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Apple Confirms G5 Based iMac to Ship in September
evn writes "Apple Insider and Yahoo News are carrying stories about Apple's 3rd quarter report including confirmation of a G5 iMac during Apple's webcast conference call to discuss the filing: 'IBM's manufacturing problems have also impacted our next generation iMac. We normally don't talk about unannounced products but we feel you need to know about the current situation. The new iMac is based on the G5 processor. We could not secure the necessary supply of G5 processors to launch our new iMac on schedule: and as we indicated a few weeks ago, we now plan to announce and ship it in september.' Apple made $61 million dollars profit on $2.01 billion dollars in Q3/04 and had the highest CPU shipments in three and a half years."
This should clear up some of the speculation surrounding the new iMacs, and leave less people ticked off and whining about them announcing the release of them and then pushing it back.
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
Its amazing how shallow their profit margins are, even with the common perception that "Apple is price-gouging" and whatnot. But hey, kudos on the $2bn gross revenue!
Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!
This probably isn't going to be the design they go with, but, I'd like to see them bring back the old 'pizzabox' design like they had with the old Mac LC. That way it could easily paired with whatever montior (even 30" LCD w00t.gif ) But my guess is that it will end up being a variation of the current 'desk lamp' design. Whatever it is, i'm sure it will be gorgeous.
Or perhaps the elusive G5 laptop is being put on hold until new battery types come out?
-I am an elective eunuch.
I just can't figure out what's causing Apple to be so damn candid about this shortage. In the past when things like were suspected (cough) G5 (cough) there wasn't a peep out of Cupertino.
What's causing this newfound openness?
into production when they don't even have enough G5s for the Powermacs and XServes right now. Myself, and a lot of internet posters are very frustrated with the delays in shipping. I ordered a dual g5 2 weeks ago, and if it doesn't ship out by tomorrow morning, I am just going to cancel it and build a dual opteron system I specced out on new egg(anyone have any suggestions for a motherboard?) I paid money for my computer, I expect it to be delivered in a timely fashion. I need it to get work done. It's rediculous to have to wait for 2 weeks to get something that you paid money for.
To quoth Cowboy Neal, "I wasn't born an Apple hater, I became one over time" or something along those lines.
Hopefully the new iMacs will be able to offer a less expensive alternative to the current models. I have been saving for a decent mac for some time (I'm a pc user, but want a mac for digital photography.) The inclusion of the monitor in traditional iMacs will drop the price considerably but how much is the question. Hopefully it won't be a long wait until the G5 laptops come out so I can get a mobile G5. Will the new G5 powered iMacs drive the price down on the current G5 models, or will they simply be a lower cost alternative? And what effect will this have? :-)
In nature, there are neither rewards or punishments, there are only consequences.
I KNOW...
I had to read the head line several times. Clearly something has happened to Steve Jobs to make him so...considerate.
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I wonder if Microsoft is regretting the choice of IBM to supply chips for the next XBox*?
;-)
Or maybe it's some machevellian plot whereby MS is paying IBM big $$ to stockpile chips for them, hence reducing Apple's supply?
Or am I totally off track and neXtBox chips are fabbed at a different plant?
*NB: There's no way I'm calling it XBox2, because MS are never going to have an *2 competing with a *3 (e.g. PS3).
gadgetophile.com
So July brought Apple 100,000,000 itunes song sales and September will bring new G5 iMacs, but according to this article, August will bring the first newly designed iPod, which will be similar to the Mini (scroll wheel with built in buttons?) but with the feature set of the non-mini iPods and capacities up to 60 GB.
As for September G5 iMacs, there was some blurb about them being able to hang on the wall. Apple's new 20", 23", and 30" displays can (see "Mounting Kit"). Wonder if this is a mixed up rumor or for real.
It would appear, as Apple's PowerMac line is all Dual G5, that some capacity has increased and it would follow that the iMac line will all be single processor.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
These 2 announcements (new ipod) have persuaded me to keep my $$ in my pocket until the new iMacs ship.
I for one am happy, but doesn't this go against Apple's usual way of doing business?
That said, what I'm really waiting for (along with half of Slashdot probably) is the G5 PowerBook. My old laptop (a 900mhz PIII) is starting to show it's age and I'm not sure how much longer I can hold out. I'd be happy even if the processor was only 1.4 ghz, that would be more than fast enough for me. The other thing I'd like would be an integrated media slot (to take SD cards, maybe memory sticks, or CF) as many notebooks seem to have these days.
So my question to the great and knowledgeable (don't snicker) Slashdot masses is: when do you think we might see a G5 laptop from Apple?
Personally, my expectation is that it will be announced sometime around X-Mas (possibly January).
I think that with lower clockspeeds (and the improvements that may show up by then) it should be possible to put a G5 in a laptop. I would REALLY like one, but I'm not sure I can hold out that long. If not, I'll buy a G4. I'm not sure I can hold out untill this time next year.
So knowledgeable /.ers, what do you think would be the most likely timeframe for a G5 based laptop from Apple?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Which could be used by 2, or more, users.
There was a story here on Slashdot about how some poor areas in Africa were getting 4 headed PCs running some *nix variant. (4 monitors, 4 sets of keyboards and mice, 1 CPU/box)
If Apple could allow people to use their own monitors and produce a headless iMac that allows wireless keyboard and mice to hook up to it (yeah. I know it would need at least 2 video cards and not the onboard, built in type Apple's consumer line always seems to have) then that would be a great product. OSX would have to be able to handle this, if not now, why not?
Think about it, it would reduce the price of the computer for families. Maybe people couldn't play Doom 3 together...or....could they with a g5 and the right hardware? But hey, it would
be cool and even at plus 1000bucks it would be cheap for the end user.
Just a thought..
I hope (fingers crossed) This. I doubt it though, Apple seems tied to including a monitor with thier consumer line :P
Linux is unix training wheels, while BSD *is* unix.
For the quarter, the Company posted a net profit of $61 million, or $.16 per diluted share. These results compare to a net profit of $19 million, or $.05 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue for the quarter was $2.014 billion, up 30 percent from the year-ago quarter. Apple has done very well setting themselves up in several markets. First off, apple has the iPod, which brings in revenue, as well as iTunes, another device to bring in money. But Mac's best move was to jump into education, and art. Apple markets its products aggressively to schools, and from my experience with high school computer labs, as well as colleges in my area, most are Mac based. Apple has pushed "laptop schools" and has been the driving power behind them. Many universities are clustering powermacs to create low cost super computers.
The second market is art. When it comes to digital photography, the number one computer I hear reccomended is the iMac. Digital Photography is not a huge market but it is a growing one, combine that with Mac's iLife suite, iMovie and final cut pro.
iTunes, the iPod, marketing to education and towards the arts are in my opinion, a solid footing that despite "low earnings" will keep Mac around for some time.
In nature, there are neither rewards or punishments, there are only consequences.
If by "other products", you mean the iPod mini or iTunes, sure, but otherwise, I'm just not sure about that. The iPod is a digital jukebox that ended up catering to Windows users for the sake of market dominance. Windows users who come to the ipod are not forced to unlearn old habits, or give up a selection of software for the sake of having a superior MP3/AAC player, but that's exactly what you have to do if you convert to Mac. Many of my Mac friends came from a broken Windows home, and migrated because of the simplicity and stability. Generally speaking, "stability" and "simplicity" or anything else like that aren't really big issues with things like MP3 players, since most MP3 players are created equal. Not Mac bashing at all, (very happy with my iMac
In any event, I'll have a new Mac to lust over for the next few months, which is just what I needed. After all, idle hands inadvertently install Windows ME, and you know how much God hates that.
"You and your third dimension."
Funny, I'm responding to this post on a four-year-old Mac which will probably stay in operation as a server until Ethernet becomes obsolete. What's this about throwing computers out?
Yeah, the Mac market doesn't work like the Wintel side of the fence. Thanks for trolling, though.
Although this sounds really nice, one thing I've noticed is that all of the previous versions (just like any lower end machine) have been pretty starved for ram, and with the G5 being a 64 bit processor, this could really exacerbate the problem. Ram prices don't seem to be getting any cheaper, so I wonder if they will raise the price and double the ram, or what. I've not worked on any of the newer generation imacs (last ones I did hardware work on were running OS 7 I think), but they are not really easy to upgrade later IIRC. This might lead some people to think the machines are much less powerful than they really are.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
...design and build their own chips. They design and build/assemble everything else, so the core compenent they should do as well. Ya, it would take some scratch, but they got it in the bank and their credit is good.
either that or buy Sun and do it right, and have top to bottom computer solutions
While 60 mil is a lot of money, it doesnt sound like a good return ... thats a pretty low percent overall.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
this would be an amazing break from apple's usual branding - the iMac has always been an all-in-one package, just like powermac has always been very expensive and headless (as far as i recall). but hey, we can hope.
Don't worry - its just stigmata. Pass me a napkin and don't you dare tell my mother.
Hrrm but the PS3 chip is a totally different concept - that 'Cell' thingy - isn't it? So it's probably designed and fabbed by a different team.
As far as I know, MS will be using a near-standard PowerPC chip in the XBox (like the original XBox chip was a standard x86 jobbie). Not sure if it's actually a G5, but it would make sense for it to be.
I imagine MS would ask for (as opposed to actually sell) an order of magnitute more volume from IBM than Apple uses. Question is, if IBM had trouble supplying Apple, how can they supply MS?
gadgetophile.com
"Its amazing how shallow their profit margins are, even with the common perception that "Apple is price-gouging" and whatnot."
I wonder if it's more a situation where Apple took a lot of one-time charges against a good fiscal period. Minimize taxes while simultaneously "expensing while the expensing's good".
Re: the common perception of "price gouging" (not yours of course), today yet again my Gateway wintel box crapped out. 4th time in 3.5 years. Hardware failure. The Dell next to it crapped out a few months earlier. 3rd time in 1.5 years. Meanwhile my 1999 PowerMac G4 and 1995 PowerMac 7600 have chugged along without a hitch to this day.
Those rock-bottom priced consumer PCs are no bargain at all. Good components cost $$$, and on average you get what you pay for.
And yes, I realize there are quality Intel/AMD boxes out there. They also cost a good bit more than your average Dell consumer bargain box.
The problem, though, is not the chip itself, but the manufacturing process. IBM has the highest-tech manufacturing plant for CPUs, yet the 90nm bump has them stumped. If Apple were to design their CPU, they'd still have to send them to SOMEONE to have them fabbed.
... most of which was stashed away in the 1980s when Apple was profitible.
I keep waiting to see where Apple might spend some of that bank account. Because over the last 4 years they haven't been using it to increase Mac marketshare.
You pay in terms of choice. No, you'll likely not see a monitor option. iMacs are all-in-one systems, and that seems to be what Apple wants.
What you REALLY want is a consumer desktop/small tower. I know many, many Mac users who have been asking for the same thing for a long time. Your choices with Apple are either an consumer level all-in-one, or a workstation level tower. Those are both fine, but I do know many like you that would like a lower end tower (smaller case, less CPU, no PCI-X, etc).
However, choice is one of the things you sacrafice going to Macs. Their philsophy since, well, as long as I can remember has been they design the whole system, hardware and software, and present the package to the consumer. Means a limited number of choices in packages.
I don't find it likely Apple will change their lineup or their bussiness strategy so no, you probably won't see a no monitor iMac. If the issue is price, not space, you might want to look at buying an old G4 tower, they still sell those. At this point, the enter at about the same pricepoint as the iMac, but with no monitor (better internals though).
Say Apple, in this example, makes one computer that costs $800 to make. If they sell it for $2000 and 1,000,000 people buy it, they make a profit 1.2 billion dollars. If they instead sell it for $1500, and 3,000,000 people buy it, then they'll make a profit of 2.1 billion dollars.
In the latter example Apple is making a bigger profit, AND has larger market share (which I imagine has its advantages too).
So I can't really understand Jobs when he said that. Macs aren't BMWs, they're tools for sending email and browsing the web (to a lot of people). That's not different than the nicely-priced PC. It doesn't seem at all that they are tagetting a different market... so wtf? Though I have no proof, I would wager that Apple could make bigger profits if they priced the computers better and put them into more stores. But I can't think of a reason why Apple wouldn't want more profits.. except to maintain some elitism.
Obviously Apple isn't dying, but maybe they aren't growing and profiting as much as they could be.
It would be stupid to not throw some information out there. Now, many people will simply wait for a new iMac, now that they know the new one will be a G5. Without that information, they'd ask themselves why they should pass up on alternatives when the new iMac may or may not meet their requirements.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
The last Apple product that I used until recently was an Apple 2, and that was 20 years ago. Ever since 1983, I have been using PC's. Hard core. I hated the Mac.
Got an ipod in February. It's simplicity made sense, and I thought that PC devices should be more like it. In fact, my "pc sense" of "gee, new device, lemme get the new drivers before I use it" messed up my first installation.
I had been mulling over getting a Mac since that purchase, and finally bit the bullet and got it last weekend.
Essentially, my experience with an ipod encouraged me to look at the computer products in a new light, and I purchased one.
There are some things about the Mac that I am impressed with, and some things about it that make me shake my head in disgust.
Overall, I am happy with it.
I know at least 5 other hard core "PC biggots" in the same boat.
Wireless Monitor.
It will have bluetooth built in so it will sync with wireless mouse and keyboard, but the monitor will not be wired to the box. Monitor will also have a built in trackpad.
User input will be sent (via airport-like dingus) to the box, and video will be sent back to monitor in the same manner.
You'll be able to take the monitor (via built in handle) to your couch and surf wirelessly.
Monitor sets into the base station (box) to get charged and become a sharp looking desktop machine.
Monitor might be able to travel and connect to other macs wirelessly (eg: log into an wifi-equipped laptop).
Ok, that's my dream. Make it happen.
My father is a blogger.
It's quite a change from G4 to G5. Not just something silly like a few more MHz. I'm a eunuch--I'm patient.
-I am an elective eunuch.
What I also found really interesting was the fact they shipped 13000 Xserves (a quarterly record), in a time when they were dealing with IBM's 90 nm teething pains.
A good 40% of those Xserves were destined for clusters too.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Apple acrued ALL their cash during the Fred Anderson era (1996-2004). The big chunks derived from a convertible debenture and a couple of well timed ARM stock sales. They paid off their debt with some of those procedes and then invested the rest wisely. Exactly none of this money is from the 1980s.
$61million in profits can barely drive R&D for a company like Dell or Gateway.
IANACPA, but I'd expect that a corporation would count R&D as an expense, and therefore someething that's deducted from revenue along with all the other expenses like payroll, raw materials, rent, equipment, taxes, beer bashes, corporate jet, marketing, legal expenses, warehouses, etc. Profit is what's left over after you subtract all those things from revenue.
According to it's annual report, Apple spent $471 million on R&D in 2003. I couldn't find any statement of R&D expenses in Dell's 2003 annual report, but I did learn that Dell had about $35 billion in revenue for that year. Fool.com tells us that Dell spends about 2% of sales on R&D, and if we agree that most of Dell's revenue comes from sales, we can guess that Dell probably spends around $700 million a year on R&D.
So yes, Apple's $61 million profit for the quarter wouldn't put much of a dent in Dell's R&D budget, but neither would it come even close to covering Apple's R&D.
Any thoughts on how long apple can keep up results this mediocre?
If they want to run the company like a Dell, not very long at all. But given that Apple is not Dell, and that people have been unsuccessfully predicting its demise since the introduction of the IBM PC in 1981, I think they can keep it up for quite a while. And I hope they do, as Apple has been the most important innovator in the personal computer market for the last 28 years.
There is no Mac article without post mentioning Macs are expensive. Sometimes, I gotta wonder if people only look at dollar amount only to decide if something expensive.
Is a $50K Lamborghini expensive? Certainly, it costs more than a KIA
Is a $20 fillet mignon expensive? After all you can get a T-Bone for much less
Is a $200 diamond expensive if you can get cubic zirconia for $100?
Isn't expensiveness relative to what you actually getting? It's shown over an over that Apple hardware can have a good price/performance/feature ratios. One just need to find comparable laptops or desktops to Powerbooks/iBooks or PM G5 to see the value. Okay, so they need to work on the iMac line. But one should not compare Macs to $200 piece of junk since Apple doesn't make low quality computers.
The Power 5 chips are fabricated in thier smooth running 200mm fab while the G5s are fabed in the still in the works 300mm fab. - Cowardly IBMr
Macintoshes are Macintoshes and Performas are stripped down, lobotomized, unexpandable Macs. Or Powermacs with their balls cut off, depending.
:|
Apple has the Macintosh and Centris / Performa lines throughout the 68k era. Macintoshes with the Power PC chip were called Power Macintoshes. They still came in at least four flavors- slim desktop, desktop, all in one, minitower.
Powermacs were always expandable. Performas were always limited- but most of 'em had slots of some kind. It's only with the advent of the iMac that Apple has ditched the Performa name and pretty much any possibility of internal expandability. Performa meant "crap" in a lot of circles, whereas Power Macintosh (basically, "Mac" these days) didn't.
I'm with a lot of the other posters to this thread- I'd LOVE a headless "performa" grade machine from Apple.
I bought that PowerBook last week! I have so far been incredibly happy with it. I have barely touched my PC since, and have only SSHed into my linux/BSD boxes a couple of times to change some settings.
The emperor is naked.
I have a machine way smaller than yours: iBook G3 600Mhz, 384Meg RAM and 20Gig harddisk. I never boot up my PC (which is a frigging AMD Athlon 2400+ MP), unless I need to make my timesheet for work which is a "Visual Basic Enhanced" Excel sheet. The iBook still doesn't feel that slow, but I'll probably be first in line for a G5 notebook... even if that means waiting another 12 to 18 months.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. It's clear that Apple portions its R&D spending much differently, but Dell is certainly known for trimming fat so it's unlikely that their R&D budget is purely wasted. I think it's safe to say that Dell spends a lot of its budget making sure its products work properly in the ways high volume customers desire. Compared to Apple, Dell contributes much more there and the industry benefits. In addition, Dell doesn't perceive its image and a (non-)innovator as an issue for its market, so the money it spends there is more behind the scenes (and selectively spent).
People who perceive that Dell does nothing in terms of R&D are naiive. A company that size cannot afford not to and the numbers presented here simply bear that out. That was my point. Apple has a much more limited product line and does not have to support the breadth of hardware and software that Dell does. They can afford less spending there in exchange for significant investments in OS and application development. All told, considering the investment in R&D is similar and the profitability is and order of magnitude different, it's easy to understand where I want my money invested.
Perhaps, but the question is: Will the G5 be able to scale to those heights of performance without:
a) Costing an arm/leg
b) Relying on shaky chip die shrink processes resulting low chip volume (current situation)
My main issue here is that Apple continues to extend themselves with this processor. IBM is the only manufacturer of the G5 series and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. This isn't the case with x86 and with a clear upgrade path to 64 bits, I think it's a missed opportunity.
Nonetheless, I really do hope IBM figures this out - I did have higher expectations of them than Motorola. The G5 is an awesome chip... When you can FIND one!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
You forgot resale value.
If I'd known then what used Apples retail for, I'd have bought an iBook years ago. You should consider doing so.
If you don't wish to buy on credit, then you're obviously thinking in the long term (avoiding interest payments = you do better in the long run). If so, being able to sell back your old computer makes your next purchase more affordable.