Slashdot Mirror
G5 in an iMac
babbage writes "I recently bought a Power Mac G5, and when I registered it with Apple, I was offered a free subscription to MacWorld. When signing up for the subscription, one of the questions you're asked is which Apple product you purchased most recently, and one of the items on the list was 'iMac G5.' Does the MacWorld marketing department know something that the rest of us don't?" Maybe they had seen the page that incognito writes about: "Over at AppleFritter, there's an awesome mod that changes an ordinary iMac into a mini version of the aluminum G5 tower. There were lots of details in the creator's work that leads to a very polished final product."
This being said, are there any technical reasons a G5 could not be stuffed into an iMac console?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
It's not that there is a G5 iMac now, they just don't want to have to update their survey when one comes out (hopefully) sometime around WWDC in June.
WWDC should be interesting, since the G5 boxes are overdue for a speedbump, and the iLamp, er, iMac LCD, is also overdue for a refresh. However, since the current iMac's motherboard is based on the powerbook's, I'm not 100% positive that there will be a G5 iMac announced in San Francisco.
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
... that they don't know where the '4' key is
this story has been mentioned several times at rumor sites, such as MacRumors (www.macrumors.com). it's a typo. it was there when G5 was announced for a PowerMac - no way iMac G5 was even a thought back then.
G5 iMac will happen sooner or later, perhaps WWDC next month. but there's nothing here... it's simply a typo.
No.
irb(main):001:0>
The popularity of miniATX boards and Shuttle's mini PC are a proof that Apple was on the right track with the Cube. People want small powerful computers but not the attached LCD screens in the iMacs.
This is exactly the type of product Apple needs a scaled down version of the PowerMac G5. The full size machines should all be dual processor and the PowerMac G5 mini should be single processor.
Now I know why I have no aptitude to do any kind of case mods -
;)
I used 2mm and 1mm thick Polystyrene plastic sheets. I got them in sizes of 2x1 metres from a local reseller and I use it to build accessories for my model planes and dioramas
I'm not geeky enough
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
At MacWorld, they're so indoctrinated by Apple, they've made a script that puts an i in front of every word.
The article shows a G3 in a Powermac-style mini case, not a G5 in an iMac. An impressive hardware hack, but not a G5.
The last time I registered a new computer (2 months ago), the same survey had the same error.
The popularity of miniATX boards and Shuttle's mini PC are a proof that Apple was on the right track with the Cube.
And yet the dismal sales figures say... not so much.
Some people want a Cube, obviously, but not enough of them to make it worth Apple's while.
I write in my journal
The G5 puts out a LOT less heat than a comparably-equipped Pentium 4 chip.
The reason we don't have the G5s in everything is that it takes a lot of time to design, fab, and test motherboards for Apple's designs. Also, the 970FX is coming soon, and it's much cooler than the straight 970, so there's no rush to move to the current series of CPU.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Plus, they had a few well-publicized flaws that made them unappealing... A hair-trigger on/off switch and a lucite case prone to cracks.
Apple could do well to make a low-end "cube", a cheap and portable desktop without the screen. Include iLife and a Superdrive and it could be sold as a multi-purpose media box, a component of the home entertainment system.
...in which he's speculating about how the Schick razor company came up with the idea of the Quattro razor with four blades. He imagines some marketing executive reading about Gillette's introduction of the Mach 3 3-blad razor and saying "Quick! Set up a focus group to find out what number comes after 3!"
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Plus, they had a few well-publicized flaws that made them unappealing... A hair-trigger on/off switch and a lucite case prone to cracks.
I don't buy it. The whole G4 series and the currently shipping monitors have these. (Well, the G4s have the same mechanical power switches the G5's have, but the monitors have touch-sensitive switches, and when the monitor's plugged it, its switch controls the sleep/wake behavior of the computer, just like the mechanical switch on the computer itself does.)
Apple could do well to make a low-end "cube", a cheap and portable desktop without the screen.
Don't buy that, either. Remember, in order to be successful, Apple has to sell hundreds of thousands of units a month of whatever products they're making. The demand for the kind of niche box you describe just isn't there.
I write in my journal
According to Babelfish, it just seems to be a tech news site parroting a rumor. Here's the Babelfish version of the article, with mild corrections where I can [in brackets]:
So, nothing to see here, no "codes" to break... :-/
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Well, the monitors have some of the same problems. The touch switches are not incredibly reliable (Apple has gotten much better with them, so they're not as bad as the Cube switches were in the beginning) and that does cause problems.
The "cracks" were a myth. A few people who bought cubes decided that mold lines (which are present on just about all plastic products) were cracks - and the rumor spread.
That rumor IS what caused the cube to fail in the market, though. They were selling like crazy at the Apple dealer where I work until that story broke, then sales dropped to almost nothing.
I also think you're underestimating the market for a cheap headless Mac. If Apple were to ship something in the $500 range (with a useable configuration below $700) I think Apple could take a significant share of the home market. Many people want to pay nearly nothing for a computer, and Apple has no offering in that market segment - even though they've got the best value in the high end of the market.
I think a $500 box with a G4 (or even a slow G5 - if you underclock them, they're cooler and cheaper than a G4) would sell well - the only problem for Apple would be capacity to build enough of them.
I think we can count on an iMac G5 in the fairly near future. The only reasons not to do it are portable marketing and an abundant supply of the current G4 units. I'm not sure what the supply of G4 iMacs is right now, but I suspect Apple is near a replacement.
The G5 is a less expensive chip, easy to cool if you underclock it, and should be a good choice for the iMac and eMac very soon.
(think about it - it's quite possibly costing Apple more money for the iMac processor chips than the G5 tower chips. that alone is a good reason to switch chips.)
Have you actually used a Cube? The button was on top, larger and more conspicuous... Waving your hand past it would shut the machine down.
The button on a monitor is right there, glowing invitingly. And it's also very sensitive, just like a Cube's. Maybe it's slightly less sensitive, but not in practical terms.
How is an iMac or eMac without a screen a "niche box"?
We're going around in circles here. Apple floated the idea: it failed. Why would they float it again? What in the marketplace has changed?
Look, if you're hoping Apple will slice their profit margins to produce a cheaper Mac, forget it. They've become one of the most consistently profitable (perhaps the most consistently profitable; they're going on 30 straight quarters of positive revenues, aren't they?) using a high-margin business model. They're not going to just chuck that because some guy on Slashdot think it'd be wicked kewl.
the iMac "lamp" design is dated
That's a matter of opinion. The iMac itself is certainly not dated, however; you can get one with a 1.25 GHz G4 and a 20" screen. A 20" screen! Have you used one of those things? It's huge! It's 1680 by 1050!
I guess my basic point boils down to this: Apple is doing very well. They tried your idea and it tanked. Why would they even consider, even for a nanosecond, trying it again?
I mean, isn't one of the signs of insanity doing the same thing again and expecting different results?
I write in my journal
As a form factor, the Cube was good (although I hope any replacement would have room for a decent dized AGP card).
However, they were stupidly priced, which is why they weren't very popular.
People want small powerful computers but not the attached LCD screens in the iMacs.
I think one of the smartest things Apple could do would be to make the iMac screen detacheable and simultaneously revamp their display lineup. The engineering behind making a single LCD screen that can either attach to an iMac or a base with ADC, DVI and VGA inputs (and a USB hub) should be trivial. Added to that, doing so would simultaneously reduce their overall production costs and widen their product line to fill a niche.
In our area, the cube was useful because of the small footprint and quiet; very much like a G4 iMac would have been.
The problem was that the combination of a cube and an LCD screen was prohibitively expensive (at least in education); and buying a cube with a CRT monitor defeated the purpose.
At the end of its lifespan, when the price of cube+LCD became more attractive, we bought (or at least ordered, I don't recall if we ordered them in time) several of them.
Nowadays, the people who would have purchased a cube purchase an iMac. Not because the iMac is cheaper than the tower, but because it has a small footprint and looks nice on the desktop and isn't overly expensive compared to the tower.
I'm not sure who in our area would want a headless iMac. The clients who want headless computers also want easy access to RAM, they want PCI cards, they want a tower.
check out http://www.appleturns.com/scene/?id=4458 appleturns.com did a story on this back in January.
But then they would have to design a base and sell it separately. And worry about the LCD-Base connector, and how it might break, and making it forward compatible to future LCDs The LCD mount on an iMac is very sturdy, and has to be since people manhandle it all day. And once the LCD is removed and attached to a base, how do you make sure it stays that way.
The way things are now, the only electronics that are in the LCD are those that are essential, so costs are minimal. To make things portable, adaptable, and upgradable is to make them more expensive (at least in this case)?
It was kewl with the Cube your didn't even need to touch the darn thing. Then it got confusing. Then oftentimes annoying. (Note to Ives: Don't put proximity switches close to the CD slot...)
As to why the Cube tanked there were actually two reasons, or at least, one depending on the other. Yeah, bang-for-buck it was lacking, unless you took your stylin' bang real seriously. The other was that it was a machine ahead of it's time, or more clearly, ahead of it's OS.
The Cube was built to run MacOS X. And it didn't have it. Clearly it was meant to be the next-gen machine with the next-gen OS. Power switch? Why would you turn off a MacOS X box? At most you'd put it to sleep. Big empty box? That's so... "Wintel". Small, sleek, clever design, that's a unix workstation.
So yeah, it sucked that the Cube didn't have the OS it was designed for. Apple's hardware got ahead of their software. Or, more accurately, their OS development took a lot longer then they'd anticipated. So the Cube was half of a shiny pairing that never happened.
Of course there were lessons learned too. Yeah, high price point and no expandability aren't a good combination. But look at the desire the Cube still creates in folks! There's still no PC design that inspires such comment or techno-lust. Clearly Apple was onto something, something they've since assiduously applied across all of their lines. Not just stand-out-from-the-crowd looks, but smooth, sleek, glossy vs matte, "high end". Technology as sculpture.
Would a Cube Jr. make it in today's market? Possibly. Actually I'd more expect an eCube: small workstations schools and the like could use, booting off an X-Serve. Nothing terribly exciting feature-wise but field-maintainable, cheap, and very robust. Plug any junk monitor the school has sitting around, keep that investment, but replace the PC "big box" with something paperback book sized, quiet, and secured.
There's probably a good market there. Same as the eMac; if it takes off it could be made a consumer product too. Heck, even an enterprise product paired with XServes (thin client, anyone?). Build for an assured market: .edu. If others demand it sell it to 'em too. As long as it pays back it's R&D, manufacturing capital, and doesn't seriously cannibalize other sales, yeah, go for it.
(Expandability? Put support for peripherals being virtualized in MacOS. USB & FireWire ports redirected across the network so only a few well-cared-for devices are needed per room, or even per site. Not terribly hard but very impressive.)
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.
The eMac isn't the type of computer I'm talking about - it's got a built-in screen, and is large and heavy.
I'm not saying it isn't near the price range that a headless cheap mac would need to be in, but it isn't quite there. I've sold several of them, but the problems with the eMac are:
1. it's not headless. If there's a screen/analog board failure, the entire computer goes down. And screen/analog board failures are not nearly rare enough on eMacs. It's one of the most common warranty repairs we do at the Apple dealer where I work.
2. it's not headless. the screen adds to the cost of the system, and some people like to be able to upgrade components without having to replace an entire computer.
3. it has NO internal expansion capability. This isn't a problem for some users, but it would be nice for others to be able to add one or two PCI cards, and maybe a second hard drive.
4. it's not easily serviceable. I've been inside enough of them to know this firsthand.
5. it's just not cheap enough. Dell offers a configuration at $499 - yeah, it's garbage, but it's there. Apple REALLY needs to have something at that price point, even if it's a G3 with a CD-ROM drive and 17" external CRT.
Apple's biggest problem at this point is marketshare - to get developers to the platform.
You don't have to tell me about the lower TCO - I've seen it firsthand, I won't sell wintel, and I don't like having to service it. (I won't touch wintel if I'm not already in a location to work on a Mac.) But many people don't look at TCO, they just see the lower initial price on the low-end hardware and won't buy Macintosh.
That list is just phony. Server G4? That's not even a real product name. And you can no longer even buy a G3 iMac from Apple. Also, where the heck is an eMac option and why not iBook options if your going to list out dated iMac options?
This story might be relevant as a Macrumors page 2 article.
Sound waves should be free!