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Apple Introduces New G5 iMac
peatbakke writes "Well, here it is. Looks like the rumors of computer+monitor combined into a sleek little case were true." It's mostly what you'd expect both design-wise and specwise. And I want it.
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So how long until we get a new slashdot icon that looks like this model?
Here is a larger view of the inside of the machine. It's one hell of a lot more accessible than the last imac (or any of the imacs to date, for that matter).
:)
Reminds me of the layout of my favourite pizzabox machines - just standing up
It's a pretty rad computer considering what it is.
/application bundles for the mac.
Cue all the comments about 5200 geforce not being enough -- it's not meant for that.
"They should have had a 2 gighz in there " - that would eat into the market above it.
It is for offices and for homes -
The criticisms are:
If you are going to make it like a TV... they should have gone all the way and put a TV tuner in there - this is the killer app to beat microsoft on and to complete the iLife suite. An Apple (with all the associated easiness) TV center with maybe a grey one for corporate use with no TV.
The other critcism is that they should have a place in their product line for a headless box, so that all the hackers can get their grubby paws onto it and innovate on OSX - but really that constitutes competition with their other product lines, and constitutes competition with their own software so they won't do it.
They are family centric, gamers (yeah yeah, apple gamers, oxymoron, kekeke) can up the ante to a dual g5...so the only criticism left is that there aren't many good (I know there are options, but not outstanding ones) TV tuner
I hope I've cleared up alot of the "OMG only a 5200 nvidia" bullshit here - that's not it's purpose. But if it's purpose is that lazy kind of home desktop, it should have TV. But perhaps apple is thinking ahead to a TCPIP broadband world and a movie service along the lines of iTunes (pixar distribution channel anyone?) - it does leave a gap in their product line though.
Oh, and as slashdot still hasn't posted this story I'll add the "Looks like they were trying to get the g5 into a tablet/laptop but didn't quite make it" joke, which goes hand in hand with the "omg no g5 laptops yet". Slashdot is so predictable.
Sidenote - IBM should bring out said headless box, black alu case like the NeXT with a single G5 in it clocked a 2gighz and a 100% linux compat mobo.... That would soon become a cult item I imagine - but apple would have a fit because it would encorage all the unix geeks on their platform to swap and it would encorage a strong user base of a ppc linux to get going. So, like I say, not going to happen. Actually, can someone enlighten the thread as to who *owns* the G5? Could IBM do this?
speculation/discourse.... check
questioning of realworld performance combined with gamer
joke...... check
omg look the graphs on game performance have no scale.... check..stfu you are boring me....
g5 hotness jokes..... check
256 mem ram not enough.... check
wistfully wanting some other company to release a headless apple because apple won't.... check
questioning of apple users sexual preferences.... check
raise question of one buttoned mouse..... maybe they have a one buttoned mouse by default because it forces their app/UI designers to be creative - let those that want two buttons have them... but let all apps be designed with only one in mind (remember that gnome desktop designers who are hiding everything and anying, even if it should be there - although I don't mind spatial atm, I can see it going too far). Let us hear the end of the one buttoned mouse whinging.......
and wait for it...."I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Mac fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of one of the new iMacs (a 1.6gighz G5 w/256 Megs of RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my Pentium Pro 200 running NT 4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that."
exhausting most of the pointless cliched bullshit in a slashdot thread before it's begun.... priceless^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hprofit!!!
and hell, and I don't even own a fucking apple.
Not trolling... just giving something for discussion. If anybody buys me one, I promise I'll add an apple section to tech-recipes. :)
$1,299.00
17-inch widescreen LCD
1.6GHz PowerPC G5
512K L2 cache
533MHz frontside bus
256MB DDR400 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
80GB Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load Combo Drive
$1,499.00
17-inch widescreen LCD
1.8GHz PowerPC G5
512K L2 cache
600MHz frontside bus
256MB DDR400 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
80GB Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load SuperDrive
$1,899.00
20-inch widescreen LCD
1.8GHz PowerPC G5
512K L2 cache
600MHz frontside bus
256MB DDR400 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load SuperDrive
Dell Dimension 4600C Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor (2.80GHz, 533 FSB)
Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition WHXP
Memory 256MB Dual Channel shared DDR SDRAM at 333MHz
Monitors Dell Multifunction LCD TV/Monitor Selected Below TV [320-2913] 5
Video Cards Integrated Intel® Extreme Graphics 2 IV
Hard Drive 40GB Ultra ATA/100 Hard Drive 40 [341-0836] 8
Floppy Drive and Additional Storage Devices No Floppy Drive Included NFD
Mouse Dell® 2-button scroll mouse SM
Network Interface Integrated 10/100 Ethernet IN
Modem 56K PCI Data/Fax Modem DFAX
CD or DVD Drive FREE UPGRADE! 24X CD-RW/ DVD Combo Drive
Dell W1700 LCD TV w/1 Yr Svc Qty 1
FREE Dell 720 Color Printer with 1 Yr Advanced Exchange Service Qty 1
TOTAL: $1,373.00
i remember reading a macworld in 1994 showing conceptual designs from the apple industrial design department.
:)
they had something like this (along with a mac based on the tizio lamp, and a tablet mac)
too bad gateway got it to market a few years ago
I guess when someone shoots the monitor and says they destroyed the computer I can't laugh at the movie anymore.
Leave it to apple to spoil my bad action movie jokes...
While I never really liked the look of previous iMacs, I must give Apple kudos on this one.
It looks *extremely* slick, and I these would look so much better as the terminals in librarys and what have you, although probably way overkill.
And the one cord in the back is a far cry from my desk, lol.
This thing is only shipped with 256M of RAM by default? And only upgradable to 2GB?
The old iMacs could hold 1GB. This one is about 10 times faster and maxes out at twice the memory. This is pretty poor. Why does apple insist on shipping systems with such little memory.
Also, why is the FSB at 1/3 of the clockspeed of the CPU, as opposed to 1/2?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It looks great, has a G5, comparable power to a PC and isn't so expensive. (remember it's including a very nice 20 inch screen).
Interesting points, it has a VESA compliant arm, so you can wall mount it easily. And Apple still haven't managed to get a clue about RAM, shipping a PC with 256 MB of ram is NOT ACCEPTABLE anymore.
this is not 1999, OS X needs at least 512 MB to run well.
It looked like this but was black and had a smaller lcd (which was the style at the time) with a blazingly fast 486 processor...
http://www.monorailcomputer.org/index.html
The most amazing space-saving feature is that it holds it's own power supply in that thin enclosure, so no ugly power bricks sitting on your desk or floor. If I didn't already have a dual 2.5Ghz G5 coming, this would look pretty attractive.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
Nice pic but it is slow already.. :|
I've mirrored the above image here
It's as inexpensive as a IBM clone and worth more in value.
As an aside, this weekend I called apple care to get my logic board on my G3 Ibook replaced for the third time. I wasn't pleased, and I asked for a new one. Guess what? They're shipping a new Ibook G4 1gz for me. That's service. Barring the fact that the hard ware was faulty, they really came through on this one. That's why I buy apple.
http://cincyboys.blogspot.com/ Everything Cincinnati. Including the word 'Finnih'
...You can't price style, baby! :)
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
As posted here: http://live.macobserver.com/article/2004/07/paris2 004_keynote.shtml
:-) - posted by Bryan
Paris 2004 - Live Coverage of Steve Jobs Keynote
3:00AM CDT, August 31st, 2004
[4:44 AM] We aren't sure that the unit shown on stage was an actual working unit. It may have been a body with a paper display covering it. We aren't sure, of course, but we wanted to make note of that. - posted by Bryan
[4:41 AM] We are seeing a video for the new iMac now. Apple is comparing it to the iPod, the way the music player sits in the Dock. Also, the video says "From the creator of the iPod," showing that Apple is trying to leverage the success of the music player. Jonathan Ive says it is "quiet and utterly serene" in the video. - posted by Bryan
[4:38 AM] US$1299 - 17" 256 MB RAM, Combo Drive, 80 GB drive, 64 MB video card. This compares to US$1799 for the old starting iMac.
US$1499 - 17", with 1.8 GHz.
US$1899 - 20" display (1680 x 1050), 2.2" thick, 1.8 GHz G5, 256 MB RAM, 160 GB drive, SuperDrive, and same 64 MB video card.
They will begin shipping in mid-September! - posted by Bryan
[4:37 AM] You can unscrew three screws, and the entire back comes off. The crowd loves it!
The G5 module, when looking at the back, is on the right side. There are three fans in the unit, and it is "quiet as a whisper." - posted by Bryan
[4:35 AM] SuperDrive. 1.8 GHz G5. 600 MHz frontside bus. 400 MHz DDR RAM, up to 2 GB. Serial ATA hard drives, AGP 8X graphic slots. The speakers are mounted on the bottom, so they reflect off the desk, up to the user. The keyboard will slide underneath the display when you are not using it.
There are three 5 USB (3 2.0, 2 1.1), two FireWire, a modem slot, Ethernet (10/100 Base-T), audio-in, audio-out, both headphone and optical), power button on the bottom. - posted by Bryan
[4:34 AM] "Everyone is ging to be asking "where does the computer go?"
All of the connectors are on the left side, all in a row. Again, the crowd is going wild. - posted by Bryan
[4:33 AM] It's white in color, and the crowd is going wild. It has a grey Apple logo on front. Everyhting fits together right behind the display. - posted by Bryan
[4:32 AM] It looks like just a Cinema Display with a DVD slot loader on right side towards the top. Aluminum foot. It's the world's thinest desktop computer, at less than 2" thick. - posted by Bryan
[4:31 AM] The iMac G5 demonstration has begun. - posted by Bryan
[4:31 AM] Apple has sold 7.5 million iMacs, which works out to2.38 per minute over six years. - posted by Bryan
[4:29 AM] The iChat demo ended with Bertrand Serlet video conferencing in. The crowd loved his brief conversation in French. - posted by Bryan
[4:20 AM] We're on to iChat now. The last time we saw such a demo, it included lots of people from around the world in Apple's very cool iChat AV update in Tiger. That does, of course, bring to mind the idea that perhaps will see a certain iCEO who is in northern California, and if we do, we might even see some new hardware... - posted by Bryan
[4:19 AM] Mr. Schiller has moved on to demonstrating the iLife suite. This is the same demo that we have seen before... - posted by Bryan
[4:09 AM] We've moved on to Dashboard, Apple's implementation of a Widget engine. - posted by Bryan
[4:05 AM] For those keeping score at home, the US Apple Store is now, and finally, offline. - posted by Bryan
[4:02 AM] Well, Mr. Schiller went on to a H.264 demo instead of the iMac. Go figure. Interestingly, he specifically did not mention any release dates for this new digital video technology.
From H.264, we are moving on to a demonstration of Safari RSS. - posted by Bryan
[3:54 AM] During Mr. Schiller's Spotlight demonstration, he "found" a document on his demo Mac called "New Products Demo." This will, undoubtedly, be the new iMac everyone is waiting to see.
[3:43 AM]
I will work to elevate you, just enough to bring you down
Is it me, or does this picture show a lot of condensers?
Most motherboards I have seen don't have so many, or not so big. Or am I wrong?
Just wondering...
The new iMac design is pretty similar to the "spy shots" that popped up on the net a few days back (which itself turned out to be a hoax). I wonder if the person who took those picturew knew how close he actually was......
There's never enough when you have too little
So when do we see the touch screen version?
This would make for a perfect kiosk installation.
I want one, or two...
Torcuill
At first, I was a little underwhelmed with the design. Hey, it just looks like their monitor; big deal. But after looking at it for a while, I like it.
Conceptually, this is even more impressive than Apple's previous G4 Cube design. In that case, you had a Kleenex-sized box that housed the computer. Now it's all housed in the screen, along with the slot loading drive. Leads me to think they'll have a G5 PowerBook sometime soon.
I also like the way Apple is explicitly marketing it as an upsell to their wildly successful iPod.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
The graphics-card is lame, the bus-speed is lower compared to G5, but overall... the design. It's just plain boring. When was the last time that apple-addicts were bored when a new machine was introduced?
- 5159
Yes, Apple, I'm bored. The G4 iMac was a lot more interesting to look at than this machine. And design is what apple-addicts are really looking after.
Here's some nice examples for great iMac designs: http://www.mackompass.de/
PLUS: no heating problems here? Picture from iside: http://forum.macnews.de/forum/show?mid=8894.1839.
Now we get to see if postponing all of the iMac sales a couple months ago allowed them to get ready for the demand these new computers will have. It will be interesting if the delay will mean shipping dates closer to now than X-Mas.
Original source for the images. Apple's bandwidth and servers are probably a little more /. proof
Starting with the new headphone jack that's also a mini-optical plug. So you can watch DVDs and listen to them in 5.1 surround sound. You'll also find a passel of USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 connectors for your camera, camcorder or gamepad. Or if you want to connect your iMac to your TV or a digital projector, the mini-VGA port gives you the option. The line in jack lets you record an electric guitar into GarageBand
Kind of funny, how silly this makes Windows Media Center PCs look. Even small form-factor cubes don't look as sexy as this. Exactly the type of machine that could adorn any room in a house. Good work, Apple.
You can grab the images from Apple's iMac G5 PR images page.
Errr, it's not made for that... it's 17 pounds, lacks an internal battery, lacks a touchscreen, lacks a stylus....
Apple always seems to do this on their low-end machines as a cost-savings measure, and yes, it is somewhat annoying. BUT, if you really need more than 2GB of RAM, you may as well just spend a little extra money and get one of the dual G5 desktops, where you can get 4 or 8GB. Let's be honest, I can't imagine most home users are going to be craving 2GB+ of memory in their ~$1500 iMac.
I'd be willing to bet the FSB thing is also a cost saving measure, and perhaps a way to better differentiate their "pro" desktop line from the iMacs.
Looking at this picture, I don't want to imagine what an iMac setup would look like once you get some peripherals plugged in.
Say you plug in a printer, a scanner, a digital camera dock, and iPod dock, some amplified speakers, your ethernet cable, perhaps the phone cable for faxing, and a firewire hard disk, that thing will have 8 cables just hanging there, on the side of the machine, with no support whatsoever. And since there's nothing below the connectors but thin air, what the user will see is a bunch of cables just hanging from the back of the machine. I'm no design engineering guru, but that wasn't too well thought-out, was it? Notice that all the photos are of the iMac with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse.
They should've put the connectors on the stand, near the bottom. Or in the middle of the screen, with a cable guide on the stand.
But as always, I'll wait to see one in person before passing a definitive judgement. I was wronged by the previous iMacs' pictures, this might be no different.
I thought the original reason Apple put the CD/DVD drive in the base of the iMac and avoided a design like this was because their engineers said it was better to have the disc spinning while flat. Did they change their mind, or is the hardware just better now that they can mount the CD behind the monitor at an angle like this?
I was about ready to start cutting my wrists in despair at the thought of servicing it, but your picture has reassured me that Apple may be back on the right track for serviceability in the iMac models.
i was worried about the stability of the apple flat screen monitors myself when they first came out. i went to look at them and pushed them around quite hard. even the 30" was extremely stable. since the imacs have a plastic case rather than aluminum and only come in 17" and 20" models, i have to assume its more than adequately stable.
I like it a lot, based on initial impression. It also looks to be a lot more user-serviceable than the previous generation (where all you could swap out was the AirPort/Extreme card and the one RAM slot). That's nice.
I see they kept the PowerMac/iMac performance differential in part by using a 3x multiplier instead of the 2x that the PowerMacs use. That's OK - a 533 or 600 MHz FSB is still zippy.
The question I have is really about upgrades. Most importantly, can this model finally take an aftermarket internal Bluetooth module? All the previous versions only offer Bluetooth as a BTO option through the Apple Store online (except when it's standard equipment like on the PowerBooks). If you don't buy it at build time, you have to buy a 3rd party USB dongle. With access to the insides, that is now hopefully a thing of the past.
Will more VRAM be available as a BTO option? Right now, all 3 models ship with 64MB, and in my brief look online there did not appear to be an upgrade option. If the iMac is going to sell at all in the gaming market, there will probably need to be a 128MB option available. I wouldn't count on a better graphics processor, though, anytime soon. Apple likes to underpower the iMacs.
With this out there, will the eMac see a minor speedbump anytime soon? The two have traditionally had pretty much the same motherboard design - I don't expect a G5 eMac anytime soon, but maybe we'll get a 1.5 GHz G4 at some point now.
Most importantly, will normal human beings actually be able to buy these in stores anytime this year, or are we going to have to wait for the Tooth Fairy to deliver more G5 chips?
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Well, I'm dissapointed at the design. The previous design with the rounded based and the moving screen was much nicer looking, plus more practical and functional as well.
With this model I can see the following problems:
1. You will now see a million wires coming out of the right side of the machine, hanging in mid-air and visible at all times.
2. All that white space at the bottom of the display makes it look like a waste of space (of course it's probably used for the internal electronics, but geez, couldn't they think of a better design?).
3. The display now only rotates in one single dimension (either tilts up or down) as opposed to the previous iMac multi-dimensions of fredom).
4. That base seems awefully inadecuate for so much weight on top of it. Seems like if it is very easy to drop the display sideways if you have a crouded desk and move things around a lot.
5. This design has been created before by the big guys (IBM and Compaq/HP I think had/have something similar), why not come up with something as cool as the iPod? (it's a shame they say on the website "from the creators of iPod" - if I was one of the iPod designers I'd be shamed...).
6. And how about a $999 model?
What? You can open it up? And upgrade the RAM? And the hard drive too? This isn't an iMac at all!
A GeForce FX 5200 Ultra. You can get better video in a PowerBook. I guess that settles it: no Doom 3 for OS X.
I don't think so - the top-of-the line powerbooks (15" and 17") should have enough horsepower for Doom 3 as well as the whole Powermac G5 family. Besides, the iMac family will certainly get another upgrade round before Doom 3 for Mac gets into beta phase. Half year would be a really optimistic estimate...
click this!
I have 1 GB of ram and a 1 GHz G4, and yet I can't run out of ram, despite running 61 programs (as shown above).
And REAL programs, Photoshop, Word, etc.
OS X handles Ram well.
laptop on a stick folks, laptop on a stick.
ôó
There will be a new iMac before theres time to design one.
There are two groups that apple needs to appeal to with this model, gamers and the hard core corporate client. Until now they have been neglected at huge cost to the company. They had a chance to break into both of those markets with one machine with this release!!! And they clearly have taken a different road. Well time will tell.
Look, Ive used macs since the orignal - that just had 1Mb of ram! - and I always will. I just hope that Jobs starts putting comercial realities ahead of his personal ipod manic agenda and starts putting the boot into Gates at long last.
(sorry for the AC but I'm posting away from my home computer and dont have the login here)
I grew up with a Commodore64 where the keyboard was holding everything. Now it is in the monitor. I am wondering who comes up with an in-mouse architecture.
Yes. It's an iMac. One unit. If it breaks, they'll fix it.
After almost 10 years of Apple doing this,
you would think that people would get the concept.
My wife just saw the new imac and she hates it. Said she still wants one of the old ones.
On another note I really dont like the idea of the proc and other devices so close to the monitor, it's probably harder to update than the older design and with considerations for heat updates beyond adding memory would void the warranty.
Yup, meet the future look of pretty much every computer... I should begin by saying that I am an industrial designer and I therefor have a pretty hardcore Apple fetish. That being said, the coolness of the new iMac has nothing to do with design and everything to do with some extremely impressive engineering to shoehorn the G5 into that small a space... Fact of the matter is, processing speed has gotten to the point where computers are 'Fast Enough' for most people and they would rather have a smaller form factor then a quicker computer. It began hitting a few years ago when the office wonks started lusting after laptops more and more and that trend is going to continue. In 5 years, laptops are going to have enough CUP and GPU horsepower to satisfy even the most dedicated gamer, 3D and motion picture geeks. When that happens, expect even high end desktop workstations to be nothing more then an LCD panel with a "computing module" snapped onto the back. Unfortunately, I wonder what this is going to do for Apple. Having a huge ID department is great when you have these big products that people want and you can make them look pretty, but once our computers become a thin box with an LCD on the front, is anyone going to care? Sure the devil is in the details (look at how uber sex the lineup of ports on the back of the new iMac is!), but those aren't very hard to get right. Look at the market for Plasma TVs- nobody cares about style because they are all identical, so people make purchase decisions based on what they can afford first and which unit offers the best performance/$ within that price range. Style is never a consideration. What happens to Apple when the form factor of computers get standardized and simplified to a point where there is simply no room for an industrial designer to work with?
adding a TV tuner would be a disaster. If you didn't have one already, you'd be forced by Law to buy a TV license with your new iMac whether you wanted to use it as a TV or not. This would add an extra £121 ($216.90) to the cost of your computer.
Most people don't buy a computer to watch TV on, so why should we pay extra for functionality we don't need?
Obviously you have not seen the new Apple Cinema Displays in person. They're rather impressive.
This is starting to make my Cube look not so cool. Must add more internal LED's. And where's my G5 processor upgrade card?
I drank what? -- Socrates
As opposed to the clueless masses who think their current monitor IS the computer. Oh, the little box by the desk? I though that was the power supply!"
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
This computer, at least the display, looks pretty enough for me to consider placing it in the living room. I don't know about a TV tuner, but if I had a computer in the living room, I would definitely want to use it as a home entertainment system, to play MP3s, DVDs etc. And in that case, I want a way to control the computer without an ungainly keyboard and annoying mouse in plain view. (Yes, nice as the Mac keyboards are, I still don't want to have one on the desk all day).
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I just noticed on that picture that the electric cord goes into the back of the screen through a hole in the stand. This is guaranteed by Murphy to be eventually pulled out when you tilt the screen backwards.
Sindri Traustason.
...with a bunch of heterogenious wires (usb, firewire, ethernet, audio, etc) sticking out of it? How about getting a single cable (stylish: curly, textured, fuchsia) port replicator thing going on....
http://www.theimac.com/info/graphics_2002/top_grap hic_left_side.jpg
Now which one is cool?
Plus, a 19-inch laptop is still a keyboard+monitor and can be much better looking than the new iMac.
looks a little less today compared with its 'little brother' (the iMac 20")
20" Cinema Display : $1299
20" G5 IMac : $1899
That's a lot of extra gear for $600.00, isn't it? So, is the iMac a great deal or the Cinema Display now less of one?
And to think I was thiiiis close to picking up a Cinema 20" for my Powerbook...
Did Jonathan Ive retire or something, this seems butt-ass ugly.
Oh well I was expecting the new iMac to be a Tablet connected to a WiFi base station, where the Tablet would hold the processer and harddrive and the base could carry the Superdrive, airport and the ports.
Artist will always make art.
Apparently, you can.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I just noticed on that picture that the electric cord goes into the back of the screen through a hole in the stand. This is guaranteed by Murphy to be eventually pulled out when you tilt the screen backwards.
:-)
If the Quicktime VR is anything to go by, it doesn't need that power cord anyway!
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Technically its of course neat. But a generic white box is pretty uninteresting IMHO. Without the Apple logo I think most Apple users wouldn't look twice and just assume its a another LCD monitor. Of course Apple fans will just respond saying THAT'S THE POINT. Yeah well its boring.
In short its got no style. We have seen this lcd-all-in-one design before now its just happens to be a G5 inside. The previous Imac and things like the Cube were much more interesting. Maybe they'll offer Colored versions to spice it up? Too bad you can't buy the old version with a G5 in it.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Hmm. Reminds me an awful lot of my Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh. In fact, it's even more like this old prototype that Apple made while designing the TAM.
They're very similar, except, of course, that the new iMac doesn't come with a built-in TV tuner, FM radio, remote control, or matching pen-and-pencil set.
On the other hand, it runs faster than the TAM's 250Mhz, too...
-Mark
If they can fit a G5 inside that box we should be seeing powerbook G5's soon. The heat issue with the G5 seems to be solved.
I do not think that a man such as Jobs would ever let minor concerns such as sound engineering or the laws of physics get in the way of his vision.
Are you kidding? Maybe the design is semi-alike, but then again, how many ways can you arrange a computer inside a tiny box?
.2 inches). Honestly, are you just trying to find a reason to beat on them?
Take a look at that gateway. All the pieces are outside the monitor. It's quite bulky, and not nearly as easy on the eye. Gateway didn't want to work as much, they just attached the LCD to the box. Apple shoved all the parts into a backing of a LCD, and it's only two inches thick (give or take
There are only so many ways to package up a computer, and I'd say Apple's new way is quite different from that Gateway model. Sure, it's closer in resemblance to that gateway when compared to a traditional desktop with external CRT or LCD...but come on. Give Apple credit where credit is due.
Also, for people who have added a scroll mouse to their Macs, how well supported are the additional buttons and scroll wheel across various Mac applications?
I used to have a 2 button + scroll wheel mouse -- simply plugged it in and it worked in every app I tried it in.
Now I use a Kensington Turbo Mouse with trackball, 4 buttons + scroll wheel. Works like a charm.
If you think about what a capacitor is, I don't think it is all that thermally sensitive. After all, the biggest, crappiest and hottest capacitors are going to be inside the PSU.
In my experience, electrolytic capacitors, which have a liquid dialetric, tend to fail as this liquid migrates from one end of the capacitor to another. Inside they're built like a jelly roll, and all the jelly leaks to one end, changing the capacitance value and sometimes creating shorts.
I can see how heat might make this problem worse, but the biggest problem is gravity and the orientation of the capacitors. I don't know how many pieces of old equipment like video terminals I've "fixed" by having their users "put them to bed" by turning them upside down at the end of the day. These capacitors look like they're laid out horizontally, which I think will tend to make them last longer.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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m as terid=2932674&found=1&search=Sony%20PCVV30 0G
http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php?
Sony Vaio PCV-V300G - P4 2.8 GHz - 15" TFT Type - Personal computer Form Factor - All-in-one Dimensions (WxDxH) - 15 in x 7 in x 13 in Weight - 16.8 lbs Processor - 1 x Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz Cache Memory - 512 KB L2 cache Cache Per Processor - 512 KB RAM - 512 MB (installed) / 1 GB (max) - DDR SDRAM - 333 MHz - PC2700 Storage Controller - IDE Hard Drive - 1 x 200 GB - standard - DMA/ATA-100 (Ultra) Optical Storage - 1 x DVDdRW Card Reader - Card reader Monitor - Flat panel display - 15" - TFT active matrix Graphics Controller - SiS 651 Video Input - TV tuner Audio Output - Sound card - stereo Communications - Fax / modem - 56 Kbps ( V.90 ) Networking - Network adapter - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet OS Provided - Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
$1560
Admittedly not as clean looking, or as large an lcd, but a more worthy comparison. I'd go over the obvious differences, but anyone here should be able to figure them out. . .
It's a sleek and contained design, but it reminds me of one of the new cinema displays in plastic with serious underbite. The photos don't show it very well, but the top layer of the bevel surrounding the screen is clear plastic, which looks quite nice, but I don't think it completely saves the design. I was personally expecting something much more exciting, but looking at it straight on, you can almost fool yourself into thinking you are looking at an eMac missing its speakers.
With this design to complete their lineup, its easy to see that they wanted the iMac to be to the Powermac, as the iBook is to the Powerbook. There are similar form factors between the consumer and pro lines (if you had one of the new aluminum displays for your powermac), and the same materials for each side of the divide.
While I like the idea behind iMacs I would like to be able to swap out certain elements at my leisure.
So, if paying a premium to lose flexibility is your boat then so be it. Me, I would like the option of upgrading the monitor without throwing away the machine behind it.
Comparing overall value is what the previous poster was getting at. That is one hell of a premium your willing to pay to have it in a design which looks like but offers less flexibilty.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Whatever anybody says about the price one thing is for sure. There is no PC on the planet that will hold its value better than a Mac.
Take a look at a 1 year old Dell or IBM anything even servers and then take a look at a 1 year old Mac. The PC will be at least 50% less and the Mac will have dropped about $100.
After a year the PC becomes worthless and the Mac still has a good value. 2 yr old iMacs are still worth quite a bit of their original price, especially if they have the SuperDrive. How much is a 2 year old Dell worth?
When ever a person asks about buying a PC vs. a Mac that is the first thing I try to explane to them.
But having numerous Macs over the years, I disagree on the service time. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've only had three equipment failures in twelve years. I have a Dell Latitude that has required many more service visits in the last eighteen months, but thats for another post.
I had the firewire port on my PowerBook go out after two years, contacted Apple and they shipped me a box for it the next day. I had my laptop back with a new board a day and a half later.
Our first iMac, a 600 Graphite, had an issue when my son broke the CD/RW drive by forcing a disk in. AppleCare took care of that as well, we got it back in three days.
When I factor in what my time is worth for driving around picking up parts and doing the repairs my self, Apple's warranty service is a deal. In some cases it was faster than waiting fot the Dell service technician to show up, but again I digress.
Click and help me get an iPod?
The iBook technically only supports mirroring but there is a firmware hack that allows it to do dual-head just like the PowerBook. I would assume the same thing will happen with this.
I fail to see how this is anything but a laptop with the keyboard and the battery removed.
Closer still are TabletPCs, but again, with less functionality and portability.
G5 in there is nice, but with the base model only having 256MB of ram, all that nice processing power will go to waste as the hard drive thrashes away.
Once you add in enough ram to make it nice, I am sure the price will put it at about the same place as a mid-to-high end laptop.
Did you buy a Neuros today?
Check out.
"I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "
iMac G5 VESA Mount Adapter Kit
$29.00
Available for order in October.
Allows your iMac G5 to be used with VESA compliant mounting solutions such as wall mounts and articulating arms.
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
Sure, marketing people never get carried away. I'm sure that all the drivvle to come from Dell, Gateway, NVidia, ATI, VIA, AMD, Intel, and Microsoft is perfectly accurate, and never EVER stretches anything.
Perhaps you like this better:
The iMac G5 offers mediocre built-in graphics capabilities. Like, for instance, the so-so widescreen display. Mac OS X version 10.3 "Panther," provides you with the world's most mid-range -- and most graphics-using -- operating system. And then there's the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics processor with 64MB of DDR SDRAM. It's a combination that delivers middle-of-the-road 2D and 3D graphics performance and a semi-immersive, pixelated, and distorted gaming experience with half the frame rate of our professional systems.
Yeah, that makes me want to buy one. Hell, I'll buy two after that stunning writeup. Here's my credit card!!
Always remember that marketing people are SELLING product, and that by making a comparison to the last model, they can get away with saying things like "unparalleled performace"
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
from: http://www.apple.com/imac/:
"Back up your iTunes collection or make a mix CD for that special someone. [emphasis added]"
Um, that would be a CD full of songs to which you own the copyright, right? Riiiiight...
Now, before we get into the "slashdotters don't have teh g1rlfriends LOL OMG BBQ" jokes, or the "my iMac is my special someone" crowd, I'd like to say that this just really, really makes me sick. You can't have it both ways. We are either allowed to share music, or we aren't. (I know Apple != RIAA etc., but they are a Large Corporate Entity, and presumably wouldn't encourage something that is 100% against the wishes of the **AA) So what's the deal? I can see it now: "All Combo-drive Macs come with Shrink! Share your DVDs with your friends!"
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Apple store is charging $1299 for the 20" monitor, but only $1899 for the iMac with the 20" monitor. Does that make sense to anyone?
Cinema Display Monitors are much better than the screeens found in the iMacs, for the same size. I am talking about current models of course, but I assume it will be the same for the upcoming ones. The viewing angle is much wider, the backlighting much more uniform, etc. iMac screens are essentially laptop screen.
Sorry, that might be enough for all of my music, maybe even all of my photos. But I have very little music (in comparison to most of my friends. ) and almost no photos. I know people who cannot fit even half their music on an iPod. There is a reason that people lobbied to get 80gig hard drive packs for their Neuros.
I like that the hard disks are SATA though! That is pretty cool.Did you buy a Neuros today?
Comparing Apples to Oranges....Dells
Ok iMac is low-end so compare to cheapest Dell with almost the same functionality.
Dell w 17 inch lcd = $1377 yet it is not an all-in-one
Dell with 20" lcd = $1887
Specs for the Dells otherwise:
Pentium 4 at 2.8 Ghz (533 FSB)
Windows XP Pro (Can't compare Home to OS X because OS X has all the features of Pro and more)
256 Megs RAM
80 gig hd/160 with 20 inch screen
Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+RW/+R) w/double layer write capability
Fireiwre PCI adapter
128MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Graphics Card with TV-Out and DVI
What your not getting with the Dells:
Gigabit Ethernet
Widescreen LCD
All in One enclosure
64 bit capability->Especially for linux users
A design that begs to be seen, not shoved under a desk.
What your not getting with the iMac:
64 extra megs in the viedo card.
Crap trial software you have to remove
The lower end Dell (17") was made to compare with the mid range iMac. $122 isn't all that much considering what benefits you will gain. (IMO).
At the higher end, there is no question in my mind that the iMac is by far the better deal for merely 12 dollars extra.
Feel free to try doing the spec work on your own elsewhere. Just make sure you don't compare OS X to Windows XP Home. OS X's capabilities far outstrip those of XP Home. And if your selling to businesses that need to join a domain, you would need Pro anyway.
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. -- FDR
I think the older iMac is far cooler, in terms of design. It was also very unique. The new G5 iMac is a been-there, done-that design that PC manufacturers have been making for a while now. Like Pelham Sloane started shipping back in January.
I think part of the appeal of the older iMac was that it was so well-designed and had such a completely unique look. This new one's only real unique look is that it's white with a brushed metal stand. Oooooo.
It sucks that it isn't height-adjustable anymore, too. That was one thing I really liked about the old one.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
for the love of christ, steve jobs please put a damn link light on the nics. this has been the one thing that has bothered me about macs. link lights are one of those things that you take for granted until you don't have one, trouble shooting is so much easier with link lights.
lose != loose
Absolutely. There's big money to be made from print quality images.
..its looks like a damn nice piece of hardware.
/office needs.
It is exactly what I would reccomend for the person who has:
A)some money.
B)taste.
C)no interest in games.
D)only multimedia / mail
E)no interest in spending time on maintenance.
most manufacturers will not replace/repair a LCD unless there are at least 8 dead pixels.
what manufacturer only requires 2-4 dead pixels?
the history of the world
I'd like to see various mounting solutions built just for this model.
;)). When you want uninterrupted surface for writing or organizing, etc, swing the whole computer away.
;)
Imagine:
- the 17" as a (passenger-area) movie machine in a car / van / minivan. (And I've seen some installs of much smaller and worse displays that cost more than this one's base model, too, and which couldn't do a lot of things a computer-based system could, like play any formats for which codecs exists, also act as a GPS display, or overqualified MP3 player, etc.)
- a thin storage spot on the back or side of a desk; when you need the computer, swing it up from there (something like old typewriter table shelves, but not quite as dangerously spring-loaded
- ceiling-attached pole/arm mount that doesn't need a desk surface at all, except perhaps as a place to put a keyboard and mouse. With several mounting spots in a room, and somewhat of a gooseneck, you could move the machine around, adjust the height, etc. Movies in bed without a big cantilevered horizontal surface, a web-cam interface in the kitchen so you can keep an eye on driveway, apt. building entrance, etc.
- An easel-type floor-mounted stand, turning one into a TV-for-the-evening, an art-gallery display, a temporary 2nd machine next to another one or next to a rack of machines in a data center, a less elaborate movies-in-bed machine, a demo screen for small-group presentations, etc.
- An octopus cart; there are some smart laptop carts (mostly built for Apple laptops, though I guess there are others for Dells, etc), set up so laptops can be stored in, charged in, and locked up in one rolling cart -- they're basically marketed as portable computing labs. One for G5s might only hold 3 or 4, but in a way that lets people work side by side on their own machines, and later have the whole collection secured in in the deepest keep of the castle. And there could be some slots for iBooks or other laptops, too
Anyhow. That is a beautiful design -- congratulations, Apple.
Tim
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Factor in this difference and an AMD64 workstation may look rather better value. Of course, design junkies would just get the mac anyway. You can't really put a price on chic.
Electrolytic capacitors are very heat sensitive, if you "think about what it is"; it's a liquid-filled device. They're rated for a fixed lifetime, and that lifetime is a certain number of hours at a certain temperature. The "fixed lifetime" bit is why electrolytic capacitors are NEVER milspec-rated; they can't be. Tantalum capacitors are, but they're a)expensive b)take up more space c)expensive d)expensive.
The original poster you responded to was naive. For example- the capacitors could be high-temperature rated; the case will say so. I forget the ratings but 85 degrees C and 105 degrees C are coming to mind. The hour rating also varies drastically- you can buy some that will last 4-5 times longer than others. You can buy 'overvoltage' capacitors that are rated well above the voltage you'll be using(though they'll be larger). So on, etc. As previously mentioned, they could also be tantalum.
Furthermore, he/she/it seems to think heat will be a problem off the PSU. No doubt it uses convection, and notice the PSU is at the bottom of the machine, getting the coolest air? my G4 17" PB power supply brick runs fairly cool under normal use- and it has no venting, it's a solid plastic case. In fact, I just found it buried under my jacket on the rug- well insulated- and it's lukewarm. Charging the battery is another matter, but the G5 imac doesn't have one of those.
So, honestly, I think everyone is not giving Apple a chance on this one and engaging in a lot of slack-jawed armchair engineering. Given the potential for fire and whatnot, I'm sure Apple was very careful about thermal design. What I find more interesting is that none of the photos are real- they're very clearly CG mockups. 3-4 week delivery? Hahah. AHAHAHAHAHAH. AHAHAHAHAHAAH [collapses from heart attack from laughing fit].
Please help metamoderate.
Macs have longer active lives than PCs since there is much less built-in obsolescence. I can run MacOS X well on my five-year old iMac or PowerMac.
........... $ 1,299 ......... 1xlifetime = 100 ..... 5 years ......... $1,399
............. $ 600 ........3 year life x100 = 300 per lifetime of machine ......... $ 1,000
If you have a lousy monitor left in a corner the PC is much cheaper than the Mac. But if you want your employees to survive without eyestrain you probably want to fix its lifespan at three years. This means replacing the monitor at the same time as the PC.
The cost of spyware and virus protection/removal solutions is about $50 per machine, plus $1,000-odd on the server level, plus about $100 per year per machine for roughly one technician hour a year of support.
Mac
Visits
Lifetime
Total
Cost/year... $279
PC
Visits
Spyware+AV Software... $100
Total
Cost per year: $333
If we add a cheap monitor for $100 it goes up to $366. But then you should really compare it to the $799 eMac, not the $1,299 iMac, which would actually increase Apple's advantage.
if we add a 17" LCD for $500 it goes up to $458.
Visits may be a gross underestimate. I've seen PCs messed up so badly that it's been cheaper to buy a new PC than to figure out what's wrong.
This doesn't even include the server-based AV software you should also buy.
See? The Mac isn't half bad when it comes to a reasonable cost perspective with all costs included. Not to mention that Apple Mail + iCal costs nothing, while Outlook + Exchange are obscenely expensive.
D
I'll consider an Apple iMac (or laptop for that matter) when they come out with the same resolution as the 23" Cinema Display (1920x1200, commonly called WUXGA). Then I can watch HDTV natively (there is a stand alone box option for Apple now) and I'll have more pixels for showing digital photos.
Dara
10 minutes ago, I generated (and printed!!!) a web order (order # W9259055, which has mysteriously disappeared), consisting of:
iMac 1.6GHz w/ 17" TFT
1GB DDR400 SDRAM - 2 DIMMs
Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
Accessory kit
Bluetooth Module + Apple Wireless Keyboard & Mouse + Mac OS X - U.S. English
Power Supply
250GB Serial ATA drive
For $1,823.00 (all of that stuff)
Also, on that order appears Quicken 2005 for Mac at $69.95.
When I went back to check on my saved order, it was gone. Re-Generating the identical order, my wife's new apple now costs $2483.00.
W9259862
iMac 1.6GHz w/17" TFT Z094 1 $2,483.00 $2,483.00
1GB DDR400 SDRAM - 2 DIMMs 065-4715
Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) 065-4704
Accessory kit 065-4695
Bluetooth Module + Apple Wireless Keyboard & Mouse + Mac OS X - U.S. English 065-4721
Power Supply 065-5255
250GB Serial ATA drive 065-4720
That's $660 in about 10 minutes.
I planned on getting it for her birthday next year...
At this rate, it will cost:
$34,715,183.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
I agree with you with this point. Apple historically has always been behind on the supply side. They never seem to be able to estimate demand or scale up when well when it rises, resulting in delayed orders. Its a shame.
No, you just need to lock down the config tight enough so that can't happen
We have an entire team of guys at our college that specialize in one and only thing. Windows PCs. Yet, they have trouble locking down the computer because Windows and Windows programmers have picked up alot of bad habits over the years. Allowing Limited Userby default to even write to the root of the C:\ drive, the root of Program Files, last but not least the root of the Windows directory. Even after locking down most things. Our computers where hit by NetSky.
Here is a short example C:\Program Files\Common Files\McNeel Shared\Teen Porn 16.jpg.pif has been deleted. C:\Program Files\Common Files\McNeel Shared\Virii Sourcecode.scr Found the W32/Netsky.c@MM virus !!! C:\Program Files\Common Files\McNeel Shared\Virii Sourcecode.scr has been deleted. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Best Matrix Screensaver.scr Found the W32/Netsky.c@MM virus !!! C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Best Matrix Screensaver.scr has been deleted. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\CDO\Best Matrix Screensaver.scr Found the W32/Netsky.c@MM virus !!! C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\CDO\Best Matrix Screensaver.scr has been deleted. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\CDO\Dark Angels.pif
It just goes to show that the Windows OS is inherited from a single user system, and doesn't think about where and how a user can install malware and virii ..etc throughout the system, infecting other users. We've been using Unix and now Linux for the last 20 years and I've never as many problems on Windows on other
platforms like Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Linux and Mac OSX.
This is a false argument, and clearly from someone who has never used OS X. Why would you have to hire three? Why not one, or one part time since OS X needs so little support? As people migrate over to Mac OS X, you will need less admins. There's your cost savings.
Perhaps you are a windows admin yourself.... hmmmmmm.
e.g. Our department specs maybe something like this
1.8 GHz G5 processor
40 GB harddrive
CD-RW drive
512 MB to 1 GB RAM
3 Year service
My department doesn't need the secretarial staff to have 80GB drive nor a DVD-R burning SuperDrive. Yet, I'm forced to buy those components if I want the 1.8GHz machine instead of the 1.6GHz. I don't expect Apple to be able to customize like Dell does (penny pinching moves like excluding a $2.41 mouse pad) , but I just feel that I lack the ability to squeeze the most out, by not being able to configure the machines to our needs hampers purchasing sometimes. For administrative and coporate jobs and people who need a basic terminal a 40GB HDD and a CD-RW burner are great. Our users typical need enough processor power, for 3-4 years down the road and enough RAM to run 5-8 concurrent applications as they typically do.
The PC industry tends to have cheap hardware and relatively pricey integral software ($300 for XP Pro non-upgrade, MS Office even more) while Apple, being a singluar source, can subsidize its software development with hardware sales. People scoff at the yearly $150 OSX upgrades, but I can assure you that without $2k starting model towers and pricey iPods, it would be a lot worse.
I do not own any Apple hardware, but I would love one of the new 30" displays if nVidia or ATI would release a consumer-level PC-based 2xdual link graphics card. (These monitors are one area where they are probably not making off too much like bandits...)
Networking seems more like the cable you'd have on a company desktop - better performance, cheaper, and way way less security headache than wireless.
Incidentally, the stand looks like it has a sort of cable holder thing, to make things a little bit neater. And you can of course always get a cable snake thingy if you're plugging in lots of stuff.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
... and I have to agree. It's far from ugly, but the design does not look as "inspired" as that of the G4 iMac. Very practical (especially regarding the footprint), but not as innovating or attention-catching as its predecessor. The 20" version does look very good though, with the bigger screen making the white part below look quite small.
;)
What really caught my eyes though are the 30" screens. Two of them side by side makes for a truly impressing sight! Too bad nearly no one can afford them and the G5 to make them run...
What do you know about World Politic? Find out in this quiz
1. The old iMac had a lightweight screen that floated almost magically above the computer and was easily adjusted to any angle with the touch of one finger. The new iMac almost returns us to the old days of bulky and immovable CRTs. To adjust your screen you have to move your entire computer. Duh! Like we were asking for that.
2. The old iMac didn't let you add anything internally, but at least you could discretely add a Firewire drive with out-of-sight cabling. With the new iMac, all cabling will be dangling in the air for all to see and making adjusting the screen an even greater hassle. Now the monitor will go where the cabling wants and not where you or I want. Lean back while listening on headphones and your screen tilts at an odd angle. What a stroke of genius!
3. Apple's always tended to make computers that get too hot, with the notable exception of the outsized G5 'blimp hanger' desktop. Are those G5s crammed into such a small form factor with limited circulation going to run hot as a toaster? Probably. Look for baked, yellowing white plastic inside a year. Look for the silly folks who bought this Edsel to whine and ask for Apple to fix the problem.
The pitiful thing is that this product isn't even 'innovative.' Sony already has a computer with a similar form factor and it's not exactly selling like hot cakes, for much the same reasons listed above. If someone wants a screen/computer combo, a laptop makes far more sense. This beast has all the disadvantages of a laptop with none of the advantages.
At least we can be happy about one thing. They didn't use their flashing lights patent on this one--the Mac for five-year-old boys who never grew up. "It flashes and squawks. It must be good!"
Yes, I'm sure some of these beasts will sell. Some people are so ga-ga over Apple's designs--good or awful, they'd buy a Mac if it were brown and looked like a pile of cattle poop, flies and all. (Attention Apple design!)
It's easy to see why, in spite of the best OS on the planet Apple's market share is in the low single digits. Apple makes well-designed laptops and they sell well. But their desktops seemed to be designed by the weirdest characters in Dilbert cartoons. And they sell pitifully and almost in spite of their designs. People buy them because they have to, not because they want to.
What the public wants in desktops is shown by what they buy in the Windows world--a reasonably priced box (color irrelevant) with modest features but easily customized to suit. What Apple sells is far from that. Buyers are forced to choose between an always slightly weird iMac that can't be upgraded and an overpriced (and currently oversized) desktop with more trendy features (i.e. optical video out) than most of us want, but so poorly designed it can't hold more than two internal and one external drive.
I'd love to upgrade my aging beige G3. The Windows/Linux world is filled with hardware that would suit. Unfortunately, When it comes to desktops, Apple keeps coming out with dumb stuff like this new iMac. They design computers to win awards from weird magazines rather than give the public what it wants.
--Mike Perry, Inkling blog , Seattle
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
I guess both. They weren't considering the possibility that computers were good for accomplishing "work".
The lack of LEDs and singing fans as indicators of how powerful and nifty a computer was, seemed to confuse them. Even surfing the Net to show them that yes this tiny machine was doing real computing work didn't help my case.
The client/server model was super-foreign to them as well, being exclusively Windows users all their lives (what I was trying to show them was that we could upgrade the SERVER anytime we wanted, and the thin CLIENTS would last years and years without upgrades), and they lost interest quickly enough that the lesson was gone and we moved on to other things.
We must drive a sword through any hypothesis that is not strictly necessary.
So, let's see. I can get a complete, well-equipped G5 computer with a 20" monitor for $1899. Yet their stand-alone 20" monitor is $1299.
My first thought was "wow, that means the cost of building the computer part must be less than $600". Then I came to my senses and realized that it really means the stand-alone monitors must have huge profit margins. I've always felt that their monitors were the most overpriced products in their portfolio. I think this proves it.
No flames, please. I'm a major Mac-head. I just thought the cost difference between the products was revealing.
I used to work in Apple's flagship retail store in San Francisco. All the POS systems ("cash registers," 7 of them) are iMac G4's, about one revision before the last ones. Just from the way the customers behaved when I worked there, I know that if they don't hurry up and replace those with a currently-shipping model, the customers are going to constantly be asking about them and they won't care what kind of processor, they'll be pissed. Some people are just going to still like the 'lampshade' iMacs better and of course my former coworkers are going to have to tell them they're not for sale. Oh man.
Oh, and the "internet cafe" computers are also G4 iMacs. I also wonder if they're going to replace those. I think there are 16 of them. I think they should, in the interest of not getting people jazzed about a model you no longer sell.
If Apple can cram a G5 motherboard and a 17 inch LCD into a case 2 inches thick, they should be able to do something simular packing job with one of their notebooks, no?
Sure, the battery life probably won't be the greatest in the world, but folks like video editors and Photoshop junkies would probably appreciate having mobile that has the power of a G5.
So, what's the hold up, Apple? Where's my G5 Powerbook?!?
The new iMac has a Serial ATA hard drive in the $1299 model. If you want that in a Dell, you'll have to pay $1699.
My Blog Sucks.
Of these support calls how many were "how do I change my wall paper", "Where is 'My Computer'", "How do I make a short cut", "I can't eject the cdrom", and other such requests that would normaly come from a person that has used nothing but MicroCrap there whole computing life. I work for a school district with 75% mac, we have 2 admins, one for our legacy OS 9 stuff and the other for OSX, we have two full time mac repair techs and 2 that that do both pc and mac. We have 16 techs for PC repair and 4 people for the Administration. This is for over 5000 computers total both mac and PC.
Where is the TCO savings? Lets see 6 people to support 3750 Macs and 20 people to Support 1250 PC's With the average cost of 166k/yr (three admins for 500k/yr) per employee from the Parent post, the cost per unit to support is
Mac is $265.60 per year
PC is $2656.00 per year
Support for the macs is one tenth the cost of the PCs. There is your cost savings. This is based on real numbers of employees and Computers. You do the math and prove me wrong.
Side note, I started of in PC only support and moved to Mac only. Mac is much easier to learn and to support. Yes Macs crach but a hell of lot less often the PC's do.
Ahh.. The mind what a wonderful trap!
"256MB DDR SDRAM running at 400MHz and NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra with 64MB graphics memory. So you'll be able to play Worlds of Warcraft, Doom III and other fantastic entertainment."
Can anyone say "marketing BS"? Well yeah, it'll run Doom 3... at 640by480 on low details, running at 15FPS! Note that the system requirements of Doom 3 specify 384MB of RAM as the absolute mimimum, and this system has 256MB of RAM.
I mean, lets take an Apple laptop without a battery, put the screen on the top of the lid, stick it on a stand and make it so the lid does not open, put a 5200U in it and charge £1350! (And then market it to gamers, claiming it'll run Doom 3)
Its not to say its a bad computer, but it is anything but a gaming or graphics-oriented computer.
If you have a legitimate argument to back that up, let's hear it. However, the fact is I can price similar spec'd real IBMs for less than $1,299, and IBM clones for a few hundred dollars.
And, yes, as I pointed out earlier, this does include comparable optical drives (indeed, you'd be hard pressed to buy a combo drive right now, your IBM equivalent would most likely have a DVD burner compared to the $1,299 iMac's combo drive). FSB is a performance issue, I'm certain my example PC runs, in practice, at a comparable speed. Neither the IBM nor the iMac includes wireless, but the IBM can be upgraded to support 802.11g for next to nothing, it's $99 for the iMac.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
sorry, i've been buying apple gear for myself exclusively for 30 years now (and using all OTHER available platforms during the same time period) so i feel somewhat qualified to comment - they need an entry level computer in the below $1000 (preferably below $700) price range
i'm not saying they will go out of business or any of the usual doom&gloom nonsense, just that i would love to be able to recommend to more friends and clients an apple based solution in the dell price range, exclusive of performance and quality issues
i am sure they will sell every 4th gen iMac they can build - too bad their sales volume doesn't allow them the infrastructure to build every iMac they could sell
Ask Me About... The 80's!
So they cut the bus to 1/3rd the Clock Speed. For the categories it is targeted it won't be noticeable as it would be for a researcher, developer, ecetera.
The Screen Real Estate is a major improvement. The prior iMac had nothing remotely like the specs of these new screens. The 20 in at 16 x 10 is a major step up for their LCDs that aren't a Cinema Display.
The fact the high end is just over US $2k and picturing an end consumer with a 160 Gig drive, so on and so forth, the only modification most will make is to bump up the RAM. Big deal. That issue is solved rapidely.
Add an Air Port Extreme with a Base station in the House and being that it is only 21lbs take it where you want and relax. It's a lot easier to move this desktop system than a PowerMac G5 in one shot.
This has a less Medical Office look and a more Business Office appearance that will help propel sales into the Enterprise markets.
Wow!! They made a dell desktop that runs OS X?!?!?!?
I'm sorry I don't see your argument or it doesn't hold water. Deploying software on a Mac and maintaining updates and administration on a Mac OSX is far lower than any other computer I've come across. We have a hetrogenous enviroment in our department. Aside from Windows PCs we have SGI Irix, Sun Solaris, HP-UX, Linux and Mac OSX.
Please, just goes to show how poor your techs were. I worked at a research hospital were I supported over 2000, yes OVER 2000, macs running OS 8, OS 9 by myself. You know what I spent most my time doing, surfing the internet waiting for a ticket to come in, while the PC guys were swamped with tickets trying to support about 250 systems a piece. Once things went to OS X, they made me run PC calls to help out the PC techs, I spent 95% of the time doing PC work, and probably 4% was helping users with specialized lab equipment and software.
I know people who support Mac installations just as large part time with no problems. Ask school teachers who have had to deal with IT dorks coming in and forcing them to switch to PCs which they prefer and how much their IT costs went through the roof. Most school that did this went from having someone come out when they had a problem to having to have a IT staff there 5 days a week, all day long.
You probably want to fire that one. Problem solved.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Apple: "The Display is the Computer"
Sun: "The computer is the network"
Microsoft: ???
SCO: "Profit!"
Assume I was drunk when I posted this.
The portability of the new design has caused me some concern. We've gone through a break-in and I don't want to lose the 'easy to move' model.
I have reviewed the specs but cannot find a 'Kensington Slot" mentioned. Does it have one?
20" iMac $1899
20" CinemaDisplay $1299
difference $ 600
This shows that Apple could reintroduce a G5 cube and price it aggresively under $1000.
Would you buy a Cube if it had the following?
1.8GHz PowerPC G5
512K L2 cache
600MHz frontside bus
256MB DDR400 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
160GB Serial ATA hard drive
Slot-load SuperDrive
Bluetooth
One empty PCI slot
Ditch the clear plastics, make Bluetooth standard and sell it without a mouse and keyboard.
Give customers the option of buying Apple's wired or Bluetooth mice/keyboard or third party peripherals.
It would be a switcher friendly Mac.