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."

Comments

Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple pre-announcing a product, that is. Combine that with the Garfield movie, and I think we're only one very short step away from Armageddon... (but then, with such things as the Garfield movie, Armageddon can only be an improvement.)

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[carn311]

I KNOW...

I had to read the head line several times. Clearly something has happened to Steve Jobs to make him so...considerate.

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[wankledot]

Typically they don't pre-announce so that the new upcoming product doesn't stunt sales of the current product. But in this case, they stopped selling the old one, so you might as well fire up the Hype Engine early.

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[LWATCDR]

You left out Caddilac making a pickup truck.
I have to think it all started when Bing Crosby did a duet with David Bowie all those years ago.

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[ichandarin]

Don't forget:

Doom 3 release imminent; Eurasia ruled by antichrist

My memory of revelations is weak; which is supposed to come next: The Twelve Riders of The Apocalopse or Duke Nukem 3?

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[ArbitraryConstant]

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.

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[dasmegabyte]

I don't know that this is the ONLY reason Apple doesn't preannounce products. After all, they don't pre-announce completely new devices (such as the new Airport Express) or new software packages (iTunes for Windows was almost a surprise).

Besides, what did they pre-announce? I think we all guessed that the iMac would be back and it would have a G5 in it. It's not an announcment, really, until we can see how they've changed the DVD Lamp's looks to match its new guts. I mean, this is Apple after all. No product is announced until there's a Quicktime 3D walkaround for it.

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[iamacat]

so you might as well fire up the Hype Engine early

How about some customer relations engine then? Like giving a good discount to people who are stranded without a computer they want and are willing to preorder and wait?

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[Ohreally_factor]

The main reason is that Osbourne put a curse on Steve Jobs back in 1979.

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[raodin]

Consider the prices of the current iMacs and iBooks for a moment - The low-end iBook matches the low-end iMac in everything but hard drive space, and its $200 cheaper. You can bump that drive up to a 60gb (the iMac's is 80) for $75, and you'll still have $125 more than if you bought the iMac.

I'm not willing to *pay* $125 to be tied to a desk, are you? Maybe a few people would be willing to pay the extra for the larger, but same resolution, LCD. Personally I think the portability and $125 are worth the 3" though.

I think this probably had quite bit of influence on Apple's decision to discontinue the G4 iMacs so long before their replacements are available - the iBooks undercutting the iMacs like that couldn't have been good for sales.

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[Matrix9180]

http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh &story=Tell_Adam_Hes_An_Asshole.txt
http://oldcomputers.net/osborne.html

For a bit more on "Osborne"

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[avendasora]

After all, they don't pre-announce completely new devices (such as the new Airport Express) or new software packages (iTunes for Windows was almost a surprise).

Your kidding, right? The Airport Express was pre-announced by over a month (it just started shipping), and they announced iTunes for Windows nearly 6 months before it was released!

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[nacturation]

What's really a sign of armageddon is the article summary:

Apple made $61 million dollars profit on $2.01 billion dollars in Q3/04

Public service announcement follows: If you put the dollar sign in front of a number, eg: $2, this is pronounced as "two dollars". If you then place the word dollars after it, eg: $2 dollars, this is pronounced as "two dollars dollars". Either have the dollar sign or have the word dollars, but don't have both.

This public service announcement brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[squiggleslash]

...which actually makes the whole thing even wierder, because assuming Apple's claim that they'll ship the iMac G5 by mid-september is true, they're actually being less forthcoming with information, not more.

The PowerMac G5 was announced and shown at WWDC last year, and then the first units shipped at the end of August, beginning of September. Here, on the other hand, we are merely being told of a machine's existance in a similar timeframe away from it being shipped.

What's up with that? What happened that's so bad, Jobs couldn't even demo the machine? Were these G5 shortages so bad Apple couldn't even mock up a prototype machine?

This doesn't make any sense to me.

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[dasmegabyte]

A pre-announcment means that they haven't started making the product yet, not that it isn't commercially available yet. The Airport Express was done and working when they announced it last month -- but factory delays meant they couldn't ship until now. Counter this with the way most companys operate -- which is announcing a product or displaying a mock up before work on the product has even begun -- and you see where Apple does things a little differently.

Also, you'll notice when Company X announces a new product, their stock price rises. When Apple announces a new product, their stock promptly falls. This is because Apple is actually an anti-company.

Re:Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse?

[elemental23]

What's really a sign of armageddon is the article summary:

Actually, Slashdot posting a story devoid of spelling and grammatical errors is the real sign of the apocalypse.

Good for Apple

[Draconix]

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.

Wow...

[Mysticalfruit]

What Jobs didn't announce was that they had started a new initative called "iSoul" where for a small "fee" you can have a G5 imac.

remarkable...

[npistentis]

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!

Re:remarkable...

[squiggleslash]

He certainly does get taken care of. There's a rather odd arrangement where they bought him a private jet and lease it back from him.. He gets about a million dollars a year from the arrangement.

Cooling

[jdwest]

Cooling issues are at the heart. For those who did not catch it, Apple unloaded on IBM today during the Q3 conference call for delays. IBM promises to have its wafer problems fixed by Q1.

Re:Cooling

[gerardrj]

No.. supply issues are the problem. This was clearly asked and answered in the call.

Question from Steve Malinivich: "To continue on the PPC issue, there's been some suggestion on the web that you have a heating issue with iMac as well, are you saying that's not at all the problem and that its purely the availability of microprocessors?"

Answer: "Steve: The processor is the most critical factor."

They don't say that heat is not an issue at all, but they clearly state that processor supply is, as you say, at the heart. Once can easily see that heating, while perhaps a concern, is not what's causing the delay.

Re:Cooling

[squiggleslash]

You know, they had problems with the supply of G5s last year when they previewed the PowerMac G5 at WWDC, at that point there were no mass-manufactured G5s at all. It wasn't until August/September that PowerMacs started to ship. So it doesn't really explain the lack of a public showing of the new iMac.

I'd also say the quote "The processor is the most critical factor" is deliberately ambiguous. It could mean "There aren't enough of them", it could mean "They run too hot".

Re:Cooling

[squiggleslash]

Well, then what interpretation fits? If Apple was being "forthright" and the issue was availability, surely Apple would have said "The availability of the processor is the most critical factor" or even "The lack of availability of the processor is the major hold-up."

This is a deliberately ambiguous statement. The question was asked twice, suggesting to me that reporters covering the event felt it wasn't a straight answer too.

Design for g5 imac

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Design for g5 imac

[alfredo]

Will they make the iMac out of Aluminum, driving the design teams for other companies to slash their wrists.

Re:Design for g5 imac

[MarcQuadra]

Isn't it funny how SFF machiens are back in style? Several Macs would be considered SFF these days. Hell, I just puled a Quadra 660AV from the curb and it's a lot more compact than most PCs today.

I'd love to strangle the idiot who came up with the idea that everyone wanted six PCI slots, especially since integration has been getting better and more pervasive for the last decade.

I consider myself a geek, but my box is only using two slots of six right now (AGP and 1 PCI). I was actually looking for a micro-atx (3 PCI slots) board but none were available with the chipset I sought.

It would be nice if Apple came out with an SFF system with standard ports, or an SFF system that could operate withthird-party monitors but also came with a kit to mount on the rear of their own displays.

Re:Design for g5 imac

[Okonomiyaki]

There's a really good point to made about PCI slots and the Mac vs PC debate. Back when I was more involved with all this stuff I remember a lot of people using the argument that Macs (we're talking Power Macs here, this would be around the days of the blue and white G3s and the first G4s) didn't have enough expandability in the way of PCI. I never could understand that. You've got audio, ethernet and later on, Firewire built into the board. What more do you want? Three displays, a TV tuner, and a fiber card?

Re:Design for g5 imac

[MarcQuadra]

No, not like the G4 Cube, the cube was an iMac without the monitor. The thing I'm imagining is a small-form uniprocessor G5 box with one PCI-X slot, two 3.5" internal SATA drive bays, two RAM slots, onboard-everything, and a firewire-800 SuperDrive with built-in FW800 and FW->USB2 hub.

The video would be ADC-out, but DVI dongles are cheap (because ADC IS DVI with extra pins), and the thing would come with some sort of mounting to let it attach to the back of the new LCD monitors or be mounted on the underside of a desk.

All you'd have on the desk would be your monitor and the SuperDrive, which would have plugs for the keyboard and mouse (hence the firewire-USB2 hub inside the SuperDrive enclosure).

Hell, you could take it even another level: throw an iPod dock on the SuperDrive enclosure, and Apple's powered speaker port, and the WiFi slot. You'd have all your 'perhipherals' out on this nice upgradeable CD-ROM sized box on your desk, while the CPU sits in another little box behind the monitor or under the desk.

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any thoughts on how long apple can keep up results this mediocre?

Generally if a company is continually making profits, they can keep things up for oh... just about forever.

What makes you think this is a BAD thing for Apple?

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say for a pretty damn long time according to this line: Apple remains a debt-free company with $4.96 billion in cash.

And yet...

[Draconix]

Look what Apple comes out with on its resources. What does that say of other companies' R&D?

Candid

[mrpuffypants]

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?

Re:Candid

[JeffTL]

Frankly put, Apple ran out of G4 iMacs. Either sales were better than expected, IBM was worse than expected, or both. They STILL have G4 Power Macs, having just quit making them, so they didn't want to cannibalize sales on the Power Mac G5 release. Now they want to get people excited so they keep their pants on and don't go get a Dell or even settle for an eMac before September. Besides, it's nice to let your stockholders know what's up when you have hit a mishap -- remind them that the dark cloud of no iMacs has a 64-bit silicon lining.

Re:Candid

[MBCook]

My understanding was that was because of supply and inventory snafoos, they basically ended up running out of inventory too soon. This meant that they had the factories shut down (actually probably converted to the new iMac but it doesn't matter) and so they couldn't make more (without taking a major hit). So they were stuck with a major chunk of their product line out of the running for two months or more. They basically had to announce what was going on, or face being a computer company without desktop computers (eMacs are "educational", not "desktop") for two months. Yeah, that would look good.

So basically their planning didn't work out and they had to do something, this was probably their best option.

So, in a way, their hand was forced (IMHO).

Hopefully...

[Lifix]

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? :-)

Re:Hopefully...

[amichalo]

Don't hold your breath.

This has been said many, MANY times before: Apple does not drop prices. Apple likes the price points they set. Rather than sell "last year's" model, they just add more to the current line. This keeps things simple, inventories low, and margins high.

Bottome Line: If you want an iBook/iMac/PowerBook/PowerMac/Xserve, then save your money for the corresponding price point or look on eBay.

Re:Hopefully...

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple's own CFO was talking about the $999 "midrange" price point, so you're probably wrong.

The G4 iMac (even ignoring the pathetic specs) was about 50% more expensive than it's compeitition -- probably due to it's complex design. A little Mac tax is fine, but that's ridicilous, and therefore the sales sucked.

Prediction: 1.8 G5 $999, Monitor optional, but Apple will offer an 'integrated' display.

Bad luck.

[Zeppelingb]

No matter what they do Apple can't seem to get a supplier who meets their needs. This Reminds me of the G4 roll out. They had hoped for so much but had to back-pedal due to motorola.

Re:Bad luck.

[DAldredge]

Perhaps they should switch to a supplier that can deliver. I hear that AMD and Intel can. ;->

Re:Bad luck.

[DAldredge]

Just like the Apple iMac production lines have?

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[dema]

$61million in profits can barely drive R&D for a company like Dell or Gateway.

What R&D exactly? Did it cost them $70M to make a bunch of cheap parts overseas, throw them in a black case, and slap DELL on it?

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[Anonymous Coward]

> That's a miniscule amount when you look at the profits of just
> about any other tech company. $61million in profits can
> barely drive R&D for a company like Dell or Gateway.
>
> Any thoughts on how long apple can keep up results this
> mediocre?

Well with nearly $5billion cash on hand, and making profits... that means they'll be down to $zero in...

no, you tell me. you do the math. $5billion plus a positive number, repeatedly, and tell me when you get to zero.

neXtBox chips?

[nzgeek]

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).

Re:neXtBox chips?

[MBCook]

I would think MS would be happy. Apple is selling G5s, MS will be selling G5s (through neXtBox or whatever), Nintendo will be selling G5s (rumored for the Revolution to use, or a derivitive), IBM sells some G5s I think too.

All this means that there are many G5s being made and sold. This means volume which means two things. First it means that any early bugs get worked out faster (and probably almost completely by the time the next XBox comes out). Second (and more importantly) it means bigger volume discounts, faster. If only MS is ordering the chips, then only 100,000 get made per year (for example). If MS and Apple are ordering the chips, then 1,100,000 are made per year (again, example). Way more volume discount.

It also means that production would be higher. If only MS bought chips and the supply was short, MS would be short on XBoxes. With Apple also buying the same chip (assume they do), then if the supply drops MS can outbid Apple to buy the chips and keep XBoxes on the shelf (even if they take a profit hit temporarily, that's better than no profit).

That's my theories on it. If anything, I think Microsoft would love having other people buying the same line of chips.

Re:neXtBox chips?

[Refrag]

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).

So, they're going to name it after Steve Jobs second company?

XBoX NeXT

Dell R&D!!!

[bstadil]

can barely drive R&D for a company like Dell

Dell has a minuscule R&D budget. Dell is pretty much an Intel Distributor and leaves Innovations to Intel

This is a good strategy for them but somewhat of a problem for the Industry as the competitors needs to follow this route to maintain market share.

The result is almost no innovation in the whole PC sector.

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for reference, what were the profit numbers for Gateway, say in the last two or three years? Hint, look below the X axis of the chart...

$61 million is what Apple had left AFTER costs, which include all the R&D that they do. Whether it's 6 million or 600 million doesn't tell you how big the R&D budget was.

Summer of 2004 a big one for Apple

[amichalo]

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.

And new IPods in August

[lou2ser]

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?

Getting Excited

[MBCook]

I can't wait to see the new iMacs. I wonder what the speeds will be, with my guess being 1.8 2.0 and 2.5. My little sister has been eyeing the current generation, and I'd love to see how they get restyled. Will the iLamp go away? Will it become some kind of integrated flatscreen? Something alltogether different? Who knows! But I can't wait to see.

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?

Re:Getting Excited

[amichalo]

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.

Apple notebooks come with FireWire/IEEE and USB ports. With those (and a cable) you can connect whatever camera or other 'card' device you are using and transfer your data over. Much better because you don't end up wasting space, design time, or manufacturing dollars on useles slots.

it should be possible to put a G5 in a laptop.

I have a PowerBookG4 400 (ist gen) and am responsible for an Xserve G5 at work. I can tell you that there is no way you are getting the current generation G5 chip in the same slender sub-1"-including-screen notebook formfactor. Of course Apple is working on this but it must be HARD because just the chip/heatsink is thicker than my notebook so they would have to reduce the height by at least 50% if not more.

The current G4 PowerBooks are great. Well worth a trip to an Apple reseller if you haven't seen in person. They use the same screen as the iMac so it is MUCh better than the screen on my Ti PowerBook G4. A word of advice, there aren't even the first rumors of a G5 notebook and even when they are announced, they well may follow previous Apple releases and not actually ship for another 30-60-90 days. I wouldn't expect Santa to be delivering a portable G5 this Christmas.

Re:Getting Excited

[powerg3]

I work for Apple.

I just ordered a 12" PowerBook. (BTO with 1.25GB and the 80GB 5200RPM HDD - the top-end of the 12").

I like to keep my computers for at least 12 months before upgrading.

So much for posting anonymously.

Re:Getting Excited

[JamieF]

Jesus christ I'm tired of seeing speculation about this. In a thread talking about how Apple can't ship a G5 iMac, people are still talking about the mythical G5 PB. Let's all start speculating now about when the G6 desktop and dual-G5 PB will ship! Whee!

Here's why this doesn't matter at all. If you've ever spent any time shopping for a computer, you'll notice that prices on existing models always drop, and new exciting models are always around the corner. It never ends.

Either you can wait for a new computer, or you can't. You'll go crazy trying to dig for rumors and hints as to when model XYZ with the 5 terawooble whosie-whatsis will be released, instead of the 4 terawooble that's available now. Gotta have the 5! I just gotta!

But really, you don't. If you have urgent important money-making work that needs doing now, buy something now. You can sell it later when a newer model comes out that's so much better that it's worth the switch. It's not like you're going to church and declaring your lifelong pledge to use this and only this computer so long as you both shall live.

If you don't need something today, then why are you in such a hurry to buy the latest-greatest? The top end product always carries a price premium, and quite often has availability problems. You're just setting yourself up to pay extra for something you don't need.

Most vendors let you return the computer within a few days if there's a new model announcement right then, or at least they'll price-protect you if you complain enough (i.e. you get the lower price under the new model lineup, so they refund you the difference).

Re:Getting Excited

[sockonafish]

Here's my prediction -

Apple isn't going to want to show off its brand-spanking-new totally kickass system with the disclaimer "some features not available on mobile platforms." OS 10.4 and the G5 Powerbook will enjoy a simoultaneous launch.

When's 10.4 due? January? I rekon thats a worst-case estimate. Apple is probably lighting a fire under IBM's ass (with the current 2.5 Ghz G5s) to make a mobile G5 possible for the Christmas season.

Re:Getting Excited

[Moofie]

Which card to support? CF? SD? MMC? Memory Stick? XD?

Why use a memory stick reader when you can just plug the camera in to the laptop?

I don't understand what you're on about. Powerbook already has wireless Ethernet, gigabit wired Ethernet, bluetooth, and a DVD burner. Plus firewire and USB2. I can see how you might have trouble connecting stuff to the computer. I mean, it's not like each of these ports are a different shape and only connect to one cable or anything...

What would be cool is if Apple made an iMac....

[Anonymous Coward]

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..

Re:What would be cool is if Apple made an iMac....

[Graff]

Put Linux on the iMac, start an X Windows server, and get a 386 for a terminal

No need for Linux to do that, you can already run an X-Windows server under Mac OS X and do the same deal as you would with Linux. I've done remote connections using just this setup and it works perfectly.

Re:I have no idea how they are going to get G5 iMa

[bjackson]

Just curious - when you placed the order, and they gave you the lead time - was it over 2 weeks? Are you frustrated because they missed a deadline or are you artificially imposing one on them?

Re:I have no idea how they are going to get G5 iMa

[MikeXpop]

Just curious, what do you do with your computer that so that a dual g5 would be replacable for a dual opteron?

I'm pretty much OS agnostic myself, but when I have a specific task in mind I have a specific OS in mind. If what I do could be done with a PC instead of a Mac, I would do it on a PC. It would certainly be a lot cheaper.

Re:Waiting for the laptop

[easter1916]

I was with you until you mentioned "eunuch"... :-)

Anyone know what it looks like?

[bcjanes]

I hope (fingers crossed) This. I doubt it though, Apple seems tied to including a monitor with thier consumer line :P

Apples Profits

[Lifix]

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.

iPod the gateway to future mac users?

[MC Negro]

From Bloomberg.com --

IPod shipments rose threefold amid ``staggering'' demand for the mini version of the music player, which Apple will start selling in Europe this month, said Timothy Cook, Apple's worldwide vice president for sales. The popularity of iPods helped reignite demand for Macintosh computers, fueling the best quarter for shipments in almost four years

"It gives me more confidence that the iPod will drive customers to other products" said Jim Grossman, a technology fund manager at Minneapolis-based Thrivent Financial, which manages $64 billion and owns Apple shares.

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 :-), but I think Apple may be getting over-optimistic with its recent numbers. I'm curious as to how many of the ipod sales of the last year or so have been Windows versions.

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.

Re:iPod the gateway to future mac users?

[mj_1903]

Personally, as a writer of Mac OS X iPod software, I see a very large number of switchers caused by people being happy with the iTunes/iPod combination on Windows. In fact, as time goes on I am seeing the number of switchers increase which I am only too happy about.

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[mpaque]

$61million in profits can barely drive R&D

Learn to read a balance sheet. Really. Profits are reported AFTER the R&D expense is taken out.

Re:This also in!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Please, Apple, make a no monitor option available

[failedlogic]

I'm wondering if there's any chance of seeing an iMac with a no-monitor option. Given the choice, for the money I pay, I'd rather not have an attached monitor. I already own a nice 17" LCD monitor.

Its nice to see them coming out with one for September. I have a P3 based system and, frankly, the new Intel and AMD lines, IMO are nothing to drool over unless you play games. Processors nowadays are so powerful that applications and the OS dictate what *you* want to do with the computer.

Windows doesn't have the versatility I would like in an OS and is too slow to come out with features. Linux -despite being fairly computer literate- is too hard for me to setup for desktop use. I'm really looking forward to see what price range Apple wants to price their iMacs at.

shipping more

[hawkeyeMI]

Of course they're shipping more cpus -- they have 2 CPUs in every PowerMac now! (well, a lot of them anyway)

This from a maclover, so please don't kill me or something.

Re:shipping more

[shawnce]

Not sure if you are being funny or not but...

They are talking about units, as in complete systems, not as in the processors.

Look over this pdf document for more information.

Basically they shipped around 876,000 units which is as they said is the best shipment volume in a few years for a given quarter.

Re:shipping more

[bwy]

Same goes for ITMS songs. I tried buying a track soon after this 100,000,000 song promotion started, and the system told me the track was on back order!



p.s. it's supposed to be funny damnit... not a troll.

Apple confirms...

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Apple confirms new G5 will boast 1.21 gigawatts of power, and cost about the same!

Re:Apple confirms...

[gamgee5273]

Not to mention, you will get a free DeLorean with every purchase (while supplies last, of course).

Ram Hungry

[miyako]

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.

Re:Waiting for the laptop

[NanoGator]

"I was with you until you mentioned "eunuch"... :-)"

Wasn't OSX based on eunuchs?

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[amichalo]

$61million in profits can barely drive R&D for a company like Dell or Gateway.

This will probably give you Accounting 101 flash backs but your R&D is an EXPENSE which is subtracted from your Gross Revenues, along with all other expenses, which gets you net profits.

Repeat after me: Profits =/= R&D

Re:I have no idea how they are going to get G5 iMa

[JamieF]

If you're really in such a hurry, you could lift a finger to try to speed things up.

I just went to www.apple.com/store and clicked through the configurator for the 3 featured G5 configs. No changes, just Select->Continue->Continue from the store main page to get to the shopping cart where there's a ship time estimate.

The dual 1.8GHz: 3-5 business days.
The dual 2GHz: 3-5 business days.
The dual 2.5GHz: 4-6 weeks.

Changing the configuration delays things a bit, but not much. I took the dual-2.0GHz G5 and maxed out the RAM, HD, and video card options, and now it says 7-10 business days.

It looks to me like only the dual 2.5GHz G5 is in short supply (not surprising since it's probably the one that IBM is having the hardest time making the CPU for, though that's just my speculation). The other models aren't. Cancel your order for a dual 2.5 and get a 1.8 or 2.0 dual G5 instead, and tweak the config to your heart's content. Or, if you really really need that 2.5, wait. If you're in a tearing hurry, you could probably walk into an Apple retail store and walk out with one the same day.

Alternatively, you could buy your G5 from MacWarehouse or Outpost.com. Some of them will add RAM and stuff for you; others might not. Outpost.com says they can ship the dual 1.8 and dual 2.0 same-day. CDW says they have dual-1.6 G5's also available same day. This is right on their search results page. I didn't even pick up the phone to find this out. I searched for "G5" on Outpost.com, and MacWarehouse had a link to the closeout 1.6GHz model on their home page.

Using C|Net shopper to find the best price on a dual 2.0GHz G5 shows a list of merchants in which every single one claims to have this model in stock now.

This took me about 10 minutes of surfing to find out. Maybe you should spend a few minutes yourself since it's your computer order?

or just....

[zogger]

...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

Re:or just....

[DAldredge]

It takes 1 - 4 Billion USD to start up a current gen chip plant. That is the reason apple doesn't do it.

Re:or just....

[Ffakr]

No, it takes Billions to make a modern fab..
But more importantly it takes the expertise to come up with a cutting edge process.

It's not like Apple could have a fab built and just start running chips off.. like they were silk screening t-shirts or something.

Re:or just....

[mlk]

The AIM (Apple IBM Moto) Alliance

Re:or just....

[Bishop]

who actually owns the ppc arch designs?

Motorola and IBM own the PowerPC architechture. It was jointly developed. Apple did have some say in the design, but nothing significant.

Apple will never get into the chip design and manufactureing bussiness. It is well beyond their expertise. In much the same way that building a spaceship is beyond Apple's expertise.

Part of Apple's problems with the PowerPC and Motorola was because Apple was not a big enough customer. When the PowerPC workstation market failed to take off Motorola became more interested in the embedded processor PowerPC lines then workstation processors. Over a decade ago the theory was that IBM, Apple, and other companies would want to make workstations and servers with the PowerPC chip that Motorola would make. It was hoped that there would be enough smaller manufacturers and demand for the PowerPC to keep prices down. Of the three companies only Apple relied on the PowerPC. IBM was making workstations with both Intel, and PowerPC. Motorola had many other bussiness lines. When the other computer makers did not show up there wasn't enough demand for faster PowerPCs to keep Motorola interested. IBM made a number of machines based on the PowerPC but eventually lost interest when it was clear that WinNT 4.0 on Intel was going to win on the workstation.

It is easy to look back now and say that Apple made a mistake. But at the time the situation wasn't clear. Intel was having a hard time with what would become the Pentium. There was alot of doom and gloom that the i386 architecture could not scale. MS wasn't not yet entrenched on the desktop. MS had also said that their workstation/server OS, WinNT, would be ported to PowerPC, along with Alpha, MIPS, and Intel[1]. PowerPC really did look like the way of the future. It is a shame PowerPC didn't catch on. It is a great architechture.

[1] The Windows NT kernel is actually quite nice, and was designed with portability in mind. Windows NT 4.0 supported Alpha, PowerPC, MIPS and Intel. Alpha support survived to ServicePack 6. PowerPC and MIPS support was dropped earlier.

Re:or just....

[Bishop]

Don't get your hopes up. You could just as easily say that PowerPC has "caught on" due to the huge number of PowerPC chips in cars. I would hazard a guess that more processors based on the PowerPC core shipped last year then Intel and AMD mainstream processors. Saying MS has abandoned x86 is simply wrong. PowerPC is not going to beat Intel and AMD on the desktop for the same reason PowerPC didn't take over a decade ago: backward compatibility. MS is able to switch architectures on the XBox because backward compatibility is not expected. PowerPC has always been a better architecture. It makes complete sense that MS would look at alternatives.

61m profit on 2bil sales?

[nurb432]

While 60 mil is a lot of money, it doesnt sound like a good return ... thats a pretty low percent overall.

Re:61m profit on 2bil sales?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but consider: When you buy a Mac, a lot of the money goes into the cost of materials, some of which are commodity, but others (Apple case design) are custom made. Then there's the cost of developing OS X, which is heavily subsidized by hardware revenues. Same goes with iTunes, iDVD, GarageBand, and all the other programs. Apple spends millions on R&D, and has to spread the costs across a small customer base. Dell or MS or what-have-you can spread their costs over a much larger base.

Re:Better for us...

[crackshoe]

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.

Re:Aren't all the console chips from IBM

[nzgeek]

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?

Beleaguered my ass

[hotspotbloc]

Apple made $61 million dollars profit on $2.01 billion dollars in Q3/04

... And some idiot journalist in a few months will still say Apple is dying.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:CPUs look good

[aixou]

I hope they don't count a dual G5 as 2 "CPUs" in their sales report. Talk about a way to skew numbers. Technically it would count as 2 cpus, but it would be very easy for Apple if they had a bum quarter, to switch the units from "computers" to "cpus" so they could double the numbers on all their dual processor stuff.

Definitely get what you pay for

[MooseByte]

"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.

Re:Definitely get what you pay for

[ImpTech]

My 1999 Dell is still chugging along fine. My 1997 Gateway is toast though. On the other hand, my 1995 Gateway is still in running order. Funny how anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything.

Re:Definitely get what you pay for

[druhol]

"Kafkaesque"? I didn't realize they turned people into giant cockroaches at the Genius Bar.

Re:Definitely get what you pay for

[jrockway]

Ya know there are 52 weeks in a year, right?

Some months are more than 28 days...

Re:Definitely get what you pay for

[dcw3]

Funny how anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything.

You're absolutely right about that, but it does build up as you hear more and more of the same. Here's mine...Since 1984, I've owned six Macs, and six PCs. I still have all of the Macs except my original 128k, and every one of them have worked flawlessly, never a breakdown, never needed to reload the OS. Of the PCs, I've also never had a breakdown (well, my CD drive seems to be on the fritz lately), but have had to reload Windows on three occasions.

Re:Definitely get what you pay for

[MoneyT]

Apple has replaced stuff out of waranty for me too. Of course, the service used to be better. A few years ago, you could call apple and get almost anything fixed without much of a fuss at all. Now you do need all your paperwork, but if you have all your paperwork, it's completely painless. New iPod had a bad drive, 15 minute phone call and the new one is in the mail, with a prepaid box to ship the defective one back. Old power adapter shorts due to bad design (and a little abuse on my end), 30 minutes later (allowing for 10 minutes of confusion over the model of computer) and a new one is in the mail, with a box to send the faulty one back. All free of charge, and all painless.

problem is FABRICATION

[totoanihilation]

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.

Power5 Unix

[slyckshoes]

IBM recently announced *nix servers based on Power5, which makes me wonder if some of the resource going towards G5s got diverted to P5s. They're certainly not the same chip, but the similar foundation probably means they're produced in the same plant.

Re:Power5 Unix

[Kiryat Malachi]

Probably not, considering that the G5 is based on the Power4 architecture.

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[wfberg]

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

That's a miniscule amount when you look at the profits of just about any other tech company. $61million in profits can barely drive R&D for a company like Dell or Gateway.

R&D costs are, well, costs. Profit is what you're left with after you've paid your costs. Like R&D.

According to AAPL's SEC filings, it spends about $120 million every 3 months on R&D (or about 480 million dollars per year).

Dell spent LESS than that, at $464 million for R&D, even though their turnover is 6 times Apple's, and their profit is $3 billion. Relative to Dell, Apple spends wild amounts of money on R&D.

Of course, all that pales in comparison with IBM's $5 billion R&D budget, but then, IBM is also in the business of researching things that Apple uses in its products, like the G5 processor for example (hard to miss that one, really..)

Well, that's one of the things you pay for Apple

[Sycraft-fu]

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).

Profits is after spending on research

[acomj]

Apple is spending on R&D obviously. They took in 2.01 billion $. They spent most of that on bussiness expenses (including R&D). and were left with 61 million. While not great, they didn't loose money.

When I was in research, IBM was spending 6 billion on R&D. But IBM is significantly larger than apple (and had some old apple employees on the payroll).

Dell and Gateway do very very little R&D. They're more business companies that package. There was an interesting article comparing HP / Dell in terms of RD.

Apple does a lot of interesting inovative stuff considering what they spend.

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[djm181]

I think you'll find that 2^32 is actually pretty close to 4billion, so they must already have a 64bit bank account, that means they need to get $2^64 (not +1, we start counting from 0 remember, and probably so does the bank). So when they get $18 quintillion (~ $18,000,000,000,000,000,000) they will go bankrupt.

Re:Profitability not Marketshare Dominance counts!

[IntlHarvester]

Thank god someone gets it.

Unlike BMW, Apple has to maintain an "Ecosystem", which includes things like 3rd party software developers, diverse user bases and so on. In order to do this, they really do need to sell some computers. (It seems obvious, but Mac Fans will frequently argue the point.)

Sometimes I wonder that after the G4 Debacle happened, Jobs just sorta gave up and they decided that they were only going to sell interior design pieces to Graphic Designers and slowly disappear into the night.

I'm not expecting Apple to take on Dell (Chevy), but when the mainstream high-end PC is a ~$1000 3-Slot Minitower, and Apple refuses to sell one of those, you have to wonder if they even care anymore. If the new iMac is positioned and priced the same as the G4 iMac, I have to take it as a sign that Apple sees no chance of ever seriously being an alternative to Wintel.

Even BMW keeps their model lineup and pricing competitive with everyone else, AND is trying to increase marketshare.

Hell here

[dreamer8815]

Where did all this snow come from?

Re:iPants heat issue

[mr.scoot]

One iPants beta tester was admitted to the Logan County Memorial Hospital with localized burns in the groin area. He has so far refused to speak to the press, but witnesses report his last coherent statement before passing out was "I can take it! Nnngh! It's not that hot! Aaaiiieee!!"

Neither Apple nor Levi Strauss representatives would comment on the case.

When asked about the similarity between this case and the infamous coffee incident, McDonalds Corp also had no comment.

The new version of iPant will reportedly not include rivets.

G5 at least 6-12 months + 2 product generations

[micron]

I was one of those PC biggots who has been kicking around getting a Mac for the past 6 months. Speaking with Mac savy friends, they recommended against getting any Mac product in its first generation.

According to the rumor rags, IBM just got a low power version of the G5 going 3-4 weeks ago. So, assuming that Apple can crank out a power book by years end, would you want to get a first generation product?

I thought about this, and figure it will be at least 12-18 months before there is a chance of a Powerbook that I would want to purchase.

I bit the bullet, and hit the Apple store. Picked up a 15" 1.5GHz powerbook, 5400RPM hard disk, 1GB RAM, 128MB video RAM.

Completely happy with it. Have not turned my PC back on since I copied my data files from it.

Moral to the story: If you want the computer, and have the cash, buy the thing. You will probably purchase a new machine in 18 months anyway.

Re:G5 at least 6-12 months + 2 product generations

[ODD97]

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.

Re:G5 at least 6-12 months + 2 product generations

[jawtheshark]

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.

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[aristotle-dude]

Did you even bother listening to the conference call? They have been adding to the cash reserve constantly given that they have no debt.

Switched, due to iPod

[micron]

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.

Re:Switched, due to iPod

[Golthar]

While I can't speak for him, I recently bought my own Apple...a big plunge.

Personaly I bought a G4 17 Inch powerbook (1.5 Ghz proc, 1GB memory, 80 Gb 5400 rpm disk...the trimmings) and have been very happy with it.

The good One of the things that will stand out is the attention to detail that Apple has for their products. My laptop has no buttons sticking out, everything is smooth. The battery for example has a small button which when you press it, shows how full the battery is (very simple feature, but it's quiete handy when you have plenty of batteries around) When I connect my powerbook to the mains at 94% full, it does not try to charge the battery, avoiding stress to the batteries. The backlit keyboard is a marvel, it really helps when I'm at work late at night.

The software is good and stable, Java out of the box for example and the environment is very friendly to Unix users (Gcc, some userland apps, X11)

The bad

I think the systems are a bit expensive, especialy the G5's where they still put like 256 mb of memory and a Geforce FX 5200 in a workstation model.

The absurd 1 year warranty

That said, I always get a feeling that with Apple, you are usualy good to go by buying either the low end or the top end, not midrange. Hopefully the iMac will help this

Re:Better for us...

[wolrahnaes]

just like powermac has always been very expensive and headless

The G3 All-In-One basically became the iMac.

The 20th Anniversary Macintosh could also be thought of as a relative of the modern LCD-equipped iMac.

Others to look at would be the Performa/Power Mac 5000 series.

Apple's been making all-in-ones since long before the iMac. The first Macintosh systems were AiO models.

Here's my guess on the new iMac.

[Big Sean O]

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.

Re:Here's my guess on the new iMac.

[Reverant]

Now let's see:

20" Monitor does 1680x1050 at 24 bit color. That means that the whole screen estate is at about 5MB in size. Let's be fair, and say that the screen's refresh rate is at only 50Hz. That means that you need to trasfer to the screen about 250MB/s, or, 2GBit per second. Yes, you need a 2GBps wireless link. So, yes, you can continue dreaming. Didn't wanna wake you up there.

Re:CPUs look good

[shawnce]

They don't and they never have.

CPU = unit = complete system in their finical lingo.

It's not 64 more megahertz.

[Thinkit4]

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.

iMac G5 is nice, but so is 13000 Xserves

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[YouHaveSnail]

$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.

Re:Please, Apple, make a no monitor option availab

[Caharin]

The G4 cube was a low end mac with out a monitor... It didn't do too well...

Go figure.

Re:This also in!

[gamgee5273]

Riiiiiight.

You realize that Jobs has gone on the record as saying that he expects Mac users to be on a 4-5 year refresh cycle, right?

Go play in the street, Timmy, and let the men talk about the big things that make your brain hurt.

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[Ancient Devices King]

no, you tell me. you do the math. $5billion plus a positive number, repeatedly, and tell me when you get to zero.

How many bits is my integer?

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[2nd Post!]

Wonder at what? Staying in business for over 25 years?

Sure thing, coming right up... (reprise)

[YouHaveSnail]

I'm wondering if there's any chance of seeing an iMac with a no-monitor option.

Absolutely. And something that'll be nice about the version without a monitor is that you'll have some extra expansion options. Looks like a nice machine.

There's a picture right here.

IBM=console

[urbaer]

From Eweek:

IBM is developing the "Cell" processor for future entertainment consoles sold by Sony Corp.; the processor used by the "Xenon," Microsoft Corp.'s next-generation Xbox; as well as the "Revolution," Nintendo Ltd.'s next-generation console. IBM has already shipped more than 10 million PowerPCs to Nintendo for use in the current GameCube, each a 485MHz derivative of the G3 called the "Gekko."

Macs Are Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Macs Are Expensive

[TiggsPanther]

I think the problem is with the initial outlay, and that there are no third-party/cheaper alternatives.

Although I've not really used a Mac (and definitaly not since waaay before MacOS X), they do look a whole lot better than Windows PCs. However even though a mac is probably better value for money, the inital cost is currently outside my (and others') price-range.

I think that's why people do go on about the price. There are probably many of us out here who'd dearly love to give a Mac a try. But the cost of the unit is too much.
(Yes, I know it's possible to buy on credit. But certainly for me I'd rather not buy on credit what I couldn't pay for quickly anyway.)

Although cheaper computers are rarely as good value for money, having a much cheaper entry-level machine can be what gets people interested/hooked. Apple, going more for the luxury market, have opted not to go that route. That's up to them, but it doesn't mean that there won't always be people who wish that a cheaper Mac didn't exist. (Especially as Windows-dissatisfaction slowly rises)

Tiggs

Re:Macs Are Expensive

[SilentChris]

"But one should not compare Macs to $200 piece of junk since Apple doesn't make low quality computers."

Eh. I disagree. I recently bought an iBook and iPod. Cool design, but the iBook's battery doesn't sit flush with the case (look it up in Google) and my iPod gave me a magnifying disk icon last night -- after 3 days of use. There was also that issue with the stereo component disconnecting internally.

I'm not saying their products fall apart: I imagine most don't. But when you pay extra for design, you kind of expect the design to be the best it can be.

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[djtripp]

The 10-Q isn't out yet for this just announced quarter, but here are the R&D number from last quarter:
Operating expenses:
Research and development
3 moths ended 3/27/2004 - $123,000,000
3 moths ended 3/29/2003 - $119,000,000
6 moths ended 3/27/2004 - $242,000,000
6 moths ended 3/29/2003 - $240,200,000

And last quarter's profit was $46 million with revenue for the quarter was $1.909 billion $4.6 billion in cash and no debt

Does Apple care anymore?

[Infonaut]

If the new iMac is positioned and priced the same as the G4 iMac, I have to take it as a sign that Apple sees no chance of ever seriously being an alternative to Wintel.

Actually, Apple has been a serious alternative to Wintel for... well, longer than there's even been a "Wintel". Just ask the millions of people who have used Macs at homes, schools, and businesses for the last 21 years.

The demise of the Mac and Apple has been predicted pretty much like clockwork over all of those 21 years. No amount of good fiscal or technology news for Apple can seem to dislodge the legions of doomsayers who see Apple's immenent destruction.

Just because Apple does not dominate the personal computer operating system market does not mean that it is going to die. The PC market as a whole has grown, and the Mac is a solid niche platform with a very active developer base (which has been greatly stimulated by OS X and the excellent programming tools given to developers by Apple). The Mac is making a strong comeback in higher education, has extended its reach in professional creative markets, reached into supercomputing, and even made forays into the business world.

I doubt that the Mac is going to "disappear slowly into the night."

Re:Does Apple care anymore?

[IntlHarvester]

An entirely predictable Macinista response, but I should have been more clear:

Apple currently is a mainstream alternative to Wintel because they enjoy good developer support (although not nearly as good as it was 10-15 years ago). However, that situation is by no means guaranteed forever, especially if Apple is making very little effort to move mainstream machines.

I'm not predicting the "demise" of the Mac, but surely even you will admit there's some marketshare or salesfigure point at which the remaining major ISVs will decide Apple is irrelevant and scale back Mac development.

And the *facts* of the matter are that Apple's sales have been flat for years, and they are not keeping up with the overall growth of the market, and if things keeping going this way eventually they'll get to that point. Don't try to paint a pretty picture on it -- Apple doesn't even have a mainstream desktop for sale right now. Not good!

Anyway, I'm a Mac fan, and I don't want to see Apple become one of those wierd Be/Amiaga-like platforms where everyone says "Who needs BrandNameSoft! Fred's Shareware is better!!". I'd also like to see them offer a machine that I would buy! (I will give Apple credit for taking on the "UNIX" market in high-ed & science. First 'new' Mac market in years.)

Re:Does Apple care anymore?

[Infonaut]

I don't understand your comment about developer support not being as good as it was 10-15 years ago. My feeling is that the real nadir for Mac developers occurred about 5-10 years ago, but that in particular since the shift to OS X, developers have more opportunities with the Mac than they did before.

In particular, I see two major trends.

The first is the rise of small developers creating very polished new apps that leverage OS X. Omni Group, Stone Design, Panic, Freshly Squeezed, Ambrosia, et. al. fit in this catogory. Many of the apps created by these companies have no real qualitative counterpart in the Windows world. These companies are thriving even though the overall size of the Mac software market is obviously far smaller than the Windows market.

The second is the exposure of many Open Source/*NIX developers to OS X. I've encountered many UNIX geeks who are doing development work on their PowerBooks. The fact that so much of what used to be stand-alone application development has now been replaced by server-side Web apps means that developers can work on OS X, deploy on Linux, and everyone gets to use the resulting Web app. Add to that the portability of *NIX apps to OS X and in many ways OS X now has a much greater stable of code for server and database development than Windows does.

I'm also not really sure how "flat" sales translates into destruction. Flat sales is still sales year after year. As long as application developers can make money on Mac development, they will do so. You don't have to become the next Macromedia in order to thrive as a software development company. If the size of the market were shrinking in absolute terms, I'd agree that Mac software publishers are in trouble.

My point about marketshare figures is that the same "the sky is falling" rationale has been used literally ever since the Mac was first rolled out. In my opinion even though the Mac's marketshare (based on sales, not on machines in use) is at around 3%, now is really about the best time to be a Mac user in the 18 years I've been one. There are a lot of great apps, the hardware is excellent, the company is in great financial health, UNIX geeks are no longer snorting at the Mac, Windows users are starting to realize that the Mac is moving forward while Microsoft continues to have missteps with ongoing Windows development, and the Mac more easily fits in with Windows and UNIX environments than ever before.

I solidly agree with you about the lack of an iMac being a Bad Thing. In fact, I nearly got my virtual ass shot off in a Mac forum a while back for pointing out that Apple had screwed up plain and simple. The G5 problems are the sorts of things that happen in the computer industry, but that doesn't excuse Apple. The iMac is a critical product for them, and the positive response Windows users have had to the iPod means that Apple should have a flexible, well-priced consumer desktop ready for people who are interested in trying a Mac.

I'm definitely with you on not wanting the Mac to turn into a Be/Amiga type of platform. But I stuck with the Mac through the really tough mid to late 1990s, and I really do think that Apple is a much smarter, much more focused, much more capable company than it was then, and the Macintosh platform is in much better shape now.

One last note, then I'll leave you alone. ;-) Apple's comparative cost/performance strength has always been on their high end machines, and I don't think that will change any time soon. For consumer products, people expect to pay a premium for a better overall computing experience. Some customers will pay this premium, while most will not. But competing with Dell on the price of low end boxes is a losing proposition for Apple. They can never win in a commoditized market, particularly against a competitor whose entire business model was built around reducing production and distribution costs, rather than on creating better technology.

Re:Does Apple care anymore?

[IntlHarvester]

Apple's comparative cost/performance strength has always been on their high end machines, and I don't think that will change any time soon. For consumer products, people expect to pay a premium for a better overall computing experience. Some customers will pay this premium, while most will not.

This gets close to my great fear: There is only a fixed number of Mac users in the world, and Apple knows it, and has given up trying to change that. So, they price/position their hardware to reap maximum profits from their hardcore pro user base at the expense of the consumer/office users. Because, lets face it, most of the traditional Photoshop/Quark work does not require a top-end workstation any more, and any "mainstream desktop" could severe cut into 'Creative Pro' PowerMac sales.

Meanwhile, Apple has this installed base of really old machines, and that's not a real positive. If Apple can't get those folks into the store to upgrade, eventually they will get sucked into the much larger PC "ecosystem". I've seen it happen to many friends of mine who used Macs in the 90s -- they had this mental image of a low-end Pentium POS running Win98, but a cheap, fast PC running XP suddenly looks Not So Bad when compared with their blueberry iMac running OS9. (Maybe if you are in Higher Ed, it looks like Apple is growing, but where I sit [lower-end creative users], they are slowly shrinking.)

Now, the killer thing is that OS X really has given them all of this techie/developer momentum. However, Omni Group and even Microsoft are assuming that a cool OS will sell more machines which will make their investment more profitble. If Apple can't/won't deliver, they're going to be disappointed and scale back. Fact: Capitalism relies on growth.

So, I'm really hoping that Apple will see the "G5 iMac" as opportunity to break this cycle, as something that will really be a market hit rather than just scoring virtual style points. And that means that Apple is just going to have to give the people What They Want -- something relatively cheap, much faster than the G3/G4 installed base, semi-expandable, and, again cheap.

OTOH, if we get another Cube/iMac expensively constructed design piece, and "YOU WILL USE AN EMAC AND LIKE IT" (see other reply), myself and many others will draw the conclusion that Apple is retreating into their "legacy" niche and letting Wintel win the war.

Off just a bit.

[solios]

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. :|

iMac still an all-in-one

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Sorry to disappoint you, but this info from AppleInsider indicates that the iMac will still be an all-in-one.

The overall footprint of the new iMac is said to be very compact, aided by a logic-board that is mounted behind the computer's LCD screen. A purported manufacturing sketch of a pre-production iMac obtained by AppleInsider in June shows a thick display module which hovers above the desk from a single support.

Re:You know.... (AMD)

[Surlyboi]

If they had went with the Athlon 64, this wouldn't be an issue now.

You're right. The issue would be all the apps that had to be tweaked to work with X86 rather than PPC.

Slightly bigger problem than supply line issues.

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[vitaboy]

Hello! The $61 million in net profit is what Apple has left AFTER expenses like R&D. Apple currently is spending about half a billion a year on R&D, and it STILL manages to be profitable. It would help if you actually understood a quarterly statement before spouting about profits.

Re:You know.... (AMD)

[BasilBrush]

The IBM issue is the move to 90nm. All the x86 type chips are hitting a wall with the move to this process too. PowerPCs have actually been increasing their speed at a lot faster rate than x86s recently. They are a better chip, which is why all 3 next gen consoles, including Microsoft XBox Next will be using Power PC chips. Yes Apple have got a short term supply issue, but it's far less of an issue than moving to an inferior chip architecture would be.

Re:AAPL for the future, ...

[Okonomiyaki]

Nice thoughts, here's how I see it:

1. There is a lot of goodwill towards them at the moment, however that's a hard thing to capitalize on. However getting more open source projects developed for OSX should help get a lot of people of the fence about switching. One of the main reasons people are afraid to switch is because they'd have to buy all their software again, if there are viable open source alternatives to most of them then that eliminates a major hurdle. That being said, OSX is already very open source friendly.

2. It's been frequently rumored that Apple has always maintained x86 code for OSX just in case. Remember, a big chunk of OSX was ported FROM x86 to begin with. But be careful how you throw that word "platform" around. It's possible that one day Apple might ship boxes containing x86 chips but they will certainly not be the same "platform" that is shipped by the likes of Dell, Gateway, etc. An Apple with x86 chips in it would still be an Apple. You wouldn't be able to install Windows on it and you wouldn't be able to install OSX on a Dell.

3. Keeping the iPod #1 is certainly one of the key things Apple must do to hold onto its mindshare, grow its marketshare, and remain as profitable as it has been recently. It doesn't look like the iPod will really become much of a PDA anytime soon. You're right in that phones are doing so. So how about making the iPod into a kind of PDA helper? Plug your phone in (or connect via bluetooth) and store thousands of addresses on it. Put the yellow pages on it. Snap pictures directly to it. Record ridiculously long movie clips and voice messages on it. I see phones getting more and better functionality in the way of cameras and so on but storage space is still a bit of a drawback. Or am I way off?

4. I'm not really sure what you're suggesting here but take a look back at what each new version of OSX has brought to the table in the last three years and then look at what's coming in 10.4 and I'm sure you'll notice that they're not just sitting around twittling their thumbs. I think you're suggesting that they should work more on their OS and software than on their consumer electronics offerings (iPod). I think it's clear that they are fully capable of doing both. Anyway, doesn't your 4 contradict your 3? And what porting are you talking about exactly?

Difference between gross and net margins

[klubar]

The confusion is between gross and net margin. Their gross margins are very high on the hardware, but their high cost of sales eats most of this away. The allocated marketing (advertising) and sales cost per machine is huge as they spread their advertising over a relatively small base of machines. Dell which pushes many more machines has a much lower per-unit SGA burden than Apple (but of course starts with a lower gross margin). According to recent Business Week article, about 20% of the profit comes from interest on cash, and if they expensed stock options (to give a truer picture of the company's financial health) about another 50% of their profits would disappear.

Re:iMac G5? Who cares...

[BasilBrush]

the great sales of the eMac and the slow sales of the iMac.

Where did you get that idea from? Apple don't publish the split in sales between eMacs and iMacs. eMacs are obvisouly popular in education - that's what the were originally intended for. But I'd be very surprised if they outsold iMacs to the consumer.

YES! Now I can build...

[DungeonCoder]

a iBeowulf cluster!!!

Re:Waiting for the laptop

[crivens]

Eunuchs - the operating system. Once it goes down, you can't get it up again.

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[displaced80]

Curious that Apple's and Dell's R&D investments are so comparable considering the typical /. opinion that Apple is the pinnacle of innovation and Dell does none whatsoever.

Come on, that's a little disingenuous isn't it?

'Box shifting' is a much smaller proportion of Apple's R&D than Dell's. Apple are:

Client & Server OS designers/developers, usability engineers.

Application developers (iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, Final Cut Express/Pro/HD, Shake, Motion, iCal, iChat, iSync, Safari, GarageBand, iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, Pro Tools, Soundtrack, Filemaker, AppleWorks, Keynote)

Codec & media creators (Quicktime, QTSS, Pixlet),

Web services provider (.Mac), plus web development provider (WebObjects).

Developer tools creator & platform maintainer (Xcode, plus Obj-C, etc)

Technology developer (Firewire, ZeroConf)

Accessory designer/provider (iSight, Airport Extreme/Express)

Media device developer + distributor (iPod, iPod Mini, iTunes Music Store).

Now, I've got nothing against Dell whatsoever, and I don't wish to belittle the work they put in to their server solutions and their desktop systems. But the scope of their business is nothing compared to Apple's line of software, hardware and services, many of which are entirely in-house creations.

Re:You know.... (AMD)

[BasilBrush]

No, it's industry wide. At least IBM and Intel are shipping 90nm. AMDs aren't even shipping yet, and are runoured to be delaying until next year.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/200406180 24759.html

Re:How relevant are Apple now?

[dfghjk]

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.

Re:You know.... (AMD)

[Chordonblue]

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!

Re:iMac G5? Who cares...

[BasilBrush]

Total BS. SEC rules forbid companies giving preferential information to some shareholders and not others. Apple do not break down those figures, and a trawl of Yahoo Finance would not locate them Mr Troll.

Re:PCI-X is the replacement for AGP.

[MarcQuadra]

You mean PCI express. PCI-X is _not_ PCI Express.

My mistake. I was writing a quickie.

At least at this point in time, AGP would be a better choice.

Maybe _right now_, but in the near future having all cards and all boards running ONE kind of port just makes sense. If there's bandwidth, why not use it? It would also reduce the manufacturing costs on the chipset, motherboard, and video-card producers, because they wouldn't have to use as many different kinds of parts.

You'd be in the minority. I'm not aware of many people who think AGP caused any real "problems".

No, chipset makers have to add pins to their northbridges and design elaborate memory interconnects to feed AGP, and more to feed PCI. Killing AGP would be a step towards reducing the complexity of modern computers; it would be a step towards even smaller form-factors and lower power use. Having a single bus would reduce OS complexity and driver issues. Motherboards wouldn't have to add layers to their boards to accomodate the leads for AGP. It would make it easier to have multiple video cards as there would be a SLOT to put a second one, and it could be the same exact card as the one next to it. Eliminating the stupid use-main-memory-as-vram concept would ensure that even onboard GPUs had faster vram, and it would cut back on the issues caused by AGP apertures eating into system ram.

It's not like AGP video cards are hard to find (unlike the 66Mhz PCI video cards that you'd need

Right, but that's just because they're so popular TODAY. a switch to PCI Express would ultimately result in cheaper and more flexible computing. The beauty of my system is that I can put a NIC card in the video slot if I so desire, or a SCSI card, or whatever I wanted. With one type of slot I have more flexibility.