Apple Updates iMacs and eMacs

applematters writes "Apple has updated the iMacs, they are faster and incorporate AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth. There are two models, the 15-inch and 17-inch. For good measure the eMac has also been updated, and you can get it brand new for under a thousand bucks. Not bad."

Comments

Slight correction

[Anonymous Codger]

The eMacs have not been updated, only reduced in price. I'm not complaining - I may finally break down and order one at the new price

Post Tramatic Stress!

[jptechnical]

I used to sell Apples and now is the time all the stores freak out about overstock. If you are looking for a good deal, and you don't mind being a little behind the curve, hit some of your smaller shops and you can really save some money.

Re:End of the G4?

[Twirlip of the Mists]

With the reduced pricing on the G4s lately it makes me wonder if Apple has finally picked a new flagship chip to use coming soon.

Uh... no. There is talk about the PowerPC 970, but it's at least 6 months away from being available for testing, much less for production.

The price cuts are for one reason and one reason only: Apple wants to move more units. Last quarter was more or less a break-even for Apple, and the pace of sales has slowed as the economy has gotten steadily worse over the past two years. So Apple has revised (nearly) every product in the line over the past month, and is cutting prices across the low end to encourage people who were sitting on the fence to buy now.

Re:Who cares?

[Draoi]

Apple sucks. It's not like they support Open Source.

*sigh* - trolling, I know ...

http://publicsource.apple.com

"We think Open Source is great!" - Steve Jobs

Re:End of the G4?

[King Babar]

Uh... no. There is talk about the PowerPC 970, but it's at least 6 months away from being available for testing, much less for production.

You're right in that I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for this chip, but I think you're being a bit pessimistic about the timing of its arrival. This page on the PowerPC 970 is decently informative and recent. It suggests sampling will start ti happen in the second quarter of 2003, and volume production will begin in the second half of 2003. Has the schedule already slipped this far? My impression was that IBM doesn't like to let these things slide.

There's no doubt that 2003 could be a pretty tricky year for Apple, but I think I like their roadmap leading to January 2004 *much* better than any other hardware vendor out there. Right now, Apple is basically in a position where they will make a little bit of money, and when their high-end hardware is actually really fast again...I don't think their sales are likely to go down.

Re:Not bad? Try really bad

[Alex Thorpe]

Oh, about memory usage. I just downloaded a free utility that monitors memory usage to determine if having more memory would speed things up. I've 320MB, and have opened up my usual programs: Mail, Safari, iTunes(playing), and addtions like Watson and iCal. Not only is there zero disk swapping, but I've got 77MB of extra memory that hasn't been touched. I'm sure that I could push it further with a commercial game, but I'm not going to use any of the others at the same time, save the Mail app. No, I don't have MS-Office, and I don't need it.

I did used to run OS X with 192MB of memory, but slowdowns were few and far between, mainly when I was viewing dozens of full screen jpegs on a single web page.

Not quite.

[jht]

The only model that was actually _updated_ was the 17" iMac, with a new DDR-based logic board, 1 GHz processor, built-in Bluetooth support, and AirPort Extreme support. The 15" iMac is just a price reduction on the previous Combo drive model (no new features, still SDRAM-based, same speed), and the eMac models were also reduced in price with no new features. That's all.

Of course, had my story submission about 10 hours ago been taken, the correct info would be up for this story already... (grumble)

I'm guessing that the new 17" iMac is based on the same logic board/chipset in the new PowerBooks. I wonder if they're using regular form factor DIMMs now for the user-installable slot or if they're still using SO-DIMMs. It'll make a big difference in memory upgrade prices between one and the other.