Slashdot Mirror
Apple Sticks with CRTs For Now
A reader writes, "eWEEK talked with Apple about the state of its hardware line at Macworld Expo/New York, six months after Apple said it was going all-flat panel with future Macs. Greg Joswiak, senior director, hardware products, with Apple worldwide product marketing, says that while LCD Macs are still 'the future,' surprise boosts in flat-panel prices mean CRT systems like the eMac and old-school iMac will stick around a while longer."
Seeing a demand spike in old technology, and the increased cost of Flat screens has caused us to look at our decision a little closer. We are now going to sell the CRTs as a "Value Added" option to the Flat Panels. The price will be added via a yearly CRT subscription fee of $100 dollars.
To quote our leader "The Days of the Free Display are over."
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
The average user does not appreciate the difference between flat panel and CRT screens. I believe Apple's strategy to be a prudent one...
Though many slashbots and computer enthusiasts will praise the flas-screen monitor, many are uncomfortable to fork that extra cash out for a more aesthetically pleasing monitor.
As you can see in this article, both have different pros and cons... but the average user is more likely to stick with the CRT monitor because of the cheaper pricing.
Nothing could be worse than Apple sticking to some visionary principle and completely phasing out CRTs. When you build an integrated system, swings in the price of any component will kill you. The G3 iMac and eMac footprints are not all that big and are perfectly reasonable systems. This is a smart business decision.
[That said, the 17" G4 iMac arrived just in time for my birthday. Woo hoo!]
--- "It annoyed me, so I fixed it." -- Tom's First Principle of Engineering
Apple would reverse course on the death of the CRT for a few reasons:
... Or not
(1) Foremost, to compete in the low end market where the CRT iMac lead Apple's sales in numbers (not dollars), CRTs are nearly and order of magnitude less expensive which can help apple attract 'value' customers
(2) In the education market (eMac) flat screens may still be viewed by value minded school boards and parents as frivolous expenses that could be used to put more computers in classrooms
(3) Until those who purchase a CRT today will have one more reason to anxiously await an upgrade tomorrow. Until Dell, Gateway, etc make LCD standard, the consumers who purchase CRTs will have hardware envy for LCDs.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
... but most LCD's have lousy picture quality compared to CRTs. Apple's LCDs are pretty good, but I don't really see the point in paying 2x the price (on the screen) to get a smaller footprint. But some will.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Thankgod. if Apple was smart they would continue to release CRT macs so Apple systems finally get cheap enough for more people to buy them. In a market that still sees ultra cheap wintel boxes Apple should do all it can to make a low end mac.
The 'surprise' rise in pricing for the LCD's that Apple sells should NOT be a surprise. It should have been expected. The configuration is different from that of the rest of the LCD's their supplier makes (G4 iMac). Apple has a small market share. The designs of the LCD's (especially the free standing ones, aside from the 23") are old in design. The only incentive for the factory to keep making different, or outdated LCD monitors is to charge more money. Apple probably does not purchase a high enough quantity to overcome the different tooling required to make their pieces. Hence, the cost goes on to Apple, and to the end user.
The problem would most likely have been avoided if Apple had gone along with the 'standard' design.
Unless all the games I want to play are not "games", then you are correct.
I routinely play Quake {1,2,3}, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Warcraft {1,2,3}, Starcraft, AOE, Bolo, etc..
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Is it just me, or does anyone remember the report from a couple months back (it was on TechTV's The Screen Savers), that said that the new iMac's surfed the Internet a couples seconds slower because of the lousy refresh rate on LCDs.
I think Apple's move is partly money and, maybe, partly to stave off these kind of complaints. If Apple is going to move into the gaming world, they had better have the right hardware before they get too excited about the software.
Does anyone know if LCDs have improved their refresh rates sufficiantly?
THe mac's were slower becuase of a bug in IE... If you run netscape, every thing is FINE!
I use Mozilla, and MAN, with Text smoothing on... WOW!
There seems to still be a high amount of misinformation being spread around in terms of general LCD performance.
Please keep in mind that things are changing rapidly in terms of LCD monitor design...if you are new to LCD's, and you think you may not be happy with one for any reason, take a trip to your local dealer and check out the latest models for yourself.
There is really no reason to not be using any of the latest LCD monitors. Ghosting, etc. is a thing of the past. Check out the newest Samsung, Dells, etc.
You may just be pleasantly surprised.
lcd's are not known for their accurate color rendition. motion, while better than years ago, still sucks on an lcd vs. a good crt. and even still photography is very hard to do right on an lcd.
I own almost nothing BUT lcd's. I have 4 sgi flat panel 1600's (on linux), 1 vga flat panel and 1 dvi flat panel. I do software devel 95% of the time and so for xterms and mozilla, flat panels are perfect. but for the few times that I need to color correct a skin tone (from some scanned slides or negs), I look all over for a good crt and do the work on that box.
macs are known for their video and still photo ability. colormatching is easiest on them than win* or unix (except for maybe sgi. maybe.) apple just can't drop crt support on high end boxes. gfx people wouldn't stand for it.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I have to admit this is a good LCD, not like some portables I used and owned.
The refresh rate is not measurable to that of a CRT, in a LCD the pixels are on or off, but they do keep their state, in a CRT you "can see" a beam moving across. Refresh rate of an LCD is measured in transitions and not in frames, I do believe.
Other question poses as of color balance and calibration, each medium as its one color cube or space, keeping a match between them is hard to any kind of technology, CRT or LCD, I don't actually know the implications of the change.
In conclusion I think the best would be to be able to use both, or adequate to users needs. Not until Apple decided to make a LCD iMac I didn't consider buying that model, rather than a tower and then the LCD... but with this new All-in-one deal I made the switch from PC.
since when is apple actually concerned about price points? the company has always (except for that whole early/mid 90s thing...) offered excellent devices and machines at super premium prices (anyone else remember when ram was $100.00 per meg (MEG!) good for them for trying to compete but please, uncle steve - don't start making crappy machines just to fit in. give the pc people their ipod and let them go and wish... can you tell i'm typing this on a mac - doh! i've been had! gub
They never stopped selling the CRT based iMac.
-- if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic - Lewis Carrol
This Apple exec is called Joswiak? Is that a quantum superposition of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak? Will Apple be releasing a Quantum G5?
it's totally true... i would think the people that say LCD displays look like crap either looked at one faking a resolution or looked at a cheap one. when they are running right they are incredible. i was at Macworld last week and saw ATI demo their sexy cards on the 22" or 23" LCD panels. wow they looked cool.
back to Apple LCDs.... the one thing about Apple LCDs is that they are top quality. if you find an unbiased shootout of Apple's vs any other manufactures display of the same quality, they are on par. in some cases actually cheaper. you can't compare the generic 15" LCD from bestbuy to the Apple one. the Apple ones do not even have analog signal processing, they are only intended for vid cards with digital outputs. a lot of the cheaper ones other people are buying purely for space saving, and style. they often stick them on an existing PC that doesnt have a vidoe card with digital out. my housemate bought a 15" sony one and he had to go back to the store to get a digital cable... the darn thing only came with an analog one. go figure. now that he put on a digital cable it looks pretty ok. with the analog it seemed like a waste of money (unless your desk space is very valuable to you).
then again i guess a LCD display that is about the same quality of an average CRT is positive because it does not produce as much heat and sitting here sweating like i am, i have to respect that. i don't know offhand but i would assume LCD screens draw far less power too. combine that with the reduced need for airconditioning in big office buildings and it makes sense. i would think the initial cost to upgrade would pay off in time maybe? anyone in California listening?
You can't use LCDs for publishing or printing. Anything that needs colour calibration requires a CRT. LCD colours are just unreliable. Since publishing and printing are Apple's two main professional markets, they'd have to be really stupid to go all-LCD.
Hm... come to think of it, they are really stupid, so who knows...?
I ama homosexual. I boughtan Apple computer because of its well earned reputation for being "the" gay computer. Since I have become an Apple owner, I have been exposed to a whole new world of gay friends. It is really a pleasure to meet and compute with other homos such as myself. I plan on using my new Apple computer as a way to entice and recruit young schoolboys into the homosexual lifestyle; it would be so helpful if you could produce more software which would appeal to young boys. Thanks in advance.
with much gayness,
Father Randy "Pudge" O'Day, S.J.