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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.
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!
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. .
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...
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).
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).
Precisely. And anyway, if you do want to give the kids exposure to what Windows will be like in 5 years, showing them Mac OS now is an excellent way to do it.
...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."
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