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The $899 Educational iMac
Valthan writes "Macsimum news has just released news about a new version of the iMac that is being touted as an educational machine. It seems to be a nice setup, and has the cheapness that us university students strive on, I think they just may have a winner here to get people on the Mac. Now if only JCreator worked on it ..."
From the article "Featuring a 17-inch widescreen LCD display, the iMac for education includes a Combo drive for burning CDs and reading DVDs, 512MB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM memory expandable up to 2GB and hard drive storage capacity up to 160GB. Every iMac also includes a built-in iSight video camera, built-in 10/100/1000 BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet for high-speed networking, built-in AirPort Extreme 802.11g WiFi for up to 54Mbps wireless networking, a total of five USB ports (three USB 2.0) and two FireWire 400 ports."
Granted that this is primarily intended for students, it's probably a good thing that they have an Intel chip inside. Using Boot Camp or Parallels or another VM, a student could run two operating systems concurrently (for most any CS major, it is essential to be able to develop for Windows -- other operating systems are a huge plus).
If Leopard has the Windows support that I think it will, this iMac could easily become the next must-have next to the iPod.
College students want a cheap but stylish machine, yet they don't want to lose their "gaming" functionality. It could be a perfect marriage.
Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ -- Exercise for the rest of us.
1. This article is an add,
2. An x86 system can be built for 30% the cost,
3. I bought a Alpha before I bought a Apple computer of any kind.
4. Apple is migrating from the Power architecture, joining the mainstream sluggards.
5. Ignore Apple, buy a trendy and efficient PowerPC computer from an honest company
6. If you realy want a PowerPC system, just go buy a Nintendo Gamecube (for less than USD 50) and hack away with a 100% open-source prospectable system toting 450 MHz PPC processor with 40MB RAM and a Radeon 7000 graphics. It boots Linux at the moment, but needs help elsewhere in terms of extending data storage from the compact DVDROM with help of a network interface.
7. If you realy want to wander beyond the Gamecube, get a 128-bit processor system that boots Linux and supported 100%: Sega Dreamcast.
8. I hear there are affordable Sun Sparcs...in dumpsters. Scott Mcnealy made sure the bright people at Sun would never *ever* need to get arm-to-arm with the gothic Apple mimes.
without prejudice
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
Grandparent refers to the smoke-and-mirrors story of the other day where Mac afficionados were ditching their proprietary locked-down DRM'd don't-touch-my-kernel-asshole OSes for Ubuntu.
In the interest of full disclosure, I run Ubuntu on my main box and have an iBook as a portable. Seriously.
Maybe, but if you take the quality into account, I'd say they're about par. Dell isn't exactly known for quality, most people I know who have Dells have them because they were the cheapest. The people I know have a Mac because they know Macs for the quality. And only one of the 3 or 4 people I know using Macs uses it for MacOS X.
Now, if they come out with a black one, people will flock to this for sure. I'll be first in line!
It all depends on what your priorities are.
I went through college fairly comfortably. I went to a modest (but good) state school. I didn't spend all my money on booze. I got a job. I worked my butt off for scholarships, which ended up covering slightly more than tuition. I lived sensibly, and did not get money from my parents.
I still managed to spend ~$1000 on a computer partway through (I liked playing some games now and again), after the one I had in high school bit the dust. I left school with a 3.9 GPA. I managed to live in a comfortable, clean apartment with a couple of friends off-campus, where rent is cheaper. I drove a car that was nearly as old as I was. And I'm not in debt.
It's not nearly as much fun as getting drunk every weekend and barely making it through, but I feel like I'm much more mature than my peers are now that we're in the working world. You can't have everything.
Hmmm. Apple sells computers. I can understand why they wouldn't want to get into the messy, messy world of consumer lending, particularly over what are pretty small amounts of money in an absolute sense.
Especially because Apple tried it several times and ways during the 90s through contracted lenders - little more than specialty one-time checks or credit cards that were used once to purchase computer equipment for a pre-arranged price.
They lost money on most of the promotions and pissed off customers each and every time.
The point behind a good CS major is that you can program in any language - MS, Linux or whatever. Personally, my alma mater, UMASS Amherst had pretty much all Linux machines and all software was writeen in Java. MS has very little to do with my day to day other than a little desktop support for my end users and is completely unessential for a CS major.
If religous zealots don't believe in Evolution, then why are they so worried about bird flu?
The popularity of the LTSP is showing that Apples high priced eMac machines, even with high discounts aren't really the best solution. Why doesn't Apple really make an advance in the world and release a $299 17" thin client Emac ($399 19", $549 20") and appropriate upgrades to Mac OS X server to support a significantly more cost efficient and easier to manage configuration for schools and groups.
Agreed however many courses do teach practical application. At my school, many web design courses are taught in asp.net because its an easy transition for anyone who has taken a cs course. (The web design courses are humanities). In my 4000 level os course, half the assignments were using win apis. The other half were unix. Many software packages that the school requires for any engineering (com sys included) either only run on Windows, or are only available for free from the school on Windows. The cs I and II are both taught strictly in visual studio because 99.99% of students buy the laptops the school sells instead of buying from another vendor. Teachers know everyone except an odd kid here or there has windows with visual studio. I have 2 computers, a mac laptop and a pc laptop. I spend a lot of time on the mac atleast at my school, there are a lot of things I couldn't do otherwise before dual booting macs.
Think about this for a second: a $1500 Lenovo Thinkpad will get you a machine with pretty decent specs; I just costed a T60 with a T2400 chip (1.83GHz), 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HD, optical, and Office 2003 Basic. For arts majors, this will get you through eight years of school, well into your doctorate. For engineers and math folk, this system will definitely last you through a 4 year BS. So, it would seem to me that the school you go to requires this machine to save students massive headaches in their senior years because the expensive laptop they bought in Year 1 no longer runs Mathematica 9.0.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Remember that CS is about teaching *concepts*
Agreed.
Also, I think it's important to note that at the school I go to, our main CS lab is all-Mac. In fact, they just replaced the iLamps with Intel iMacs.
Apple is a hardware company after all... But I don't think it was to 'sell some extra hardware' exactly. But more on the lines of making it easier for people to 'switch'.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
There's a clause in the financial aid law that allows for a one time "need adjustment" of $1500 (or the published allotment for your college).
A lot of students count financial aid as "free". And as an example, here at Kansas State as a Computer Science student I fell under the $1500 category, but friends in the College of Architecture and Design were in the $2500 category. Also, for "studio" in Architecture you *must* buy a fully capable computer and provide it for the duration of the coursework in a locked up studio lab.
You're not allowed to "get by", you're given the minimum requirements (which are the recommended requirements for software like AutoCAD) and told to head to financial aid if you can't afford it. No cutting edge computer means no degree.
When I was in school there was nothing better than a laptop. I bought a Compaq x1200 about 2 years ago for $1200 in one of those post christmas sales and it was one of my best computer purchases. The imac might be a nice desktop computer, but nothing beats going outside and using the campus wifi network to listen to music and do your homework. I also liked being able to whip out a draft to show a prof in his or her office, and taking my work home with me during breaks or study sessions. Invariably students as a whole need a decent laptop with a bright screen and long battery life, and maybe a decent graphics chip for some forgiving games like civ 3 or WoW. I bought mine and still to this day find it much more useful than my desktop for office work (and the occasional game of civ 3).