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New 20" iMac and Dual 1.8GHz PowerMac G5
joekra writes "Today, Apple released a new 20" iMac and a Dual 1.8GHz PowerMac G5. Both were accurately rumored at the last minute by the usual suspects. In fact, the Dual 1.8GHz G5 configuration was rumored back in July to shift demand away from the popular 2.0GHz PowerPC G5s." I'm holding out for a couple rounds of price drops, but I think a G5 is definitely in my future.
These are still both great machines. I love my 17" iMac as a home machine, and a 20" screen is even more alluring.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
that powerbook would go very nice with the rumored 30" cinema display that should be out early next year - even though dell beat them to the 2.5 feet punch.
Well, G5s are truly here now - and they've got the flashy specs to boot.
My advice? - Grab a G5 as soon as you can - they're fast, strong, and reliable. Yet, they do run the MacOS - which is fine if you're a artsy kinda person.
I use my windows machine for gaming. & My linux box for serious computing/recovery. I'd definitely only suggest the G5 if you're not into windwos gaming at all - 'cause other than that - Macs have all the rest of the fun!
On the other hand, if you are looking to drop a fat wad of cash for a 20" screen attached to a unique-looking computer that's less than half the power of the current G5 towers, you are probably not the type to sweat over maximizing bang-for-the-buck to begin with.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
[i]This also speaks well to IBM's ability to get chips out of the factory and into systems[/i] hmmm, to me it says IBM have a surplus of 1.8ghz chips and a shortage of 2ghz chips, especially when Apple's line is [i]to shift demand away from the popular 2.0GHz PowerPC G5s[/i]
... these /. mac fags should go get their own site and leave real enthusiasts/nerds alone.
Okay. I'll bite. Dear Mister Troll sir...as to us having a site of our own...we do. In fact we have several from which to choose. And, pray tell, what in your tiny little troll-like mind leads you to believe that Mac users are all of a particular sexual orientation of any kind at all? Or that mac users don't qualify as nerds? And by some strange twisting path of logic that we don't in some way belong here?Newsfalsh! The mac now not only sports a command line environment, but you can set your environment to your shell of choice!
I know, I know, please don't feel the trolls. Move along. Move along...
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
No, it's handmedown computing.
In 3-4 years (Mac's tend to have a longer production lifetime than PC's) you pass it on to the kids/younger siblings and upgrade your system.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
The next iMac trick should be:
I rotate the screen 90 degrees CCW, and the display shifts to portrait mode.
If the screens get any bigger, they'll be iTipovers.
A 20 inch powerbook? come now, that'd look so silly!
To be techically correct, OS X (and every Mac OS since System 6) are capable of "multiple monitor" support. This means that the system can use as many display ports as you can cram in to the system. I used to run 5 displays on a Quadra 900 under System 7. I currently run 3 from my G3/333 (one from internal, two from a Radeon 7000).
The current set of dual-head display cards available would allow you to drive 8 displays off a single PowerMac; 6 via PCI and 2 via AGP.
If you consider that the current crop of PowerMacs can process up to 9 video streams simultaneously, this setup sounds a lot less ludicrous, You could drive a fairly large video wall with that.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
What to look for depends on what you need/want/can afford. How old are the kids? Could you trust them not to destroy that nice iMac flat screen ( although honestly, it's pretty tough, my two-year-old hasn't damaged mine yet )? Or do you need a CRT? Or do you have a CRT and/or a tight budget? These questions would need to be answered before anyone could tell you to get an eMac, iMac or PowerMac. Get yourself and maybe your kids to an Apple Store, you'll figure it out.
In my experience, Linux users who would even consider Apple hardware absolutely love OS X once they wrap their heads around what's going on.
Obviously you'll have to check out the system requirements of those games yourself, but I've found almost all web-based Flash and Shockwave content works fantastically on OS X these days, Macromedia has been good about supporting the platform, especially over the past year.
Of course, I'd want to get a dual 2.0Ghz G5 PowerMac myself, although that would be overkill for even my own digital video editing use, let alone my two-year-old's games... not that overkill is a bad thing. It's extra-nice that I can easily set up the kid's login account so he can't destroy the machine or launch some of the more violent games.
Because:
The cheap box wont run OS X
The cheap box doesn't have as good a display
The cheap box isn't quiet
The cheap box doesn't have firewire
The cheap box wont fit into a small space
The cheap box doesn't have a DVD burner
Because by using the cheap box, I somehow have something in common with idiots like you.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Steve Jobs came back onboard, the product line was way out of hand. I seem to remember there being like 40 products avaialable, no one was sure which product were appropriate for whom.
Jobs (and I am sure lots of other smart people behind the scenes) introduced the 4 quadrants, and Apple suddenly had the easiest decision making avaiable of any computer manufacterer. Student, or on a budget? Want a laptop - iBook. Want a desktop - iMac. Professional? Want a laptop - Powerbook. Want a desktop - G4/G5.
Sure, being so simple might for a 'tweener' to make a choice between upper level and lower level, but creating a choice specific for the 'tweener' crowd makes for a polluted, evil product line. (Along with fragmented R&D costs, higher production costs, etc...)
So my question is, where the hell does a 20" iMac fit in? Certainly at a base cost of $2199 it doesn't fill anyones needs well. Sure, 20" of flat panel goodness aimed at the consumer market is a bit groundbreaking and good outside the box thinking (which I think Apple under Jobs is again known for) but how are you going to market it? Why are you doing to pollute the sales to the "low end" desktop iMac line, with a $2199 and up computer? If I've got $2000 to spend on a computer, do I want a G4 or an iMac? That decision was once made for me by the simple matrix, now that option isn't so simple.
The continued existance of the eMac must really drive Jobs nuts. An actual CRT! Son-of-a-bitch!
www.jackasscritics.com
I believe that is what confuses people about the whole monitor height issue. Most people do slouch a bit, to the point that your head is tilted down slightly, to look at a monitor which is above your head in a sea-level sense, but at a down-angle from eye-level.
It's not about an ego trip (Mmm, ego stroking). Honest! :)
It's like this. We all know someone who's a total petrol-head, always tinkering with his car, reading all the magazines, etc. Who's the first person you talk to when you're buying a new one?
I've long since accepted the Alpha Geek mantle pushed onto me by my friends. Whenever something is going screwy, they come and give me a call.
Now let's think about the petrolhead. Say you don't speak to him and come back with a shiny new Lada (really bad Russian car, in case they aren't in the US). Then it breaks in two days. As it would. Is your car friend going to help you? Probably not. He'd probably say you should have asked him first.
He's a more extreme case, but it was what I was shooting at. Of course I'm going to help my friends with their PC problems, but I'm not going to be happy if it was a problem they wouldn't have had by going somewhere else. Like poor after-sales. Or no expandability. Or a big sticker on the box that says "You invalidate your warranty by opening this case."
After a house and a car (or, for some, ahead of the car!) a PC is the most expensive thing you will buy. Why would you not check on your friend's knowledge?
I've been trying to switch a couple of my friends. The one I mentioned in my parent post is a prime example. I brought around my Powerbook, showed him how it did everything he wanted it to. He agreed that it did.
But, unfortunately, the Mac myths are still prevalent in the UK. I tried to convince him that I could swap files with PC users.
Him: "But where is the floppy drive?"
Me: "No-one uses floppy drives anymore, just burn it onto a CD-RW"
Him: "Hmm, my lecturers might want floppies"
Me: "Then email it to them!"
Eventually, I managed to beat him down to the simple fact that he wasn't going to switch unless Doom III was coming with him. That's fair enough, I suppose, but 1400 for one game? Please. That's the weakest excuse ever. There's some sort of horrific Mac stigma that Apple really need to shake off. No amount of geek evangelism is going to help, because people assume that because you're a geek you *would* find it easy to use anyway. There's a bit of that, my little brother got an iMac and I came back from Uni to set it up for him. He has Jaguar and he had to keep going into the Applications folder just to launch a program. He, quite rightly, was pretty annoyed at how long it took. I dragged the application folder into his dock, and hey, it's like a start menu. OS X comes with some pretty bad default settings.
Apple needs to fix that, and then it needs to fix the people. The Switch campaign touched on it (the ads didn't reach the UK anyway), but never really drummed it in:
Macs work with Windows. Macs can read Windows files. Macs can write Windows files. Macs can do everything you want. Macs *work*.
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They're not perfect:
Those hardware-only examples above are all post-Jobs. You're generally right: in fact, you missed the "all-in-one" design, inclusion of USB in the iMac, easy-open cases, the translucent plastics "fad", and the first to use WiFi. Recent smart decisions may include Serial ATA, DVI outs, PCI-X, Bluetooth, IEEE1394b, and 802.11g. These decisions and others are why the market rewards Mac users with a high resale value on eBay.
Well... there was the naming computers after fruits phase that made me question Mac users sexuality
:) Before Jobs started Apple, he lived for a while on a Fruitarian commune in Oregon. Many suppose that it was this experience that lead to the naming of the now famous computer company.
Okay, now I think I may have a clearer idea of why you may think of mac users as 'teh ghey', but I stand by my claim that there is NO commonality (sexual, political or otherwise) amongst mac users... except for a ruthless efficiency and fanatical devotion to the pope... But as to the naming of a computer comany after a fruit...has to do mostly with the bizarre dietary habits of Steve Jobs. Now he is the strictest of vegetarians...a VEGAN! The most dreaded strain of vegetarian at all. BUT before Steve-O was a vegetarian of any stripe he was a fruitarian. As far as I understand (I am an Atkins practicioning carnivour, and not a vegetarian or especially a "fruitarian") fruitairians not only eat only fruit...it is prohibited by some sects to eat any fruit that has not dropped naturally to the ground from the vine. NO HAND PICKING or OFF THE DAMN DIRTY HIPPY COMMUNE YOU GO!!!
Actually, as I google around, I find this supposedly direct quote:
I was actually a fruitarian at that point in time. I ate only fruit. Now I'm a garbage can like everyone else. And we were about three months late in filing a fictitious business name so I threatened to call the company Apple Computer unless someone suggested a more interesting name by five o'clock that day. Hoping to stimulate creativity. And it stuck. And that's why we're called Apple.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
I don't really use my old "fat mac" any more, but the SE 30 has some games that don't run anywhere else, so it's turned on occasionally. The Centris 610 works just fine for my 10 year old to read her email, draw with appleworks, and write school papers. Plus we can still find some old games in the $5 bin for it. The Beige G3 still plays DVDs just fine and works great as a music server since I have never liked iTunes as well as SoundJamMP (developed by the same team before they did iTunes for Apple). My G4 AiBook is my main computer now, but I don't think it will be dumped when I finally get a G5. My other child loves her G3 "flower power" iMac and will take it to college with her, my mom loves her G3 iMac, and my wife hated computers until I bought her a 15" G4 iMac last year. Will I get rid of any of those? No Way. They all work fine, and will continue to do their job for years and years. In the same timeframe however, I've been through about 7 different DOS and Windoze boxes, and have tossed them out with no regrets as the next one came along.
did anyone else notice that they also bumped the RAM up to DDR333 across the line, they're all capable of bluetooth and airport extreme (previous the low end was not) and they updated the graphics cards, opting for a 64MB card in the 20" display? Plus a min. of 80GB of HD space?
...
And kept the same price point?
And day by day the Mac becomes an even BETTER value for the money