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Updated Power Macs at Apple.com
Gropo writes "Same old 'scary cyclops' quicksilver face. Up to 1.42 Ghz, FireWire 800, 802.11g and entry-level pricing has dropped. " With the SuperDrive and one of those massive LCD screens, you have a one highly desirable chunk of hardware.
For only $1999 ... Do you know what kind of PC I could build for that much money?? Then I just need the beowulf cluster..
Yeah, but can you get Firewire 800, Firewire 400, built in Gigabit, 54 MBps wireless networking, and a set of sweet applications like Apple bundles with their machines for only $1999?
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Maccentral has an excellent summary of the new Macs. To me, the most interesting part of the story isn't the incrementel improvements in the desktops, but the extremely steep price cuts surrounding Apple's flat panel displays. You can now get a 20" widescreen flat panel from Apple for $1299. That's just $300 more than Apple was charging yesterday for a 17" standard aspect model.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
. . . the fact that it immediately makes "last years" models much more affordable. Resellers like MacMall, Smalldog.com, & the others have great prices on these older models.
Of course, Apple may still have a problem selling these newer faster machines because they've managed to produce an OS that works fantastic on even older models like the dual 533 I'm writing this on!
It's great to see Apple leading the pack in new hardware. They are bringing 802.11g and FireWire 800 to the people just as they did with SMP (that "1.4GHz" sounds a lot more impressive next to a 3GHz P4 when you realize there are two of the suckers in there) and 1Kbase-T.
Funny, Macs used to be faster than Pentii, but crippled by their other hardware (SCSI, memory, ADB) and OS. Now they have the advantage everywhere except CPU speed, and I think they're a whole lot better off.
I see the new PowerMacs as a gift. With their power, used wisely, we might be able to save my people from the growing Shadow in the East.
Boromir, son of Faramir, King of Gondor and Minas Tirith
Why dont you be fair and report on the next model eMachines, Dell or Compaq sells at Best Buy.
Because many people like what Apple is doing, and it's generally understood that if you could buy a Power Mac for the price of a Dell, then a whole lot of people here would get one. I mean, look, you get away from all the Intel/AMD nonsense, no crazy cooling issues, dual processors, flashy UNIX out of box with commercial applications available...this is the holy grail to a lot of people.
But no one wants to pay Apple's high-end prices.
But, seriously, why did Apple even release this
True, why bother releasing new better competing products when you have new product coming out in 6 to 12 months (which we all know is nothing in computer time). People would be much more impressed with a jump from 1.25Ghz to 2Ghz vs seeing incremental steps and lowered prices along the way. Shame on them for not releasing new PowerBooks, after all it's been weeks since the previous announcment. Tying up those vast resources to bump up the processor speed and adding a few extra features, I'm sure this totally derailed any iMac or iBook efforts.
Look, I agree that they have soft spots that they have to work on, but laptops is not one of them. iMacs need to get cheaper, agreed. But they MUST continue to bump the TOTL PowerMac's to keep and hearts and minds of their high end buyers in the Mac camp. If they waited until the 970 to release ANYTHING in the PowerMac line, they'd be screwed big time.
If as some suggest that the new machines will be out in time for Summer MacWorld, then great. If not, don't be too surprised to see maybe one more bump if the new guys don't make it until the end of the year. I bet if Motorola can get them faster G4's, they'd put them out there pronto (as they did with these).
But no one wants to pay Apple's high-end prices.
...) I'll be sticking with OS X on the client side and Linux/Solaris on the server side. Blue curve is a great try at a good desktop, maybe it will take off.
Until Linux has a decent desktop (where installing an application actually integrates with the menu) and has some decent apps (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, Premiere,
Linux has a long way to go to match the ease of use of even windows much less comparing it to OS X. I have no problems with linux b/c I've been using it since around '95 (ah slackware). However, trying to find all the workarounds to keep things playing friendly isn't fun on higher end or newer hardware.
It still is laggy on the fastest machines.
No, it's not. I really don't know where people get this idea. I have a Mac that is, as of this morning, no longer state-of-the-art. It's got two 1 GHz G4's and a Radeon 9000 card. Is it "laggy?" No. It's faster than I am; the only time I wait on it is when I'm compiling.
I also have a 400 MHz G3 iMac, not a fast machine by anybody's reckoning. OS X is entirely useable on that machine for things like surfing and email, iCal, iChat, iTunes, iPhoto, and so on.
I think the people who still propagate the "OS X is slow" meme haven't used it in about a year.
I write in my journal
Explain to me again how a school buying more expensive hardware that isn't generally used in the real world is going to help my kid get a better education?
The whole "generally used in the real world" argument is utter nonsense. You should teach kids computing concepts, not specific applications or systems, because by the time they graduate, the specific applications and systems they used will be obsolete anyway, but the concepts still apply. It doesn't matter if a kid learns about computers on Mac OS X, Windows XP, KDE, Gnome, Mac OS 8, or Windows 95. They'll have to adjust later anyway.
However, there are two distinct advantages of not using Windows in school: first, since the student is likely to be using Windows at home, teaching them something else at school gives them a broader base of experience than what they might otherwise have exposure to, which will make it easier to adjust to other systems in the future. Second, it shows them that there are viable alternatives to Microsoft, so if they later choose to run Windows, it will at least be a real choice.
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