iMac LCD Impostors

cannonball_D writes "CNet has an article about the first (?) inevitable PC imitation LCD iMac from Gateway. The design is a step in the right direction, but I still think it has all the tell-tale signs of a cheap knock-off. " It really looks like it lacks the elegance of the apple design, but I'm all for the LCD based terminal to be available on x86.

Comments

Yeah

[iamdrscience]

I think when they talk about competing with the new Imac, they meant that it is aimed at a similar section of the market, not that it's competing through aesthetic design.

Re:Yeah

[Jobe_br]

Maybe. I think many of the consumers of the new iMac will be ones that not only want a machine that is capable of getting work done on, but also one that looks good, so aesthetic design will play a large role for consumers of the new iMac.

From what I can tell of the picture, the Gateway model is essentially a stationary LCD screen with a motherboard tacked on back. If you check out the various videos on Apple's site, you'll hear the designer of the new iMac talk about a design just like that being tossed out the window by Jobs. To me, that's an obvious sign that aesthetics will play a large part in the market targeted by the new iMac.

Personally, having a screen that is adjustable in height, horizontal and vertical angle is actually quite useful (you can't change the landscape/portrait orientation, though). Depending on how I'm sitting at my desk any particular day (probably depending on how I slept the night before) I might want to adjust the angle of my screen. I find myself adjusting my Dell laptop's screen often, depending on how I'm sitting.

Don't forget that this new iMac is more than just aesthetics, too. Because of all its connectivity (external video, firewire, usb, gigabit ethernet, 56k modem, etc.) its also meant to coexist peacefully and productively with all your external devices. Same goes for the software installed: iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, and iTools (online). Gateway can't counter that and I think that's a very important distinguishing characteristic.

This isn't anything new

[Anonymous Coward]

"On topic comment: Hasn't gateway done something like this before? Of am I confused with another OEM outlet?"

Ok as an employee of the cow the Profile series has been around for at least three years and has had the same design as the Profile 3 that is pictured now unless Gateway is going to redesign the system so that it isn't an all in one unit I don't see how this can be considered news or competition with the iMac.

SUV's

[digitalhermit]

Anyone remember when SUV's really started taking off? All the auto companies started ripping apart pickup trucks and bolting on a new chassis. The end result was a Frankensteined monstrosity that was easy to tip over, handled poorly, and had the worst traits of cars and trucks. I just took a loot at the new Gateway, and it looks like they took a laptop apart and attached it to a metal fan base. It too has the worst features of a laptop and a desktop PC (difficult/impossible to upgrade, relatively immobile, bad ergonomics, and comparatively high price tag).
Where's the design? Half the people who buy these things are looking for something that goes well with the Art Deco interior of their social convergence area.

You figure they'd be more original

[qurob]

Why doesn't someone like Dell or Compaq, with their billions of dollars, hire some designers to come in and create some nice looking systems?

There's nothing uglier than a giant case full of empty space. Even their laptops are bigger, thicker, and have less features.

And other than Apple and Sony, does anyone else have integrated FireWire on most/all of their systems? No!

Straight outta 1997

[zealot]

This thing has nothing to do with the IMac. Gateway isn't, and wasn't, the first to use the "profile pc" design.

When I entered college in the fall of '97, my roommate has a machine like this from Compaq... it featured a Pentium 166 MMX processor, and a fairly crappy LCD.

I'm not sure that Compaq was the first to develop and sell one of these, but they've been around for a while.

I hate getting told that x has been made to copy y because y is popular, when x was really around for a long, long time before y gained any popularity. It reminds me of fashion trends in junior high...

Re:Hard to see the iMac inspiration in this one...

[fryke]

How can you say Mac OS X is more expensive and running less apps? Count again:

- Mac OS 9 software
- Mac OS X software
- X Window System software
- Command line applications

And about the price... What is Mac OS X? It's of course provided with all new macs, but if you buy it standalone, you pay 129$. What does Windows XP Professional Edition set you back? And I'm not talking OEM versions... *sigh*.

Why it's not an iMac

[maggard]

The coolest thing about the new iMac isn't that it's an LCD, its how it's mounted. Not on a big box but a smallish base, at eye height, with an infinitely flexible yet stable arm, surrounded by a nice frame.

Let Jonathan Ive (its designer) go on about how "we wanted the user to violate the sacred plane of the monitor": Better put is it works. Around that high quality (though only 1024x768) perfectly poised LCD display is a frame that lets you casually reach out, grab it, adjust it, swing it about to share with someone else, nudge when you change position.

Just plain flat out unconsciously interact with the Display without needing to fight it or worry about smudging or getting any thing wrong.

That's AWESOME. You don't know how incredible until you've use it; afterwards everything else just sux. A display that fits folks, not the other way around, something Apple gets and the rest of the industry hasn't (nor likely will Gateway if their past is any guide.)

Sure it may look like a "Sunflower", or more like a desk lamp or a face mirror. On the other hand those two are great examples of good design - they're popular because they work and just like they the new iMac screen is adept at putting light right where you want it, in your eyes, from whatever angle you're comfortable with. And if that kinda brilliant design isn't nerdly or butch enough for ya then go back to chipping with rocks 'cause once again Apple has raised the bar for PC design and once folks get a taste they're not going to accept the 2nd rate layouts, hear that Gateway?

Re:It's an I-cow

[xonker]

Apparently someone's editor decided they had to find a way to mention "iMac" in the story, and the writer had to fit the story around it. Or they decided that since Apple is supposed to be the innovator, someone had to be copying them, not the other way around.

This story would have gotten a solid "F" in J-school, but apparently it's good enough for C|Net to run and for Slashdot to post. High school newspapers have higher quality standards than this.

This thing is just *ugly* !

[zottl]

Why does only Apple manage to produce really good-lookin, stylish PC cases? It shouldn't be very hard to do, should it?
But somehow no Windows-PC maker offers a computer that looks as good as an apple.
Well, time to case-mod that ugly beige box myself, I guess...

not an imitation

[Servo]

Folks, read the article. This unit was not an imitation of the iMac. They simply released an updated version of the unit to compete against and use the momentum of the iMac. Gateway's unit is now on its fourth generation.

That being said, you are all right about one thing, it does not have the class and elegance of Apple's design.

Re:It's an I-cow

[neuroticia]

Actually, cannonball_D (the person who submitted the story to Slashdot) was mistaken. The entire take of the article is not focused on how Gateway ripped off the iMac, it's focused on the competing flat panel computers, and how the Gateway wasn't quite selling as many as the iMac (although the Gateway did come out first.)And now Gateway is coming out with the next of their line of flat screen computers and how it will be in the market to compete with the iMac. (Presumably better than the one currently on market.) It's actually a rather good article if you ignore the "lead-in" by cannonball_D.

-Sara

Fewer apps overall.

[Chas]

Go into a store. Look at the shelf devoted to Mac software.

Then go look at the shelves devoted to PC software.

As to the more expensive....that's merely an exercise in sophistry from both points of view.

Windows supporters will argue the price based on the cheapest OEM version they can find.

Mac supporters will try to set limits, as you have, to exclude OEM versions from consideration.

All it speaks to is the fact that Apple one way of obtaining their software and Microsoft has multiple ways.

Through which logic did you reach this conclusion?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you even know what you're talking about? If we use your logic than we can say :
Windows XP offers :

- Windows 3.11 software
- Windows 3.0 software
- Windows 95 software
- Windows 98 software
- Windows 2000 software
- Windows XP software
- Command line applications
- X Window System software(yes it runs here too)

so where is this new software that max os x lets me run that i can't run on windows xp? What will run on mac os x that windows xp doesn't have an equivalent to?

Design is more than just looks

[inkswamp]

I just saw someone ask this: Why doesn't someone like Dell or Compaq, with their billions of dollars, hire some designers to come in and create some nice looking systems?

This is exactly where we Mac users get to sit back and laugh and say "we told you so." We've taken a pummelling over the years because Macs weren't standard, weren't cutted-edge enough, couldn't lay claim to the buzzword-du-jour, but Apple has always done interface and design like nobody else.

Why don't Dell or Compaq create something "nice looking"? They do create "nice looking" but they don't create "nice using." Unlike Apple, their users just don't (apparently) demand that. Design isn't just how something looks, but how something works and how something fits into the workflow of whatever you're doing. The look is the least of it.

But Compaq and Dell and other box makers will continue to try to do "nice looking" because they don't get the whole human user interface concept the way Apple does. They don't get design on the multiple levels that Apple and most of its users do. It's something that we long-time Mac users have argued ad nauseam about in countless discussion forums (and will no doubt continue to do so) for ages and have been written off as pathetic Apple apologists.

--Rick

Re:Through which logic did you reach this conclusi

[autechre]

We'll start with the fact that Windows XP doesn't run all of that software perfectly. No Microsoft operating system has maintained perfect backwards compatibility, and there are many programs which have fallen through the cracks.

Also, I don't understand this obsession with "more applications". How many applications do you use on your computer? Do I care that there are more applications available for Windows XP than there are for Debian or Mac OS X? No, because most of those applications are useless, or duplicates.

freshmeat.net lists over 18,000 applications. I work there, and even I'm not crazy enough to say that they're all important. I'm certainly not going to use more than a tiny percentage of them myself, and again, there are plenty of duplicates (different things for different people, but how many different Web server programs do you have running?)

If you've got that all important Windows application, Connectix will happily sell you VirtualPC to run that app on MacOS. But chances are you can find a replacement, either in X11, OS 9, or OS X software.

Another poster mentioned the fact that the majority of PC software available is games. I own a Playstation 2 and a Dreamcast. My (Debian) computer is for old console emulators and xScorch. :). Other than that, I use it for Web browsing, work, music, etc. Even Windows XP can't compare with the amount of RPGs available for consoles (Square, Capcom, and Working Designs, mostly). I'd rather have a modern *nix workstation (either OS X or Debian) for my largely non-gaming tasks, and buy the right tool for the job WRT games.

As for what OS X has that XP doesn't: there's a reason that print publications still use Macs for DTP, and it's called ColorSync. I know, because I also work for a print publication :) .

Re:It's an I-cow

[SpryGuy]

By that reasoning, Apple's Mac line is ripping off the All-In-One TRS-80 Model III and Model 4, which predates the Mac by a few years at least.

Gateway didn't do it first, but neither did Apple.