and the rural ones for that matter) are much more spread out than in the USA. Vancouver is a long way from Victoria, a real long way from Edmonton, and a real, real, real long way from Toronto.

Basically, Canada has about the population of California spread over an area probably ten times the size, if we only consider the Southern regions of the country.

Fortune telling

[SheldonYoung]

I predict 10 years from now the webmaster of timecanada.com will still be driving the same car.

Re:Um...it looks like....the cube.

[enkidu]

I know this doesn't apply to apple as much as intel based systems but still I've got to wonder if people have forgotten the pains of dealing with software/hardware installs on fancy schmancy compaq or HPs.

Been there, done that. Where have you been the last 3 years? What are you going to put in your iMac? Audio card? Don't need one. Video card? Don't need that either. A Digital Audio card? USB or Firewire my friend. Oh, you're going to add a HardDrive? Again, you can use Firewire or USB. Aside from RAM expansion, the FireWire/USB ports should be all the standard ports you need for 99% of home use.

And as usual, MS is four steps behind....

[SuperKendall]

While MS is building sandcastles, Apple is as usual building real castles...

There's a world of difference between a few loose prints I could just as easily get from ePhoto or whereever, and a whole photograph ALBUM custom printed for you!

A slight correction as well - the article said $30 for a 10-page album.

Just like iMovie lets you take a lot of boring footage and shrink it to a size easily digestible to others, so iPhoto will let you make a nice summary of vacation and produce a book for you taking a lot of work out of putting together a nice photo album of a trip! I personally am backup up about four trips worth of pictures waiting to go in albums that I already have. Now I think I'll just buy a film scanner and have Apple make the albums for me.

This is the kind of thing that makes computers useful to the consumer, rather than to the computer user.

The computer user in me wants a few server boxes in the house (which I have) and a powerful laptop and desktop for development - but the consumer side of me is going to buy an $1800 DVD-burning iMac to put down by the home entertainment center.

Re:Start Button vs. Start Button

[seanadams.com]

Right - and don't you think "power button" is a better name?

I always cringe when I have to click "Start" to "Shut down".

Re:The key to this product's success

[Steve Cowan]

Things like the new iMac have to not only appeal to people but they have to demonstrate by their appearance that they are capable without being complicated.

Exactly why Apple is getting away from fruity colours and bubble shapes.

I personally dislike the idea that computer main units do not have real controls on them aside from power and reset. I think an LCD for status messages would be useful. Some control keys.

But this is where I think you're on crack. What exactly would you do with these keys, other than input data to the computer? What's wrong with your existing input devices? How would this make things more simple?

The only thing I wish PC's still had is external modems with status LEDs. Yeah I know you can buy 'em, but all computers come with ultra-cheap internal modems now, and there's no real way to tell at a glance the health and status of your modem connection.

Apart from that, the only kind of message I could imagine on your PC's case itself would be something to the effect of "Your CD tray is ajar."

My personal fave is those made-in-China computer cases with a 3-digit clock speed on the front of them that isn't wired to anything other than a meaningless 'turbo' button on the front of the tower. Now that's elegance!

iMac Design in Comparison to Pixar Lamp

[XBL]

I was struck by the resemblence of the new iMac to the oft-used Pixar lamp.

Considering that, this new design is no real surprise.

Re:iMac Design in Comparison to Pixar Lamp

[MouseR]

You're so-called Pixar lamp is not Pixar's.

The first-ever Pixar movie, Luxo Jr., was designed and inspired by a famous lamp company called Luxo. They're famed for their telescopic, arm-held florescent that's the norm (still today) for for architects and drawers alike.

G4 processor?

[phalse phace]

If these new iMacs are going to be equiped with G4 processors ...

"Manipulating video-distilling those 90-min. tapes of mind-numbing music recitals and awards banquets into amusing, fast-moving 3-min. shorts-is almost as simple on the new iMac, which features a fast G4 chip, just like Apple's top-of-the-line machines."

... then Jobs must be planning to announce G5 processor macs as well during his keynote speech. I can't think of any reason why he'd have all the desktop macs equiped with G4s, it just wouldn't make any sense since that would confuse consumers. There needs to be some type of distinction between the consumer line and the high end macs. And if this does happen, I know what my next computer's gonna be.....

Re:G4 processor?

[enkidu]

Or all of the PowerMacs will be dual/quad processor boxes... Now where did I put my checkbook?

Um, it's on US newsstands

[Greg Lindahl]

According to reputable media, this issue of Time is on newsstands in New York City:

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-8388611.htm l

Photo album on demand is stroke of genius

[SuperKendall]

I know a LOT of people (myself included) who have a lot of vacation pictures sitting around, just waiting to be made into albums... I even have the albums, it's just that sorting through a lot of pictures and pasting them all in a photo album takes a lot of time and patience (especially when more than one person is involved).

So producing the photo album on demand really is a great idea, and fantasically useful...

But the genius part of it is the widespread advertising Apple will get from this. People will make custom albums, and bring them into work to show co-workers oor give them away as presents furthering Apple's image to non-Apple users.

It's just because people are too busy to put together a photo album that this will fly!

Jobs has it figured out - get people to use the computer to make THINGS. Custom DVD's (only $1800 for a DVD burning iMac!), custom music mixes burned onto CD's, custom photo albums. People collect THINGS.

Gates doesn't think it terms of THINGS, he thinks in terms of SOFTWARE - A Video editor, A music player, a photo editor. Jobs wants you to pay for THINGS, while Gates wants you to pay for SOFTWARE - buy Windows, pay for updates, pay more for moore powerful additions to software via .NET and dynamically loaded plugins sold to you just as dynamically.

My guess is that people really don't want to collect SOFTWARE (Ok, except for you warez guys!). Most people like physical things, it's exactly the reason why CD and DVD sales remain strong in a world of Gnutella and the ilk. I could download DAFT Punk or Freezepop, but I like to support artists and I like looking through CD booklets (DAFT Punk has the right idea by the way - they give you a custom membership number with every CD. Stuff like that wil help keep CD's going strong).

Re:partial upload?

[krogoth]

I tested it first, and it clearly shows the start and the end... maybe you have extra linebreaks or spacing.

Innovating their way out

[dangermouse]

or, Hey Everybody Listen to Me Gush About Apple

Y'know, despite the tone of parts of the Time Canada article, and despite the noise some of the Pragmatic Windows Users make around here, Apple really is doing it right.

Yeah, they could "pack in a Windows emulator", or try peddling OS X for Intel, or in some other way "embrace the Dark Side" (as Time Canada put it) and "find other bridges to the Windows-Intel world".

But crap, who the hell would buy Apple stuff if they turned into a More Of the Same company? Right now, I am in the process of "converting to Apple". I'm buying in. If I need a new PC, it's going to be a Mac. When the time comes for a new laptop, it'll be a Mac. Any peripherals that I buy-- the CD-RW drive I'm ordering, cameras (still or video), anything that can possibly be connected to a computer-- will damn well be Mac-compatible.

Why am I going down that road? Because after years of just not getting it, after years of selling overpriced semi-useful junk (sorry, but System before OS X definitely crippled their computers), Apple is getting it right and nobody else seems to. The power and flexibility of their new OS is outstanding, the simplicity and integration of their software and hardware is wondrous to behold, and their hardware itself is gorgeous and quiet and solidly built.

Of course, I'm only speaking of my home, at least for now. Apple's products do seem heavily geared toward the home user, and it shows in the design choices they make. Their stuff is not ideal for the work that I do professionally, and I hope it never is-- that would mean sacrificing some of the slickness and simplicity and beauty that it does have, and I need that kind of stuff in my house.

Re:Innovating their way out

[dangermouse]

How exactly is OS X more powerful or flexible than winXP or Linux? Not only are winXP and Linux more powerful and flexible than OS X, but also have 100 times more available software, MUCH more cost effective on the supported hardware side. I cant understand why ANYONE would go the MAC route at this stage of the game, there is no advantage or upside!?!

Look, I never said OS X is more powerful or flexible than Linux, so calm the fuck down. I'm betting it tops WinXP simply because of Darwin, but not having tried WinXP, I can't say that with any certainty.

Come to think of it, I never said OS X was the most powerful or the most flexible OS available. I did that on purpose; it isn't. For my money, Linux is probably the most flexible OS available, and it's certainly among the most powerful. But this isn't a zero sum game. With OS X, Apple finally has an OS that doesn't bite.

In case you missed it, at home I don't need "100 times more available software". What I need is, in this order:

1. An ssh client
2. A web browser
3. Some music software
4. An IM client
5. Preferably, all of the above in a Unixy package. That's what makes me comfortable, that's what makes me happy.

Anything else is icing on the cake. When I get a digital camera (I have one, but it's old and frankly kinda sucks), I'll need software for that. Likewise if I get a digital video camera. I'm sure there will be other stuff, too.

Yeah, I can probably get all that stuff for Windows, and most of it for Linux, but the fact is that Windows has always been a pain in the ass to deal with (on any level), Linux just isn't as good in this niche as OS X, and Apple makes really smooth, classy shit.

And Apple gets this. They seem to understand the role a computer needs to fill in my home, and they're writing their playbook accordingly. Every new product Apple has released for the past two or three years has made me stop and decide whether I need one now or I can wait til later. That sure as hell hasn't happened with MS and company.

As for comparisons with Linux: I still use Linux for servers, for my workstations, and generally anywhere I need the sorts of things it does a better job of providing than OS X.

Re:Innovating their way out

[dangermouse]

Honestly, none of those really do it for me aesthetically. They're better than your average PC midtower, but they don't approach even the G4 midtowers.

But even assuming I were to really like the look of that stuff, does it address any of the other points I listed? Not even close. Are these machines quiet? Do they come with simple, tightly integrated, slick-as-shit software? Do they integrate seamlessly with any peripherals I pick up for them, or do I have to fuck with drivers and resource collisions and half-assed or expensive software to use them together?

To be frank, it sort of pisses me off that you assumed I'm such a fool as to have based my opinion of Apple's product line on the looks alone. But then again, you either didn't read my post or chose to ignore it, and instead made some pretty asinine assumptions about its content, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

Re:I remember the days...

[tftp]

And not upgradeable at all, I'll bet.

It would sound weird to PC people, but what if they did it right the first time? :-)

Very many computers don't need upgrades, and very many users don't want upgrades - at least because upgrades often cost more than a newer box. Anyone willing to upgrade my K6-3 450 box to something 1.4+ GHz? You are looking at replacing *everything*, including the power supply. It wouldn't be any different from a new box, only I don't have the old one any more (to stick into DMZ as a honeypot on FTP, or just give to someone. It runs Q3A well.)

Many (most) users want stability in hardware exactly as much as they want stability in software. If the secretary's wordprocessor and MUA works as it should, why to upgrade? And when finally upgrading, replace the whole thing - will be cheaper and faster to upgrade all components at once.

photographic evidence

[Proud Geek]

Right here; just cut and paste; it's base64 encoded.

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====

Re:Um...it looks like....the cube.

[enkidu]

I didn't say it was cheaper :-).

Firewire adds an extra $100 to the price of a HD. When paying $160 for a HD to begin with, excuse me if adding $100 to that seems a bit silly.

Well, most iMac customers aren't going to be doing a multiple HD upgrade. But, if you had G4 PowerMac, there's room for 4 hard drives.

She wanted higher refresh rates and dual moniter support. A new video card + an old monitor lying around was cheaper then a new monitor with a higher refresh rate.

Again, most home users aren't going to be doing upgrades like that, but there's no reason why you couldn't do it to a PowerMac

She is a home user. She also had to get a full tower case to shove all of her 'home user' stuff in. ^_^

And that's great. She's saved alot of money by using what is old technology (I do it too, I'm a bottom feeder: I buy the old stuff when the new stuff comes out :-). If she were wanting a Mac, I'd get her a older PowerMac. But for Apple's target audience for the iMac, they will probably never need to do any of the above (they'd be using USB and FireWire), except add swap a hard drive.

Re:Um...it looks like....the cube.

[ahknight]

Perhaps, and don't take this wrong, she needed a full tower for home use because her son is a geek? Perchance? Had she done it herself I'm sure it could have taken up half the space (with a loss in functionality, of course).

The story has been pulled

[brucehoult]

www.timecanada.com now redirects you to www.time.com, sans iMac story

It's been pulled

[enkidu]

http://www.timecanada.com now redirects to http://www.time.com/time. I guess it was a goof and not a stunt. And I guess the doofus at timecanada just got his pink slip.

Update - Content Now Removed?

[SMN]

I was able to access the article several times earlier today, but now -- 2:37 AM EST -- every time I try to go to timecanada.com, i'm being redirected to the main time.com site. It would appear that they've essentially prevented access to the article, for now.

The article's been mirrored several times in the comments here, and the pictures weren't much -- although I see them mirrored in uuencoded ascii here -- so if you missed it, you shouldn't be missing out on too mcuh. Besides, the official announcement from Jobs and Apple is only a little over 12 hours away.

Re:Update - Content Now Removed?

[ToLu the Happy Furby]

Deep link still works...

Pic
Cover photo

You can still get to the story

[enkidu]

here. At least you can as of 01/06/2002 2342 PST.

And to the front page

[enkidu]

here. But probably not for long...

What it is and where you can still find it.

[Chris Canfield]

Everyone is going to have an opinion on these things, so I might as well clarify their design decision.

These things look damn beautiful where they are intended to go. They are kiosks. They are the nicest-looking kiosks money can buy. Imacs always have been. A row of these things on a stand in a lobby, or tucked away in a conference room, would look great. They have a minimalist, comfortable aesthetic that says "come, touch me. I'm all plastic and safe." It shows you exactly what you can do with it, and it doesn't have anything extraneous. For example, there is no "turbo" button. When a company or an institution spends millions to design a building to make it look just right, spending a few thousand on computers that compliment that look is quite understandable.

They would also look great in the home. Yes, they are a little 50's hal 2001 retro, which isn't quite as cool as as the 60's retro of the original Imac but is still very nice. They look a lot like an uncomplicated, friendly little screen designed to be exactly, and only, a little digital hub. While the lack of tivo style options is sad, the little thing really does look like a piece of complimentary design work... like a pretty plastic toaster for your MP3 player. I wouldn't want it to replace the k-6 linux box sitting next to me, but I'm jealous of anyone who can afford to put one of these in their living rooms.

Of course, afford is a keyword. Apple has never stormed the mass market, because it knows that the money is to be made in the high-end. That's how they have been surviving, and more power to them.

-Story update!-

Timecanada.com is now forwarding to time.com, which doesn't have the original story. However, the original, sans photos, is still (as of 2:30 AM EST) available here

Re:Full story Link does gets redirected

[Teun]

Uhh, well there IS no "big Apple picture" on the front page.

When I click on the link in the topic I get redirected to time.com.
Only this one http://www.timecanada.com/index.adp brings up the frontpage + Apple picture.

Geographical redirect maybe?

Mirror

[zesnark]

Time appears to have removed it.

[fnord] http://baked.ath.cx/imac/ [/fnord]

Oh well.

Re:Sueing for Vapourware .... - now that's new

[kilgore_47]

As of right now,
http://www.timecanada.com/ redirects to www.time.com/time/
but the original story remains online at
http://www.timecanada.com/index.adp. Weird.

I've still got my fingers crossed that there's more than just new imacs coming in 8 hours and 45 minutes...

yes

[Preposterous Coward]

it is common usage in the magazine-publishing business (at least with tech products, which is what I'm familiar with) to talk about embargo date as being the NDA release date or the date on which information provided in an advance press release can be disclosed to the public.

Specs alone don't describe the product.

[enkidu]

Yeah, and the Porche 911 is no different from 500 other cars out there, four wheels and a steering wheel. Some of them can go farther on one tank of gas than the 911. Some have better acceleration. Some of them have more comfortable seats. But none of them have all of the features of the 911, sleek design, great handling, and fun to drive.

If you want to show me the mp3 player that is the best looking, easiest to use, fastest to search through 5GB of songs and one that fits in your pocket, you'll need to show me the iPod. Drop by an apple store and check one out.

CEO

[SeanAhern]

Jobs did have alot (sic) to do with Pixar at one time...

Uh...like for instance being its CEO?

Re:Um...it looks like....the cube.

[Hes Nikke]

"damnit, people with colored computers."

hmm that sounds racist to me! what is it that you people have you agains computers of color?

good lord!

[Dr. Awktagon]

It's a shaving mirror!

And the rest...

[krogoth]

Ooops, it seems slashdot didn't want to accept whole images. Remove the last (incomplete) line and append this:
------
MG`:#2F'\(H_2A6YB&_8*^NOLM\-?77V6^&OKK[+?#7UU]EO AK ZZ^RWPU]=?
M9;X:^NOLM\-?77V6^&OKK[+?#7UU]EOAKZZ^RWPT.SF4MR= %O ]*(O\NVIK__
!V0``
`
end
------

Re:And the rest...

[realdpk]

uudecode:
input file: uu
encoded file: stdout
character out of range: [33-96]

yeah, sweet.

Deep links have now been pulled too

[enkidu]

You snooze, you lose.

The story is still online

[bodin]

At this URL:

http://www.timecanada.com/printstory.adp?storyid=1

Re:Story pulled as well as....

[Barbarian]

story remains

http://www.timecanada.com/printstory.adp?storyid=1


but no pictures >:(

Re:The Amazing New iBlob

[enkidu]

Too much like the cube.

Say what you will, the cube was way ahead of it's time.

The display sits too high.

The arm isn't fixed dude. It can move up and down.

The display is too small - it's an iBook display.

It's the biggest it's going to get at current (and near current) prices

Expandability expandability expandability

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity, my friend.

Versatility versatility versatility

Well, it looks just as versatile as the original iMac to me :-). Give it some time, maybe it will grow on you, I thought the iMac was big ugly blob when I first saw it, but it really grew on me.

Re:Story pulled as well as....

[ToLu the Happy Furby]

but no pictures >:(

The pics weren't in the original story anyways, just on the home page. Here's the cover pic--on another site, so no worry that it will be taken down--and here's a nice pic which is still accessible on timecanada.com.

Man, that and the printer-friendly version of the article? If timecanada doesn't fire their webmaster for posting too early, they sure as hell should fire him for being unable to even take the story and picture down successfully!

Article does refer to MacWorld in future tense...

[SuperKendall]

The one thing that makes me think it might have beek OK for Time to post the news is that the article referred to the new iMac thusly:

"which will be unveiled at the annual Macworld convention in San Francisco this week"

Which seems to indicate it was written to be released ahead of the actual unveiling.

Of course, that argument made more sense to me before they started redirecting to the main Time web site! Now I'm leaning to the thought that your assesment was correct, and this was a massive blunder.

I just have to say it...

[Chasing Amy]

I know looks are subjective, but there are some basic principles of aesthetics. Most people will agree that something gorgeous is at least attractive, or that something heinous is at least unattractive. And this flat-paneled thingie is pretty heinous.

I say this as someone who has liked Apple's aesthetics a lot. Visuals do mean something to me, which is why I chose my PC case based on both functionality and aesthetics. The original iMac had a great aesthetic--it was different and new, and yet it could blend in pretty seamlessly in almost any environment. It wouldn't look out of place in your living room or home office whether the decor were ultra-modern or quite old-fashioned. It looked at home in offices and schools and computer labs. And it looked good doing it.

But this flat-paneled monstrosity looks like a refugee from the movie *2001: A Space Odyssey*. In other words, it looks like a 1960's conception of a futuristic 21st century design. Looking at that film now, it's a wonderful film, but all the design elements look so conspicuous as to be almost laughable. And so does this new flat-panel presumed iMac. Whereas the old iMac dsign took a few moments to get used to but then blended right in naturally as if the design were obvious, this thing will always look conspicuously out of place unless your decor is 60's ultra-modern. I can't picture this is an old-fashioned office at all. And aesthetically, it just isn't attractive. It's an LCD on a stalk with a clunky base. It looks rather like a ladies' cosmetic mirror, actually--from the 60s.

And the flaws are functional, too. An awful lot of iMacs go into the educational sector--but not these. Why? Because, with the small LCD and smallish base and the mobility of the swiveling stalk, one of these could easily be slipped into a backpack or duffel bag. Public schools won't want them because they'll be easy to steal. Libraries won't want them because they'll be easy to steal. College labs won't want them because they'll be easy to steal. Basically, anything fairly public would be a bad place to put these things. It's a laptop on a stick. It's just begging to get stolen. And it kinda ruins the whole aesthetic--not that it was a good one in the first place--when such public places as do buy them start putting big ugly bicycle chains around the stalks.

What does this ugly, gangly design have that others don't? It offers greater mobility for swiveling your LCD screen since it's attached to that weird stalk instead of to the base just as most (far better looking) rumor site concept art had it. Now, even though half a dozen Mac zealots and one or two PC guys who are a lot closer to their computers than any average home users are, are going to dispute this, the fact is that most people sit their monitors (or iMacs) where they want them, adjust once, and leave everything be. Even in multi-user environments, tilting the monitor a little takes half a second and is even easy for a young kid--I just nudged my gigantic 20 inch CRT monitor around with ease, and it's a lot more heavy and bulky and crowded on all sides than most monitors will ever be. There's just not a need for the average user to have a swiveling stalk, which will only contribute to people thinking it looks really stupid. I think this is a case of Apple having graphic designers in mind more than home users and average guys and educational institutions--which is a mistake since graphics professionals are more likely to shell out for the extra horsepower of a more expensive Mac, not an iMac. The design here is just very, very poorly targeted to its demographic. Average home users--the bread and butter of the iMac market segment--are going to think this thing looks ugly.

What they should have done instead of this gangly monstrosity is to use the Cube design, but for the new LCD iMac. It was a gorgeous, award-winning design. Many, many people said they would have bought it if they could afford it. Instead of plopping an LCD atop a stick attached to an oversized AirPort unit (which is what this new design looks like), Apple should have redesigned the Cube, packaged it with an LCD monitor, and that should have been the new flat panel iMac. It's not quite as integrated as connecting the central unit to the LCD with a stick, but methinks even the most lame of home users know how to stick a wire from the LCD into the Cube. If they were too dumb to even do that, then how could they even plug in their modem wire from an old iMac to the wall plate?

Yes, the Cube design should have been harvested for Apple's new LCD iMac. Everyone loved it. The design was practically universally praised, (except the mould lines) and the only reason it didn't succeed was that it was priced way above the iMacs but very close to the full, powerful G4 towers. Opinion is clearly mixed at best on this new thingie, however. a Cube with LCD design for the new iMac would still be compact and relatively light and hence suffer from the same "stealability" factor which I mentioned may deter public schools and such from upgrading to the new iStalks, but at least it wouldn't look ugly and stick out in almost any decor, it would look gorgeous and complement any environment. Either way, if public schools and libraries upgrade to a newer lighter iMac, they'll have to chain them down with a vengeance whereas the old iMac was better suited thanks to its CRT bulk and heft. Flat panels in general are a poor choice for such environments thanks to stealability and the relative ease of damaging an LCD's more delicate screen.

At any rate, I think I've made it obvious that while I liked the old iMac design and the G4 Cube design and even the Apple tower designs, I hate this new "iStalk" design. It truly looks like a piece of set dressing from *2001: A Space Odyssey*, and hence just too bizarre to fit in here in the real world. The primary advantage of having the LCD on the swiveling stalk, ease of moving the screen, is also an advantage few of the iMac's target demographic will really use--oh, and it also makes the LCD prone to get repositioned too frequently for comfort, if you're the type of person who likes to get his monitor or TV just-so.

And finally--it wouldn't take a clumsy person to knock one of these off a desk and break it; it would only take a quick accidental arm movement. I'm sure the base is extra-sturdy with just this in mind, but you just know several people will knock these things down by accidentally hitting the LCDs.

My final, final word: Yep, Apple should have just put the Cube together with an LCD monitor and branded it the new imac, instead of creating this ugly beast. the Cube had aesthetic splendor, while this is aesthetic squalor...

Re:I just have to say it...

[ckd]

Because, with the small LCD and smallish base and the mobility of the swiveling stalk, one of these could easily be slipped into a backpack or duffel bag.

I suspect very strongly that there is a cable loop and/or Kensington "laptop style" locking slot built into the design. Remember, even the original Macintosh had a "locking kit" that let you secure the machine (and keyboard!) to a solid piece of furniture, and the current towers combine it with a case lock so people can't steal your RAM.

Re:I just have to say it...

[foobar104]

It's simply astounding that a screed this long and rambling could have been inspired by two low-resolution pictures taken from a distance.

Can't wait to see what you come up with in a few hours when the high-res marketing photos come on line.

Re:I just have to say it...

[Wilersh]

Wow. Very in depth analysis without ever seeing more than a picture on the web! Why don't you give it a little time and look at one in person, or you might even (imagine this) want to try out the product before bashing it!? Aesthetics are in the look and feel of using a product, not just a couple of crappy images off the internet.

Yeesh...

Re:I just have to say it...

[Artifex]

What does this ugly, gangly design have that others don't? It offers greater mobility for swiveling your LCD screen since it's attached to that weird stalk instead of to the base just as most (far better looking) rumor site concept art had it.

Careful... you might give someone at Apple ideas. I mean, think about it. Every product they release now has a lot of leaking beforehand about specs, and concept art, etc... what would it take for them to just say, "hey, let's leak the specs and see what the users come up with..." The sites certainly won't admit that they totally made up the images (especially if their userbase and therefore advertising revenue gets boosted by "correct" hits), and having multiple designs coming from the user community couldn't hurt the process.

Re:I just have to say it...

[RoninM]

Why does he need to try it out to tell what it looks like? He was only commenting on its appearance and the functional aspects of its appearance. You can telleven from these few, small picturesthat its a little computer and, thus, more easily concealed (which might make it easier to steal) and moved (which might make it easier to knock around and damage).

He wasn't purporting to do in-depth analysis. He stuck to the surface. Things he could see and logically infer from its appearance. A cop-out like yours doesn't dismiss anything he said.

Re:How about "Luxo" or "Jr." as a new iMac nick-na

[JimPooley]

Never happen. The last computer to have "Jr." added to the name was the IBM PC Jr, which was a flop. Nobody took it seriously because of the "Junior" appellation.

Besides, isn't "Luxo" the trade name of a kind of lamp?
Bound to be some issues there...

I think the price is canadian - check Dell...

[SuperKendall]

I just logged into Dell and configured a system roughly along the lines the article mentioned "A top of the line Dell Dimension 8200 with a flat panel display".

Not altering any parameters apart from changing to a 15" flat panel display and switching to a DVD-ROM drive, a Dell Dimension 8200 running at 1.9GHz was quoted as being $2280 canadian (I selected Canada as my region on entering the site). That conforms pretty closely with what the article reported for the comparison price of the Dell system ($2200) so there is some reason to believe the $1800 for a DVD burning iMac might be a Canadian price.

Some interesting possibilities for the new machine

[SuperKendall]

Here's some random thoughts I had about the new machine.

The first thing I was wondering - could you rotate the monitor about its axis and have the display shift as well (like the old Radius monitors you could rotaet to shift views).

Is the CD/DVD slot in the monitor, or base?

Can you remove the monitor? (Sounds like not, to me).

How would a keyboard or mouse attach to this?

Is wireless access built in? Or is it also an Airport hub?

Is it wall mountable?

Will it have video out like powerbooks?

new G4s!

[sometwo]

(thanks to macintouch) A Paris-based Mac reseller's web site has specs for new PowerMac G4 systems:
http://www.clginformatique.com/pages/newsdet.php ?a rticle=NEWSCLG_00009

M9541LL/A
1.2GHz
256 MB DDR RAM
60GB HD
nVidia MX2 32mb
CDRW
Ethernet

M9571LL/A
1.4GHz
512 MB DDR RAM
80 GB HD
nVidia MX2 32mb
DVD-CDRW
Ethernet
Built-In Airport

M9591LL/A
1.4GHz Dual-Processor
1GB DDR RAM
120 GB HD
nVidia MX2 64mb
DVD-CDRW SuperDrive
Ethernet
Built-in Airport

Wow they almost doubled every spec.

mirrored article site

[gsfprez]

The time article has been backed up..

http://www.forked.net/www.timecanada.com/

But for sake of proof -

http://www.timecanada.com/weekly/070102/gr/TopPh ot o_140102.jpg still works.

original mac mouse is nice... optical and..

[acomj]

That Mac mouse is cool. Its translucent, optical tracking and doesn't apear to have any buttons... I'd like to be able to keep it instead of my intellimouse explorer which is a nice mouse... But it feels like a waste having that nice original optical mac mouse sitting idle..

Re:Um...it looks like....the cube.

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, I think about Clockwork Orange futuristic, and I think about plastic tits that dispense milk. Maybe that's what they are going for, but I don't think so.

A Working link

[daniel_isaacs]

Neither Time link is working now. Forked.net has a mirror of the whole article up.

Here it is.

No matter how 'right' Apple gets it -

[gelfling]

People still seem to complain about it. It's amazing really. It won't let you take the machine apart and add your personal favorite CDRW and super golly whiz-o video card? Gee that sucks. Well I'll never buy a PC that doesn't have a System/390 OSA either.

Would it be ironic if in the end Apple really gets it right, people buy them like bottled water and the crowd here takes their ball and goes home?

Re:"The Cube for the rest of us..."

[mrbill]

Heck, I have a G4 Cube I'll swap for one. 8-)

Wrong.

[nitehorse]

The display is too small - it's an iBook display.

Uh, the iBook display is a solid 12.1 inches. This thing is 15. I won't go into the rest of your post, since you're just wrong right here anyway.

The _real_ new iMac?

[b1t r0t]

I just woke up half an hour ago, I just now (before hitting Submit) got to see the Time Canada picture thanks to forked.net, but I did find this nice little link from MacSlash, and it's almost exactly what I expected an LCD iMac to look like, an LCD screen with a fat bulge behind it: Les Imacs LCD

Price: 256MB/24X CD-ROM M8545LL/A 899EUR, 256MB/DVD-ROM M3731LL/A or CD-RW M3732LL/A 1459EUR, 512MB/DVD-ROM and CD-RW M3733LL/A 1659EUR. These are apprently French prices, and I don't know whether they include VAT. Dollar prices should be of the same magnitude.

Maybe Time Canada's picture was of the legendary AirMac? It looks like a damn lamp with an LCD screen attached. It's clearly intended to take the place of the Cube as the l33t d3sign3r Mac.

Re:The _real_ new iMac?

[b1t r0t]

(thank you mozilla for posting an empty article!)

As I was trying to say, here's all the info from that page:

M8545LL/A
IMAC 750 MHz - G3 / 256 MB PC 100 SDRAM / 20 GB DD / écran 15'' CRT / carte ATI Rage 128 (16MB) / CDROM 24x Ethernet / Modem Graphite ou Indigo.
Prix indicatif CLG 899

M3731LL/A(DVD) ou M3732LL/A(CDRW)
IMAC 1Go - G3 / 256 MB PC 133 SDRAM / 40 GB DD / écran 14,1'' LCD / carte ATI RADEON 7000 (16MB) / DVD-ROM ou CDRW / Ethernet / Modem
Prix indicatif CLG 1459

M3733LL/A
IMAC 1Go - G3 / 512 MB PC 133 SDRAM / 60 GB DD / écran 14,1'' LCD / carte ATI RADEON 7000 (16MB) / DVD-ROM et CDRW / Ethernet / Modem
Prix indicatif CLG 1659

A different pic - with iPhoto, too

[Bartmoss]

Scan of new iMac. So I guess this is real.

Re:Equiv Dell System

[ellem]

This isn't the same thing though.

1 -- G4s _are_ faster. My proof? Seti@Home ona P3 850 and a G4 450. G4 450 done 2 HOURS faster than P3 850. (Nothing major running behind either Seti app)

2 -- A DVD CD/RW is not a DVD-CD/RW. You can WRITE DVDs for chris'sake.

3 -- OK screw all that you say, it is hearsay and *my P4 2.0 is faster than... blah blah blah* I say it is worth two hundred buck more because ::

OSX is a _far_ superior OS than XP. Number of major IT shops that have banned OSX == 0 number of shops that have banned XP == 18 (That I know of... shit Compaq _cannot_ use XP on their workstations _or_ servers... yet the fuckers sell it to US!

So are you paying _more_ for an Apple... duh! Hey look you can buy a TV or you can buy the top pf the line TV (for our purposes let's say a Sony XBR.) Both will show you the news. Which one do you show off to your friends and relatives?

"Let's watch the big game on my RCA..."

"Let's watch the game on my SONY XBR... (And then the DVD pr0n!)"

Now which sounds better to you? ;)

Design is completely different

[sg3000]

I have to say, I like the design. It's a very consumer-looking device, and I don't think I've seen another computer that looked like this. I'm sure Apple will keep the current tower-look for their professional machines, but this is a very innovative machine for consumer users.

What's interesting is back in 1997, when Apple introduced the first iMac, a bunch of companies jumped ahead to rip it off: eMachines (are they still around?) and Future Power are two I remember. When Apple sued them, the only defense they came up with was that their designs weren't rip-offs; there was just only so many ways to build a one-piece computer. Of course, the judges disagreed, and the rip-offs were pulled.

Now, Apple releases their successor to the original iMac, and it looks completely different. Of course using an LCD instead of a CRT changes the engineering restraints a bit, but most other computer companies would have made something reminiscent of the previous model. This just goes to show that there are many different ways to build a computer. I think for the computer industry to get out of its rut, it has to collectively forget that incrementally increasing hardware specifications is not the way to "innovate", but this is.

Cover of Time magazine

[magicsquid]

Does anyone else know of ANY computer company other than Apple that would have a new design featured on the cover of Time? As far as I can tell there are none.

Re:Apple is the only company buying the Motorola P

[Coventry]

Incorrect - motorola sells a lot of these to the embeded market for various uses. The apple versions usually have more cache and run at a higher speed, but motorola is making plenty of money on them.

Re:Mac Sensationalism

[foobar104]

Obviously you don't know that theres a vast difference between DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, and DVD-RAM.

Obviously you didn't read my comment. I burn a DVD on my G4, and I can read it in the other DVD-ROM drives I've tried, and I can play it (if it's a video disc) in the DVD players I've tried. So I really don't give a rat's ass whether it's DVD-RW or DVD+RW or DVD-BIPPI or whatever. The question just isn't relevant to me. I don't care.

Re:Mac Sensationalism

[foobar104]

And how would you go about knowing this without paying attention to what kind of DVD burner it is? DVD+RW is more compatible with existing players than DVD-RW. Ok, so maybe your burned DVDs play in your DVD player. Good for you. Will it work in your friend's? Your parents'? How will you know without looking up compatibility information or doing your own testing?

Jeezus, doesn't anybody on Slashdot read any more? I already said that every disc I've burned has worked every way I've tried it. Data DVDs work in my and my coworkers' and my clients' and my vendors' and my friends' DVD-ROM drives, and video DVDs work in all the video DVD players I've tried. Why is this difficult for you to understand?

Maybe I'll run into a compatibility problem someday. I doubt it. I've been using my drive pretty regularly for about six months, and haven't had any problems during that time. There's always a possibility that the winds will change direction and manufacturers will start making new drives and players that can't read these discs, but I don't worry about that because there's nothing I can do about it.

See, here's the thing. I have a job. I don't have time to waste worrying about DVD standards. (Although, apparently, I have time to waste arguing about them.)

And as for media, I'll just have to look at it when I get to the office. My admin takes care of buying office supplies, so she just orders more of whatever kind of we have. I don't even know if they're R or RW, because to date I haven't tried to RW one of them.

I guess it's all about priorities. You care about DVD specifications. I care about getting home to my family at a reasonable hour.

Re:Superdrive? SuperDisk? NOT LS-120

[Steve Cowan]

For the record, Apple's 'Superdrive' is their CD-RW / DVD-RW combo drive. Not to be confused with their previous 'Superdrive' which was just a floppy drive that could do single-, double-, and hi-density versions of Mac- and DOS- formatted 3.5" diskettes.

The imation 'SuperDisk' format is a hi-capacity disk (120 megs), for which the drive is backward-compatible with standard floppies.

The New iMac

[Darth RadaR]

I guess they had to do something with those spare "Cube" parts. :)

Re:Mac Sensationalism

[Jace of Fuse!]

I don't care.

Just because it happens to work for you, doesn't mean you shouldn't care. It might not work for someone else, or more importantly (for you) it might not work for you when you need it to.

There are vast differences between the types of DVD burners, and knowing which one fits your needs IS important. I'm glad it worked for you. With your attitude, however, I'm guessing you're not going to always be so lucky.

Re:Looks cool....

[overunderunderdone]

Only problems are :
a) Cost

Granted

b) Lack of software..

Exactly what software is it lacking? Yes it doesn't have hundreds of different titles in each and every niche. But for just about every one of those niches it has four or five solid competitors. You may indeed be in a niche where lack of software really is an issue but in most cases "lack of software" is more FUD than fact.

I really don't think it would be a bad idea for Apple port Windows to the mac.

It might be a selling point in the short run but in the long run it would be suicide.
1) Windows software would always be slow because the mac would have to emulate an intel chip. There is just no getting around this. *(but see note below)
2) If a developer can sell to the mac market through the only so-so emulation why would the undertake the added expense of actually developing their software for the mac? Apple would get a lot of slow probably less than stable software rather than relatively few but faster and more stable software. Considering thier philosophy and their business strategy this will just never happen.

*Your idea would have more merit if Apple switched to Intel CPU's. In the long run if PowerPC can't at least catch up in the gigahertz race Apple will probably look very seriously at switching to Intel. These would be Macs though, NOT wintel clones. Apple would keep, and possibly even add more, proprietary stuff so that you could only run the Mac OS on an Apple branded machine. A move like this would remove CPU speed as a competitive factor. Apple would lose the purely theoretical potential advantage of having a better/faster CPU than it's wintel rivals but it would also lose the not-so-theoretical DISadvantage of in fact having a slower (if better?) CPU.

But such a move would have to be in the long run. Apple is already handling a difficult transition from OS 9 to OS X. That switch would have to be FULLY completed and recuperated from before Apple could even consider starting another difficult transition.

Moderators: You have been trolled

[rjamestaylor]

The parent post is udder cow poo.

Re:did they fix it this time?

[MatriXOracle]

Apple charges 3 arms and 2 legs to add some RAM to the thing

All Apple products use standard PC ram (desktop or laptop, as the case may be). So just go out and buy some ram from anybody. It will work.

Re:What innovating?

[Snocone]

Put a 14" screen on the iBook.

Done.

Observe the alt tag second from right.

http://www.apple.com/home/

Scans of the Time article

[ToLu the Happy Furby]

I have to say, this thing looks a lot prettier when you have good photos of it. It's definitely growing on me...

Godzilla and Mothra Think Different ;)

[Melantha_Bacchae]

The_Messenger wrote:

> All the same, have you ever seen Godzilla 2000? There are a lot of
> Macs in that movie

That's because Toho *loves* their Macs, and Godzilla and Mothra are Apple's biggest fans. You might also enjoy the following all Apple kaiju roundup:

"Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla 2": MechaGodzilla is designed by GForce using a huge amount of Macs.

"Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla": Miki, a telepath usually associated with Godzilla, is given a mission by Mothra's Cosmos to protect Godzilla from the humans so that Godzilla can save the Earth (and his son) from SpaceGodzilla. Miki views the coming of SpaceGodzilla on a Mac.

"Godzilla vs. Destroyer": The grandson of Dr. Yemane (from the first Godzilla movie in 1954) proudly displays a poster with a big Apple logo in his dorm room.

"Rebirth of Mothra": No Macs here, Apple is in deep trouble (December 14, 1996). What's a Mac-loving, heroic, wonder-working deity to do, when all she has left is a charred apple sapling (which appears several times in the movie, watch for it) in a bleak, scorched landscape? Simple. Resurrect it (and the surrounding 8,000 acres of ex-forest). The little sapling puts out leaves, and before you know it, is a whopping big tree on a grassy hill with flowers and an even bigger moth landing in the valley below. Days later, Apple makes a surprise announcement: Steve Jobs is coming back. Taiki's quote is telling: "Nobody is gonna die, mister. Mothra's gonna come and save us!"

"Rebirth of Mothra 2" (12/13/1997): The Mac is back, with Mothra's little avatar Fairy perched on top! Mothra herself shows the future: transforming into Aqua Mothra and shooting little light blue X's at her foe.

Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidora, and Baragon are currently starring in a movie in Japan (see www.godzilla.co.jp for more details). I don't know if Macs are in it, but the director was sure bragging about all he could do with his Mac this time around. (If you ever want to see Godzilla and Mothra in the US theatres again, write Tristar!)

> How do I know all of this? Well, remembering all the iMacs involved,
> I watched in yesterday in celebration of the probable new iMacs. And I
> don't even have one. So yes, I'm sad...

No you are not. I did the same thing last night, watching "Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla 2". BTW, I'm posting this on a Snow iMac (one of the original snow ones) named "Fairy". ;) A Bandai Rainbow Mothra is perched on top, with pictures of Mothra and Godzilla on the wall and my entire kaiju eiga (Japanese monster movies) collection next to my iMac desk.

OS X: the Apple of Mothra's Aqua eye.

Re:Um...it looks like....the cube.

[hearingaid]

Like most /. posters, you're partly true but mostly wrong. Apple doesn't usually buy product placements: AFAIK the only two exceptions were Star Trek IV (remember Scotty trying to talk to the Mac?) and Mission: Impossible.

However, they don't have to these days, now that Amiga is dead and Macs are ubiquituous throughout the film industry.

Re:Um...it looks like....the cube.

[Glytch]

Oh, come on. What heartless jerk charges his own mother for tech support?

Time.com has the story now

[rakerman]

Apple's New iMac

Brilliant! You get your desk back

[tylerh]

With every other machine out there, including notebooks and flat-panels, you still have to put the monitor *in* your prime work area. With this sunflow design, the LCD hovers above your desk, while you can still take notes / doodle/ read on the your actual desk surface. It may look funny, but it's functionally brilliant.

As a way to assault the corporate desktop it is truly creative. Imagine your typical cube farm. Tight quarters, no one has enough room, and most of the available desk space is consumed by monitors. Now, one stylin' freakin' mac dude brings in his sunflower iMac LCD from home. POW. Not only does he now have more desk space than anyone else, he has more useable desk space than the *boss*. Immediate Mac envy in what was moments before a WinTel monoculture.

Will it work? I don't know. But it's a helluva creative idea.

easy upgrade: 17''

[option8]

i wonder how easy it would be for a user to swap out the monitor with a 17'' version of the flat screen...

or apple for that matter, to offer as a future edition - the new iMac SE...

shouldn't be too tough.. the swing arm looks like it could handle it.

oh well.. just a thought. now back to the webcast.

Re:Mac Sensationalism

[Hal-9001]

Someone explain to me how this comment is a troll? If anything, I would say it was insightful. Not everyone is a geek, and Macs tend to be the best machines for those people, whether they realize it or not.

Keynote UPDATE

[MontyP]

I remember a few years ago when they announced the IMAC, I listened the keynote on streaming audio. I was amazed.. Today I watched the keynote on QuickTime. The new IMAC is very cool. It comes with a 15-inch flat screen display suspended on the base of the computer. This screen can swivel 180 degrees, raise up and down, and tilt forward and backwards. The base itself is only just over 10 inches in diameter! They come with a CD-RW up to Apple's super drive (CD-RW, DVD-R). Starting at $1299.

Apple also announced a really sweet image editing program that automatically imports, edits and prints images from a digital camera. IPhoto can also publish to a website (provided on apple's servers), order Kodak prints online, and even publish a hard bound book of photos. All in one application. This application and the new iMac completes apples "digital hub"

Apple.com updated

[90XDoubleSide]

Now that the keynote is finished, apple.com has been updated with sections on the new iMac, the new iBook and iPhoto, including the download.

Also, here are the official specs on the new iMacs from Apple's page:

The two bottom models have a 700 MHz G4, with the top one having an 800 MHz chip. All feature 256K processor speed L2 cache, but all have a 100 MHz bus, slightly slower than the towers. Bottom model has 128 MB RAM, all others 256; lower two models have 40 GB drives, top model has 60; bottom model has CD-RW, top two have DVD-R/CD-RWs, and finally the top two come with a set of Apple Pro Speakers.

All models have: GeForce 2MX/32MB DDR, 2 FireWire ports, 3 USB 1.1 ports on the machine and two on the keyboard, Mini-VGA output port, 56K modem, 10/100 ethernet, and a typical software bundle with all the iApps, Quicken 2002, Otto Matic, World Book Encyclopedia, AppleWorks, and a bunch of free browsers and readers preinstalled.

The screen is a 15" viewable TFT at 1024x768 at millions of colors.

Apple will continue to sell CRT iMacs starting at $799; the new models cost $1299, $1499, and $1799, respectively.

Re:The _real_ new iMac? Nope!

[John Harrison]

The following is stolen from www.macnn.com:

Apple introduces new iMac today. "Goodbye to old iMac." New iMac has 15" flat panel display (1024x768 resolution). "Today is official death of CRT." All new iMacs have G4 processor running at 700MHz or 800MHz. iMac has SuperDrive option. DVD-R media now only costs $5/disc. Includes nVidia GeForce2Mx with 32MB of memory on all iMac models. Apple Pro Speakers bundled on 2 of 3 Macs. Apple presents new iMac: "lamp-style" iMac with flat panel connected to rounded base. Screen is adjustable in any direction and angle can be adjusted. Connectors in back with disk in front. No power brick (integrated into base). As high as CD jewel case (10.5" diamater). Access to computer via 4-screws on the bottom--can hold up to 1GB of memory as well as AirPort card. Three models:

700MHz G4/128MB/40GB/CD-RW for $1299.

Second model with 256MB ofRAM and Combo (DVD/CD-RW) for $1499 (700MHz G4/256MB/40GB).

Third model has 800MHz G4/256MB/60GB/SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW) for $1799.

$1799 model to ship by end of January. $1499 by February, and $1299 by March. Apple is taking orders now. Apple has taken its first order from Genentech for 1000 iMacs (Chairman/CEO Art Levinson sits on Apple's Board of Directors). New marketing videos for iMac and iPhoto shown at keynote.

So as you can see they will all have G4 chips and the prices will not be in pounds! :)

moderators: face reality

[markj02]

Come on--you just moderate things down because you don't like it. If you disagree, provide some arguments. Like, where is Apple's 3 pound laptop? Where is Apple's stereo component-sized computer? Where is Apple's sleek black machine? Where is Apple's wooden box? Where is Apple's 8 processor machine? Apple does have a very limited product range and that limits their appeal, no matter how well Apple's techno-plexiglass geek chic may fit into your decor.

Re:Um...it looks like....the cube.

[arkanes]

Not to nitpick, but you can't have a "differently shaped cube". If it's a different shape, it's not a cube :P

Re:Um...it looks like....the cube.

[el_chicano]

Oh, come on. What heartless jerk charges his own mother for tech support?

Bill Gates? :->

Re:The Amazing New iBlob

[enkidu]

What? A total lack in hardware upgradeablility, numerous manufacturing flaws. It was just a fantastic illustration that form before function only serves a small amount of people. That's why no-one bought one.

Well, it's small, practically silent, beautiful to look at, and sufficient performance for all of my computing needs. Your analysis is a fantastic illustration of equating functionS with function and discounting form from function.

That doesnt mean its right.

Consumers will decide that.

And this is why the cube did sooo well?

No. The one and only reason it didn't do well is price

Can you imagine the cheap LCD's they are using on the new imac? Thier manufacturing reputation not stellar so I wouldn't put to much trust in that arm.

First of all, the display is end to end digital. It'll only be fuzzy through your brown colored glasses. Second, I'm going to take a look at it myself tomorrow, are you? Regarding the arm: It looked pretty solid to me, but again, time (and warranty repairs) will tell.

Re:Um...it looks like....the cube.

[enkidu]

Let's see you upgrade your iMac to a professional level soundcard (latency precludes external solutions)...

It does, does it? And you would know this how? You mean something like the MOTU 828? Or maybe the yamaha mlan?

...or a GeForce 4 when it comes out. Expandability don't matter, huh?

If you want to upgrade, get a PowerMac. then you *can* upgrade to a GeForce 4. Sure expandability matters. But it isn't universally available. When did you last upgrade the graphics/audio card on you laptop?