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Apple Releases New PowerBook and the eMac
Martin Kallisti writes "Apple has released new PowerBook models whose improvements include faster processors (up to 800MHz), better resolution, 1MB of L3 cache and 32MB of video memory. Also, a new computer looking much like the old iMacs, called the eMac, has seen the light of day. It's primarily targeted at the education market, and boasts a 700MHz G4 processor and a flat 17" monitor. " As Troc pointed out in another submission, the eMac will be available only to profs/teachers, students and higher education institutions.
Can someone explain what the point of an "education only" product is? Is that market really so different that it warrants restricting a product specifically to that market? Is this some kind of weird strategy to reduce support staff since most educational institutions have their own IT people? I'm baffled. Someone please explain it to me.
This too shall pass.
I'm already tired of explaining to enquiring non-nerds that my nerd-friends are Emacs developers, not iMac's developers.
I guess the problem just got worse.
Which is better, eMacs or vi?
;)
The GNU people are gonna be pissed.
------
Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
Well there are still plenty more letters left in the alphabet. Personally, I look forward to jMac, wMac, fMac, and 21 other fine computers.
Then, perhaps they will have to use characters from other alphabets. Wonder how you would pronounce ßMac? "Smack?"
-Evan
Did any graphic designers out there note that the eMac has a different font for its name? Sans-serif instead of the Garamond-derived Apple font. Check out the main Apple home page to see what I mean.
Interesting... I wonder why the change?
-Russ
Me
This may be blaringly obvious to everyone else, but this seems like a good solution to the problems apple has been having getting its hands on LCD parts.
Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
It seems like Apple not only came up with a new PowerBook, but they also came up with their own brand-spanking new PowerLanguage (tm). With words like:
..., mega-wide
screamingly fast
mind-boggling 60 Gb drive
a tremendous wallop
wicked-fast performance
stunning, dazzling, sleek, blows past
What audience are they targetting with language like that?
You are confusing your iBooks with your PowerBooks ;)
The iBook is still around 1200 as before and the PowerBook is still around 2200 as before but the PowerBook is now a bit faster (and has better graphics etc etc....)
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
an iMac with a 17" screen...wasn't this the thing that people have been clamouring for, and rumours flying over ever since the original iMac was launched? this is what a hell of a lot of people have been waiting for, and apple decides to release it for the educational market only? i don't get it...it uses a CRT, so there should be a lot fewer problems with supply, and it has to be cheaper to produce than the new flat-panel iMac with moving parts, so you can flood the consumer market with it. steve moves in mysterious ways...
You see Apple has large Education Dept & university/tech/college contracts.
This is for them.
But once supplies get into gear, & the price for that spec starts to decrease, they'll open sales for them to the general public, you watch.
The way it will work is that large contracts with Education Dept & universities/techs/colleges will get 1st go.
Then Education staff will be able to by them from the collage Apple shop or through college book & supply shops.
Then it will be anyone with a student card buying from the collage Apple shop or through college book & supply shops.
Then they'l be sold in public stores but only to Education institions, education staff & people with student cards.
Finally when they have gone through all this routine over about 6 months & if supplies stock up a bit, then they'll be released for general sale.
That's the way its occured here where I am, in the past when Apple has released 'education only' products.
Can anybody tell me why the hell they didn't stick with VESA timings for that CRT. With only 72 Hz for the highest resolution I could not stand to work on that thing for more than 30 minutes.
--Ulrich
On no accounts allow a Vogon to read poetry at you
There's a feature that's been on almost every Mac, from low end to high end, since Steve Jobs decided to give the company's products their first image makeover. It's strangely absent from the eMac, and now I wonder why it lacks-- --the handles. Oh yeah, scoff if you must, but think about it -- nearly every non-laptop machine in Apple's post-beige era has had handles of some sort, either on the corners (blue G3 and G4 towers) or set in the top (iMacs from the get-go). Even the old iBooks had the plastic carrying handle. And if you think back, remember the very very original 128K Macintosh with the big square mouse? It had a handle too. SE/030? Handle. The eMac represents a departure from the standard design for a number of reasons as stated by other posters, and now there's this too. Yeah, I know, the handle isn't quite as nice as, say, the BSD-compatible core, but it's something I'd grown to rely on. I begin to wonder what's going through the designers' minds.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
I'm not so sure that's a dumb idea right now. Apple is pimping the flat-screen iMac like mad to the "rest of us", so limiting the market of the new one is a potentially good way to keep demand high for the more expensive, "cooler" iMac while they still quietly sell the old iMac (remember, they kept a model hanging around at the low end) for a while. Also, since Apple almost always has supply constraints on new models for a while, the eMac can stick to it's intended channel for now.
Not coincidentally, it's the season where edu purchasing for the coming year starts to ramp up - so dedicating the supply to education for now is probably a Good Thing.
If I had to prognosticate further, I'd say to expect a flat-panel iMac speed bump around MWNY, followed by the quiet dropping of the old iMac and the eMac moving into general availability at the low end. Because in the longer run, streamlining their low-end models does make sense.
Oh - FYI, Macs are still only available from "authorized dealers", it's just that CompUSA and Apple themselves are on that list now, along with more mail-order folks than before. Don't be surprised if some eMacs leak into the channel early from some of them.
Anyone want to buy my TiBook 667?
(Actually, I still like it just fine - but boy, is that DVI out sweet!)
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Several anti-Apple cronies have voiced similar sentiments here. Do you guys really not get it? It's not hard. Jesus, Apple doesn't always get it right...not even close to "always"... but listening to some of you guys you'd think they were the worst managed company with the worst products in the entire history of commerce. Listen up guys - clue phone ringing for y'all:
Education institutions don't want flat panels in labs with 3rd graders. And they don't want CD-RW drives. And they're short on cash, too.
Everyday consumers, however, do want flat panel displays, do want CD-RW/DVD drives, and usually do have more money to invest than a grade school - after all they're only buying one machine, not thirty.
If you at all understand the above, then Apple's "new" product makes sense.
Plus, as someone pointed out earlier, this neatly takes some demand off of them for the flat panels. If some of the education market is ordering eMacs, then they won't have to come up with quite the number of flat panel displays that they might have had to.
As for the fool who was blathering on thusly..."oh great this will really prepare me for the real world - they're not even available in the real world..." PLEASE. You're kidding me, right? So if Dell decided to sell a particular configuration of a low end box specifically to the education market...a configuration that contained nothing new...you just hadn't ever gotten this particular CPU, monitor, optical drive config in one box before... that it would be a disaster because it's "not available in the real world?"
I think someone needs to cut the little pills in half tomorrow, mkay?
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
I must admit to being confused here. While the left side of my brain (rational) understands some of what is going on here, the right side (creative) which Apple usually caters to is highly confused about these two new additions to Apple's line-up -- especially the eMac.
800 MHz TiBook:
What I *DO* get:
1. It is faster. Always good.
2. It is new. That will jump-start sales.
3. It has a new graphics chipset. Good for the graphics pros who use TiBooks.
What I *DO*NOT* get:
1. This is NOT fast enough. 800 MHz is better, but why not 1 GHz? The Wintel portables are up there and Apple is too far behind the P.R. curve on this one. I know, I know: Heat and Supplies. But this is simply not enough of a speed increase.
2. When can we see a new form factor? Removable bays are sorely missed, for one. In my ever-so-humble opinion, the Pismo form was superior in most ways to this one. Course, a form factor change is probably better held off until July.
3. Was the enhanced graphics really for the graphics pros or the hard-core gamers???
eMac:
What I *DO* get:
1. Education needs a cheap base Mac for their labs. This fits with the sub-$1000 price.
2. LCDs are expensive and hard-to-find right now. This alleviates the shortage in the education market.
3. This uses a form already known and accepted in education. Adding this to an existing iMac lab will not make it stand out too much.
4. Apple needs the education market happy in order to maintain its base.
What I *DO*NOT* get:
1. Why the "eMac"? iMac for internet, eMac for education. Will the next thing be the oMac for use by IRS agents ("Owe Mac", get it?)? This seems to be diluting the brand and confusing buyers.
2. Why CRT when LCD is the way to go? Apple is pushing LCD (or some form of flatscreen) as the wave of the future. Why backtrack in this area only? If LCD is NOT the way to go, why not make the eMac available to all. If LCD IS the way to go, why not make it available for corporate and home users?
My Two Cents.
I'm one of those people who just can't stand to work on a screen smaller than 1280 or so pix wide. Even 1024x768 feels cramped, and 800x600 is downright claustrophobic.
Now that Apple's packing the new PowerBook with a 15.2" 1280x854 LCD, the ol' 21" CRT on my desk, with it's huge size, godawful heat output and power requirements, isn't looking so appealing anymore.
Oh, it has another nice feature: fully-accelerated DVI output to a second monitor, if ya got it. 1280x854 not enough room when you're doing graphics work? just hook up a second LCD monitor. Sweet.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.
That's a very tough problem. I wonder what you can do about it?
One idea would be to use the included DVI->VGA adaptor.
Informative my fat white ass.
If you actually look at the pages, what is now the low end was the high end model before this announcement, and is now $500 cheaper. The old 550mhz G4 laptops are no longer available from the Apple Store anymore. The new options are more expensive than what used to be on there, but they're better. Materials didn't magically start costing less.
You mean the price for the older configuration has come down..
:)
667mHz was around ~3000, now its around 2500..
Depends on which way you look at it mate
Pretty cool, the 17" CRT eMac is the same depth as the 15" CRT iMac (17.1 inches), and only .8 inches taller and wider. That's pretty impressive.
http://www.apple.com/education/emac/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/imac/g3/specs.html
(For some reason in the marketing description they say it's 8mm shorter, not sure why.)
One of the cool thinks about the iMac is that it had no fan, so it was very quiet. I assume this one does, because it doesn't say one way or the other.
Macs have always been expecially popular in the education market, and Apple has always been targetting it. (Why do you think they picked the name "Apple"?)
Examples: special pricing has always been available for Apple products to schools and students; I'm willing to bet they even pioneered it. Not too long ago they announced Apple Remote Desktop software, and the first paragraph on that page talks about the advantages it offers to a lab/classroom environment. Old articles I'm finding through Google say that, at least recently, Apple's share in the education market is anywhere from 20 to 35 percent, versus 5 to 10 percent in the consumer market.
Partly this is because Apple wants to "convert" people early to their OS, but there's a more straightforward reason: Macs really are easier to use, individually or in groups, right out of the box. And elementary and high-school teachers have better things to do than try to keep up on the software and security issues surrounding computer labs. They just want them to work, and Apple helps them.
"3D games push the graphics processing unit harder than any other application. And of these 3D games, Quake performance has come to be the benchmark against which all graphics processors are measured. So you'll be pleased to hear that when playing the Quake III Arena version 1.30, in millions of colors, at 1024x768 resolution, the 800MHz PowerBook G4 blazes away at a scorching 68 frames per second.*
* Higher frame rates indicate better performance. Tests conducted by Apple."
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
I wish Apple, ATI, and the rest of the industry would get together and work up a standard for video cards in laptops. I'd like to see the video cards be removable and not part of the mobo. As long as you had the support of the video card manufacturers like ATI and the GeForce folks, you could allow your laptops video setup to be upgraded when needed. Let's say that ATI comes out with the 8500 with 64MB in the mobility configuration. I do a little surgery on my laptop and *boom* I have a better video card that extends the useful life of the expensive laptop. I think Apple would be an ideal candidate to do this. They make a lot of inovative moves that are initially seen as risky. Many of the become "the thing" and everyone eventually does the same. Apple would be a good place to start this idea. Please Apple, do this!
Selling them with 128 Mb and MacOS X preinstalled is kinda silly. That's just not enough memory to run MacOS X comfortably.
Find free books.
Education institutions don't want flat panels in labs with 3rd graders. And they don't want CD-RW drives. And they're short on cash, too.
A lot of home users don't want LCDs either, but they aren't given a choice. CD-RW drives aren't that expensive, that's why they're becomming standard on many PCs. They're being ommited on the low end eMacs because in many educational environments they don't want the students to have CD-RW drives.
Everyday consumers, however, do want flat panel displays, do want CD-RW/DVD drives, and usually do have more money to invest than a grade school - after all they're only buying one machine, not thirty.
I don't personally know anyone who has chosen to spend the extra money for a LCD display for a desktop computer at home, and most my friends have one or more computers at home. I don't know many families that have extra money laying around that they can spend on a nice pretty LCD display. Why should schools be buying computers when the company selling them is pricing the consumer version above their competition and requiring features on the consumer version that make them more expensive for those consumers.
Plus, as someone pointed out earlier, this neatly takes some demand off of them for the flat panels.
If Apple wants to reduce the demand on them for flat pannels, why don't they sell iMacs with CRTs to consumers, and let the consumers decide? I have a strange feeling it has something to do with higher profit margins on the new iMacs.
If you at all understand the above, then Apple's "new" product makes sense.
What makes sense is that Apple has realized that their marketing decisions (LCDs only) have priced them above the price the educational market is willing to spend. They can't afford to lose this market, so they are reacting by bringing back to old iMac at a price point that is more favorable to that market. Why can't they also make this more affordable computer available to consumers? Apple is marketing thier iMac as a household accessory. It's cool looking, you can do some neat stuff with it like burn a CD full of MP3s. The problem is that it's somewhat weak on bang for the buck. What does apple give users for the price premium you pay for thier computers? What reason do schools have to choose Apple's computers over other computers? Most importantly, what advantages will the students get? If there aren't some real advantages, schools shouldn't buy them.
Having worked at Apple and experienced their productization methodology, this looks like a failed iMac concept that had too much money dumped into it to just toss. Some smart product manager said "Hey lets refocus it!". The thing is though, back in the dark days, almost any R&D product hit the streets for fear of wasting money. That didn't work too well, but I think this repurposing will do fine.
Hmmmm...
/usr/bin/emacs
$ uname -a
Darwin [...] 5.4 Darwin Kernel Version 5.4: Wed Apr 10 09:27:47 PDT 2002; root:xnu/xnu-201.19.3.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh powerpc
$ which emacs
Seems to have it, vi is a bit more my style though (it's too bad OSX doesn't also have w3m...). Even has ssh, and ssd (and a click box to turn it on).
Ever consider setting your fonts one size larger?
repeat after me: using computers in schools is not about teaching how to operate one. using computers in schools is not about teaching how to operate one. using computers in schools is not about teaching how to operate one. it's about math, history, language, biology. the OS should get out of the way asap, which is why so many schools prefer macs.
Don't get me wrong!
The PowerPC G4 with Velocity Engine is so fearsomely fast that its performance is measured in gigaflops
My wang is so big it's measured in kilometers: 0.00001564km!
- Apple just introduced their new iMac a few months ago. It's gotten great reviews everywhere from the New York Times to BusinessWeek to most every major local daily and geek publication.
- Apple isn't going to confuse the market with an iMac that hearkens back to the older design iMac (which they still sell BTW!)
- However the Education market is a big one for Apple and one they've recently been taking a beating in (in spite of a few big wins.) The last education-specific-product they had was the ill-starred eMate (Netwon-based indestructo-laptop) that burnt their customers when it was suddenly dropped.
- Folks have been whining at Apple for a 17" iMac for forever. However Apple made it clear they couldn't do it in the iMac formfactor. Well, this is pretty close but yeah, not the same.
- So here they've solved two problems with one stone, er, Mac. They've satisfied the Edu market with a cheapie low-maint iMac that has scaled up to the 17" world. They've also managed to satisfy that market without detracting from their can't-ship-them-fast-enough new iMac design.
- Will this eMac move into the Consumer market? Probably not as such. Right now the service, support, marketing etc. for this model is nicely contained in the Edu division of Apple and likely to stay there for a while.
- On the other hand businesses have really taken a shine to a iMac line. This is a bit of a quandary for Apple as they'd far prefer their G-series of Macs be the corporate model.
- The eMac might lead the way to a compromise: Here's a cheapie iMac-alike that could be a great client packaged with a MacOS X Server. This could get Apple into the 1,000-cheap-standardized-ruggedized-identical-bui
l t-to-be-centrally-managed desktop model that they've been completely absent from.
- However this would somewhat expand Apple's product line which is something they're leery of after the excesses of the late 80's-90's.
- Right now Apple's product line-up is Consumer with iMac & iBook, Professional with G4 & PowerBook. The Cube was an odd duck to this - a cross between the iMac & G4. However this is almost exactly what the eMac is just cheaper and in a different formfactor.
- So eMac = Cube v.2?
- This is my guess. Not only did Apple listen to what Edus wanted from an iMac but they also learned what didn't work with the Cube. Now they've merged them and I wouldn't be surprised in a rev or two to see Apple start a big public push back onto corporate desktops.
- Just as NT was perceived as a better OS as it came in desktop & server versions (gotta have the same across the enterprise!), it was "friendlier" then Netware and the other competition (can't get nicer then Apple!) and "industrial strength" (MacOS X runs BSD for goodness sakes!) I bet Apple is getting ready for the same assault back.
- A range of hardware, expanding marketshare, an OS that runs the same stuff as "the big boys", easy to develop custom apps for, ease of use, runs MS Office; Apple could regain some serious ground.
All IMHO of course.I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
yeah i wondered this too. on the other hand, have you actually tried working on one those SXGA+ or UXGA 15" laptop screens (i haven't)? sounds awfully scrunched to me.
:P) CRT, let alone 1600x1200. and i don't know anyone who did either.
i mean, i never would have run higher than SXGA on a 17" (15.x" effective
"I brought you into this world, and I can take you out!"
I wonder if the new Apple PowerPC's can run the POWERPC version of AIX?
No. It's a fairly different chip. The only Apples that ever ran AIX were the short-lived Apple Network Servers, which shipped with it.
--saint
Well, yes Jobs did say the CRT was dead. However, it does appear that Apple is listening to their customers and for education, the CRT is what they wanted.
Lemme ask you if you have ever seen a kid poking his finger at a LCD computer screen. Yeah, it makes you cringe. With a CRT, kids can poke all they want and the most damage that can be done is smears from dirty little fingers. Hell, I have even had other adults poking at my laptop screen rather violently when demonstrating data. For the education and business environments, sometimes a little more rugged CRT is better.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Of course, you do need to update UIs to deal with them. The default Windows fonts are tiny on them.
If you had spent any time with the new iMacs you would know that there's no way in hell a 3 year old could break that "neck". It's just not happening.
That having been said, the eMac is nice because it boasts a larger screen, which is good for the kiddies.
That having been said, it's harder to adjust the eMac's viewing angle than it is the iMac's, so you may need to purchase some booster seats.
All in all, I think the iMac is better for kids, but that's my personal opinion. I think it suits them better. YMMV, of course.
Good luck with picking out the right one (I'd recommend going to an Apple store or another Apple reseller to play with them first).
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
This is _the_ system that Apple needs to break into the enterprise business category. Of course Apple would prefer businesses to buy their PowerMac line, but the up-front cost of this system makes it unattractive to most medium businesses. The entry level system with the 15" LCD is $2,198. When you are buying a small number of workstations, you may be able to justify a couple hundred dollars difference. When buying several hundred, however, price will be king. Furthermore, the PowerMac is simply over-qualified for most business users, as these systems are primarily used for Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Outlook/IE
The eMac would be perfect for medium to large companies. As configured it should handle office productivity apps at a very reasonable cost. Compare the price against similarly configured business systems from Dell and Compaq:
Apple eMac (700mhz G4, 128MB RAM, 40GB HD, 17" monitor, 32MB video card, Apple Protection Plan): $1,118*
Dell Workstation 340 (1.7Ghz P4, 128MB RAM, 40GB HD, 17" monitor, 32MB video card, basic 3yr support): $1,374
Compaq Evo D300s (1.7Ghz P4, 128MB RAM, 40GB HD, 17" monitor, 32MB video card, basic 3yr support): $1,277
* This includes the "education discount". Even if you add on $100, you still have a competetive system.
Let's hope someone at Apple can "Think Different" enough to realize the huge untapped market the eMac could mean to that company.
An iMac with a 17" screen has been talked about for a long time. It was the obvious successor to the original iMac, and what everyone assumed Apple would do next.
Then the new, flat screen iMac came out. It upped the ante, and upped the price point. It's possible the eMac was in the works for a long time, but the new iMac leapfrogged it. Naturally, Apple would want to milk the iMac for awhile before letting the eMac out- the eMac might have eaten into iMac sales.
Whatever happened, there's definately a market for both. It's unfortunate the eMac is edu-only, at least for now. There are a lot of starving artist Mac users who need a CRT, but can't afford a new G4 and monitor. Plus, the eMac is the perfect office appliance- as someone else said, "e" should mean "enterprise."
repeat after me: using computers in schools is not about teaching how to operate one. using computers in schools is not about teaching how to operate one. using computers in schools is not about teaching how to operate one. it's about math, history, language, biology. the OS should get out of the way asap, which is why so many schools prefer macs.
And here I thought it was because all the profs that used them were too, ahh, absent minded, to figure out how to use and maintain Windows!
I work in a genetics lab, and that seems to be the #1 reason why everyone uses Macs... they can't be bothered to figure out how to use and/or maintain Windows.
$0.02 (CDN)