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Apple Delays New iMac
An anonymous reader writes "Reuters is running a story that Apple has delayed the release of the new iMac until September and has stopped taking orders for the current models."
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Must...save...money.
This may have more to do with clearing old inventory in retail channels ahead of the traditional educational back to school computer bonanza.
A well timed announcement of a really sexy new iMac in August will get everyone excited, without cannibalising sales of the present generation of stock.
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
then users will need to upgrade to a jPod and perhaps a jPaq for compatability - a great marketing scheme
Its amazing to see Apple actually pre-announce a product! This is virtually unheard of, espessially for something as important as the next gen iMac. It looks to me like this pre-announcement is the result of some terrible mistake in predicting when all parts (PowerPC 970FX maybe?) would be available.
Maybe they decided that the current Design Style was just... shite! Back to large beige boxes that we can stack CDs on and arrange all your happy meal toys over!
I know taste is a personal thing, but I never liked the design of the current iMacs. In fact, I think it's rather ugly. I liked the design of the Cube a lot better, and I suspect it would have sold better than the G4 iMacs if it was priced somewhat saner.
As a CS student, I often wonder why are labs are all WIndows. Its a horrible OS to write software in, IMHO.
OTOH, you have to realize that 95% of students are using computers to surf the web, send e-mail, and write papers...and thats it(unless you count entertainment things like games, mp3's etc.). These are things that could be done on literally ANY platform, and are virtually the SAME on every platform. You have MS Office for both Windows and Mac, and for Linux under Crossover Office. You have Mozilla or Netscape for any of those platforms...not that using them is all that different from IE.
And nowadays, a document or picture saved on one of those platforms is going to be readable on any of the others. So a student can easily take their work home, regardless of whether they have a mac, windows, linux, whatever.
The bottom line is that generally speaking, schools should just buy whatever is the best deal. Whether it is the most widely used platform or not is completely insignificant at this point. Unless you're a CS student, you'll do your homework the same way no matter what the system is.
once you go slack, you never go back
And Windows is for real men?
"Blue screen, how I love thee"
In the education market, Apple has historically emphasized its iBook notebook PC and the eMac desktop machine rather than the iMac computer, which has a circular base and a flat-panel screen that hovers above it.
Last I checked, the iMac's flat panel was attached via a swing-arm to the circular base. Where can I find one with no arm where the LCD magically hovers above? Perhaps this is the new model in fall? The hoverMac?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I bought one of the flat panel iMacs the moment it was announced, about 2.5 years ago, and it still works great. The iMac was an incredible value, had an excellent screen, and a fast CPU. I know that sales have been slowing, and the design has been out there for about 3 years, but it is still has alot of potential, and is definately a good bargain.
On the other hand I can't wait to see the new iMacs (mabey i'll buy one), And 3 years is a long time for a computer design. Unless your talking about a PC where towers have been 'in' for over 10 years.
I would really like to know how this is going to affect the Apple resellers who would have a large inventory of iMacs which they would undoubtably have to lower the price on. And as we have seen, Apple is not always on good terms with its resellers
Apple has always been a pioneer when it comes to technology.. things like imac, emac, ipod and newton come to mind. Nevertheless, I think in light of pushing the envelope, Apple often refuses to consider some people don't like doing things different... and therefore alienate a good percentage of potential customers who would buy a product if they made one that was applicable to the way they do things TODAY.
A good example of this is the emac, which is a great computer but is overkill for the tasks of checking email and cruising the 'net, and too inflexible to do things like operate with external music devices (ie MOTU).
Apple currrently sells Emacs for $799. That's pretty cheap, but I think Apple highly underestimates what the public really wants. Most people want a computer that is expandable, and can accomodate things internally (or at least have the option to).
Most people have a monitor of sufficient size to meet their current needs, but have a computer that is too slow. Out of these, most would probably end up re-using their old monitor if it weren't for the fact that Dell generally bundles it in with the package.
I would gladly give up the CRT in the Emac for a cheap Macintosh tower that has slots for expansion, and places to put those extra hard drives.
My guess is many people would change to a mac if it was cheap enough (which I believe the Emac is appropriately priced), and eliminating the CRT wold more then likely offset the cost of adding slots and materials for the drive space.
This is just my two bits, but I believe both of those bits are on, so I guess that's my three bits. .
i get what you mean... my (not so clear) point is, however, that schools will always buy whats chepest, rarley whats best and nevr whats wost interesting - which is why, in many schools, you end up with a hodge podge of mixed up and poorly maintained pc (and curriculum for that matter)
i've seen a few schools try to go all linux - only to find that they don't have the expertise to manage them - this is where apple have always been strong in the education market, not only do they provide education with discount pricing, they often provide training and services at a price point education can understand (and its well marketed to them)
This official pressrelease just in from Apple Headquarters:
"We regret to announce this delay in the release of the new iMac. The reason for this delay is that we are close to developing a mouse with MORE THAN ONE BUTTON! Although we know that many people are eagerly awaiting the new iMac we believe that most users, when introduced to a multi-button mouse, will agree that it was worth the delay."
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
I'm not sure how valid this thought is but it would seem that using Apple products in a school (talked about in the article) setting would pidgeon hole students into a very limited sector of the market.
That is moronic, and yet oddly it is used by school districts all the time to put a Windows monoculture in place. Think about it: what system could possibly be used that isn't totally outdated by the time kids graduate in 5 years? Even if you gave them expert-level training on Windows XP, Microsoft's defacto standard that enjoys a monopoly position, that "education" is down the drain when Longhorn ships. The same is true of any non-monopoly system, too. The pigeon hole playing field is pretty level.
I would have loved being able to choose to work on a platform of my choosing instead of being forced into one thing.
Kids don't know shit. Platforms of their "own choosing" are video game consoles. Teachers aren't there to follow the students' instruction; it's the other way around. What school administration needs to go with is a computer that will build a technology base for the students without causing the teachers a lot of headaches. That neither describes Windows nor Linux.
Standards don't have to be free. Something can be a standard as long as it is appointed one by the relevant standards commitee.
eg. MPEG4 isn't free.
We have no windows only machines in the labs, they either dual boot, are linux only, or are G5s. So it does seem to depend on where you attend. Our network is managed by the department, and largely by student, however, people are fighting to keep it this way, if college IT gets hold of it, I dread to think what might happen.
Apple as been a very secretive company in its past, which is absolutely bad if you wanna get in the entreprise market which Apple has now started to try. Even the media market can't deal with secrecy anymore, it's fun to be surprised but it might cost you a lot by realizing the new product fits way better than the old for less money.
Anyway, thing is, Apple should always do this, maybe not a year in advance but a few month is good, let's hope this isn't just a reaction to a problem but the beginning of a new attitude...
The reason I know because about 10 days ago I ordered a 15inch iMac for my biz. but a couple days later Apple sends me an email informing me I've been upgraded to a 17inch iMac. So right now only 17 and 20inch iMacs are in inventory, but I'm sure you can find some more at say CompUSA and Apple Stores and Apple resellers.
> Its a horrible OS to write software in, IMHO
:-)
Even if you hadn't written you were a CS student, it would've been kind of obvious by the ivory-tower snarkiness of that post
Windows is a pretty good OS to write software for, depending on the kind of software you make. Remember the time when Sun's Windows JVM actually ran better than its Solaris JVM? Compared to the Linux crowd, Microsoft _knows_ how to put a desktop OS together, even if it's a Renault minivan compared to OS X's BMW.
OTOH, you have to realize that 95% of students are using computers to surf the web, send e-mail, and write papers...and thats it
Are you saying that because the Linux desktop can now do email+web in a semi-decent manner (thanks to Moz) we should accept a _drop_ in usability and go to an inferior desktop? What happens when I want to make my digital video camera work? What happens when I want my MP3 player to work? And please don't point me to half-assed SF.net projects, give me something a typical history major could use.
And even if you were talking about college procurements, why *should* colleges buy the lowest common denominator especially when it will be reviled by everyone except the CS department? Yeah, in the ideal world, they'd buy only Macs and make the both the history majors and the CS crowd happy, but go take Economics 101 and figure out why that's not likely anytime soon.
The bottom line is that generally speaking, schools should just buy whatever is the best deal. Whether it is the most widely used platform or not is completely insignificant at this point.
Right now, Windows *is* the best deal. Like all best deals, it is a compromise. It makes History majors reasonably happy, it makes the beancounters reasonably happy, and the CS folk tolerate it because they can use Cygwin or SFU.
Go somewhere random
Yeah, yeah, someone says it every time. But seriously, if a company like MS did this, the same people who I see here calling this a 'legitimate business tactic' and 'good marketing' would be calling it a shallow, greedy attempt to abuse market power.
No, I'm fairly sure a lot of slashdotters would rejoice if Microsoft were to delay a product until it's truly ready. Throw in the discontinuation of the current product as well and you've got the ingredients for the declaration of a bonafide Open Source holiday.
On a serious note, I think you've fallen into the trap of thinking the specific action is what people object to. Nobody really cares about integrating a browser into the OS (although the way MS did it, technologically, was a big screw-up--but that confuses the issue, there are many instances (WebKit on OS X, Konqeror on KDE) where it's been done right). It's not the action, it's the ultimate effect the action has on the user that people really are fed up with.
Which brings us back to the topic at hand. What is the effect of Apple's announcement? Media buzz? Big deal, who cares. It doesn't quash Dell or IBM by locking them out of a market, it doesn't pull the rug out from under the consumer. In fact, it's the result of a screw up at Apple, and they're afraid of an already slow and, to some, stale product continuing to get ever more slow and stale. They've fessed up, and humbled themselves before the consumer. What they've done is take a bad situation and do the right thing about it.
This is a good thing, and if MS did it, I, for one, would find it refreshing. Sadly, MS rarely does the right thing, so I have to look to Apple (and, for other but somewhat similar reasons, IBM) for a company that I can feel good about dealing with--that the persuit of money doesn't corrupt everything it touches, as it so often seems to do (such as you see with the RIAA, MS, and Sony's ATRAC players).
Well, if Apple's flat out of iMacs for at least two full months, my guess is whatever little inventory is out there on the market shouldn't have that much difficulty finding happy new owners who don't want to wait 'till September.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
As a CS student, I often wonder why are labs are all WIndows. Its a horrible OS to write software in, IMHO.
It's especially a horrible OS to run a lab on. Ditto for Macs.
I don't see for the life of me how a university with a comprehensive identity-management system (they all have one, if they have email) gets by having desktop settings and file access tied to the machine and not the user. 'Specially given that college kids are not exactly sedentary.
When I was in school, we still used telnet and pine on AIX to check email. That at least gave you a small, portable console environment that was your own. Now that schools are moving to web-based email, things are even worse.
Three words, unis: Sun m.f.-ing Rays. The kids get their own desktop preferences, browser settings, bookmarks and files wherever they go; everyone's happy.
Thank you for your support.
Surely these delays are a death knell for Apple. It is only a matter of time before they go under. 2005 will be the year that Apple dies. If not then, definitely by 2027 (or very soon after that!).
If your CS lab is forcing you to code in Windows, they're doing something wrong. You should be coding platform-independant C, which you sure as heck won't be getting on Windows (unless you're using a godawful DOS prompt).
What are you talking about? What does developing from the cmd shell have to do with what type of code you can write? You can write code that's just as portable in Windows as pretty much any other platform at the level that portability is reasonably maintainable (i.e. no gui's). Unless you're definition of portable means "*nix" of course.
Plus what the hell difference does it make what platform you're writing in (even notwithstanding the fact that the guys lab is using the same OS that is significantly more likely to land that person a job), the point is to learn how to code. You talk about platform independence, then you start spouting off about restricting the platform (for dubious technical reasons).
He made that nice black NeXT cube way back when. Nobody much bought it so perhaps he reckons it's bad luck!
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
And even if it did have three buttons, many people including me still wouldn't want to use an Apple bundled mouse. They're never going to equal a good quality Logitech - the margins couldn't handle the manufacturing overhead.
With a bit of logic, a one-button really is the best one-size-fits-all for Apple:
Many long time Mac owners do actually like one button mice, and/or not having to right-click the interface.
Those that want the extra buttons / scrollwheel / finger massager can and will buy their own.
Bundled mice are always cheap to manufacture, discerning buyers will want better than Apple needs to spend to keep the price where it is.
A lowest common denominator of one button encourages developers not to rely on right-clicking to drive their software.
Right-clicking should not be an essential means of driving an interface. It is under Windows, it is not under Mac OS.
One button mice help keep it that way.
Conclusion: the one button Mac mouse is here to stay, and it is better that way, even though many of us throw it away.
I think I have an idea of what the new design will be like, assuming they go for a whole new look. Remember what they did with the PowerMacs last year at WWDC and the monitors this year at WWDC (and last year with the finder). That's right! The next iMac is going to be brushed metal. Is this a fact? Hell no. Does it sound reasonable by extrapolating their current design patters? Sure... why not. Plus, it is the most interesting thing I can come up with at 04:50 in the morning.
Andrew
...which may explain why Jon was last seen wandering around Steve Jobs' vegetable patch muttering "I know we've got to ship, but all I can come up with is these damn broccoli sticks."
It seems Apple has been changing their entire product line so that they all have aluminum casing. They changed the iBooks so that they had them. Then the Power Mac G5 had one. The iPod minis have them. The new displays all have them. Maybe they're going to change the iMac casing as well.
It isn't true at all, if you go through their 10K report you'll see that they hold about 16-18 days worth of inventory.
The average person doesn't even keep up with release news. None of my 200 clients or so had even heard that there was a World Wide Developer Conference or that Apple had introduced new displays.
The real reason is supposedly two fold.
IBM is JUST NOW catching up with demand on PowerMacs for the G5. This computer will most likely be a G5. Demand is expected be met within the next few days to a week and then production in Taiwan on the new design iMac (most likely with a G5 but definitely with an IBM chip) will begin.
We'll most likely see 1.6 1.8 and 2.0 single versions - the iMac will become Apple's single processor line and the Pro line will be it's dual processor line. As you can imagine, that's a lot of chips to produce.
Apple is changing it's patterns, instead of building demand only to not ship and customers losing interest, they are building interest THEN shipping on time. This has pretty much been on the advice of IBM - and after the intro of 2.5 Ghz G5s and the backtrack on 3Ghz.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
The fact that its an "all new iMac" line hints at these models being G5 based. I don't see Apple completely redesinging the iMac just to release another G4 version. This would mean another complete redesign before they go G5. IBM seems to claim that the 970FX can run at very low power consumptions and is even suitable for a laptop. I am almost certain that these iMacs will be G5 based.
Dunno about anyone else, but in the picture box for the article is a picture of the Sony HD-based MP3 player (mentioned yesterday).
Maybe this is how Sony plans on selling it? Confusing people about it being an Apple product?
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
I can't quite figure out why Apple didn't roll out a prototype of the iMac at WWDC or spill a few pictures to the rumor sites (to quickly remove later). Is there more buzz to be had by not hinting at what's to come? I mean Apple stock took a 6% drop in the futures market already -- wouldn't building up some kind of semi-tangible excitment help mitigate that?
;^D Toss your stockholders a bone!
Apparently not, as Apple seems to make pretty smart PR moves, but I still wonder -- Why not spill the beans now? I suppose the G5 in the iMac is a shoo-in at this point (and we'd be disappointed if it wasn't), but how about another hint or two? Maybe it'll show movies from the net and replace your TV. Maybe the floppy's back!
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Apple currently has two distinct case types. White for home, and metallic for professional.
The iBook, iMac and iPod are all white, while the Powerbook, Powermac and XServe are metallic.
Find funky gifts
Here's a wild idea for you: a CS college, like any college, is supposed to prepare you to do actual useful work in the real world.
There are a bunch of things you'll discover when you get out of college. Not of all nice. Actually few of them nice. There's a reason why it's the job where, in spite of the good money and all, satisfaction is lower than among plumbers and shoe sales clerks.
Believe it or not, being a programmer isn't about having fun with the platform or tools of your choice. When you go out in the real world, you're going to have to make the programs that the client wants. On the platform of _their_ choice, and often even having the language, tools and frameworks thrust upon you by some management decision. In 9 cases out of 10 the wrong tools and frameworks.
You're also likely going to have to learn to function in a team. Aside from other considerations, that means being able to live with the architecture, OS, tools and frameworks that someone else in the team chose.
(You're also going to have to live with such specs as "All text must be in 7 pixel fonts, in dark cyan on neon blue". Or light orange on orange-ish yellow. No, honestly, I've actually had to make programs for those exact two corporate colour schemes.)
I.e., some day you'll be glad you have those Windows labs on your CV. It might just be what your customer wants you to write software for.
Horrible as you may find it. Personally I don't. But it still beats being unemployed.
That said, of course, I would question any CS college which has _only_ Windows on the menu. Wouldn't hurt at all to give you at least some minimal idea about other stuff too.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Apple is famous for doing stunts like this for hype. But, I think this one might have been a flub on the forecasting. Maybe outsourcing is biting them in the butt this time.
:)
Whatever the cause, it's mysterious and it's anybody's guess. Jobs is probably whipping up a huge frenzy and they might spring it on everyone a bit earlier than they announced.
No matter what, we're all just rumor whores on this thread anyway
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Not content with ripping off Watson, they've now stolen the features for another product without proper recompense and included it in their "Tiger" OS.
Not content with doing any actual research on this story, now you've propogated the misconception that Dashboard was "stolen" from Konfabulator.
For John Gruber's excellent write-up on why this "spin" is plain wrong, read here.
It comes down to the philosophy of the OS used in the schools. If you've used Windows95, you can used WindowsXP...not too much has changed. Try going from XP to OSX....it's a little tougher you see.
It's only tougher if you've done a poor job teaching (or learning). Sitting down in front of a computer for a student shouldn't be about learning that one system, it should be either about learning general computation or, conversely, have nothing to do with the technology at all (e.g., Lemonade Stand).
So if you're going to pick on OS, you may as well make it a version of the most popular one.
From an education standpoint, that's totally backwards. If you're going to pick an OS, you are doing a disservice to the students if you just give them the same thing they can get anywhere the MS monopoly extends. A student (everyone, really) is better served by broad exposure to multiple different platforms.
Not that it matters, schools are teching kids to "Wordprocess and make presentations". These are good skills, but the schools should be teaching a little more about the computer itself. Give them tools so they are better able to figure out an unfamiliar app or system.
Which totally contradicts what you just said. How could you expect them to figure out the unfamiliar when all they are exposed to is Word or PowerPoint or Internet Explorer? It's that kind of limited environment that turns them into adults with poor computer skills.
I'm not trying to troll when I called Linux an inferior desktop (well, considering this /. it was probably unintended flamebait :-)) -- please realize: most history majors do _not_ have the time or patience to go back time and again and download the latest and greatest distros to solve basic hardware interop issues that are no-brainers in Windows XP or OS X*. Hell, I've helped folk on LUGs with sendmail.cf back in the day and I chafed at the idiocy I had to put up with while connecting a scanner. (cue to jwz's famous Linux-is-free-if-your-time-has-no-value rant here).
Regarding cameras: USB mass-storage devices (which'd imply most cameras) might work with KDE and Gnome now (I last used Gnome 2.2), but what about USB devices that don't implement a mass-storage interface, e.g. the Creative Zen, which stupidly doesn't implement one for its music library? How easily can Aunt Tillie hook up her iPod on KDE?
*Yeah, this is all because of proprietary hardware. Who said life was fair?
Go somewhere random
d) Apple engineers are trying to get the G5 into a form factor that is up to apple standards, not Dell Standards.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The upcoming iMac is called iMLate
It is stupid, but it all comes down to quarterly profits. If they are late shipping something, that means that it will miss part of the revenue it was expected to generate for whatever quarter it was suppose to come out.
That means that ther is a higher chance that earnings will not be as good as expected. Investors don't like this sort of thing.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
You just have a crappily run IT system at your school. At my university, they set stuff up so that your personal filespace is on a Linux server (running AFS), and all your preferences, bookmarks, and so on get saved to the network drive automatically. If you double click on the mail client, it opens your email. If you set up an icon on the desktop, or a desktop background, it will stay there when you log in on another machine. This works exactly the same on WinXP, Linux, and OSX from anywhere on campus, so it's very convenient.
WinXP is not too bad of a system, actually. It just requires a very skilled admin to lock it down and set it up for a multiuser system. Plus, the security holes are a biatch.
Slightly off topic, but is anyone else sick of the "i" prefix yet? iMac, iTunes, iLife, iPod - time to give it a rest.
the parent to this parent did do some homework, but they didn't bother to actually look for .09micron thermal numbers. The low end chips now (1.8 and 2.0GHz) come in at about half the thermal output of the .13 micron chips. They could easily fit in an iMac, thought the fan may spin up more often.
Just to put the new chips into perspective.. The max wattage for a 2Ghz Pentium-M is higher than than typical for the 1.8 (and I think 2.0) G5 cpu. PM, the darling of big punch - low power only runs cool at 600MHz.. when it's cranking, it's in the same league as the new G5.
I'm not feeling witty so bite me
actually, Jobs essentially announced the new iMacs to be coming in September during the WWDC keynote. It was just in a subliminal form. Watch the keynote again for his presentation on the spotlight/search technology in forthcoming Tiger. First, he does a search for "iMac". Then he does a search (in addressbook) for "Paris". Mac Expo in Paris is during the first week of September :)
-Q
Or it may be that since there still seems to be a shortage of G5's for Apple's high-end gear, there may also be a shortage of G5's suitable for iMacs.
I assume the G5's for iMacs don't need to be as fast but they may need to be more conservative in the power consumption/heat generation category. If the new iMac was designed based on IBM saying a 2 GHz G5 will consume xx amount of power, generating yy amound of heat, and it ends up consuming 20% more power and generating more heat, that's a big problem.
Hitting the clock speed and power consumption requirements simultaneously really seems to be a problem everyone's having with the 90 nm process.