Slashdot Mirror
Apple Unveils 24" iMac
beren12 writes "Apple today announced a new model in the lineup of iMacs, a new 24" HD model. It comes with a 1920x1200 LCD, 2.16GHz or 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1-3 GB Memory, 250 or 500GB SATA Drive, NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT or 7600GT with 128MB GDDR3 Video card. Also posted is a new lower end iMac, which looks very similar to the education iMac. Also available is a small speed boost to the Mini line, which now sports a Core Duo 1.83GHz Processor. "
Oooooooh, shiny!
Ignore this signature. By order.
At least provide a link to the iMac page
well hopefully this will trigger an update for an apple 24" monitor as well to compete with the dell and Benq ones- as 24" has a slightly lower pixel density we could almost hope for a sane price on that one too- or maybe not
The 7600GT has 256 MB of RAM. The summary implies it's still 128.
How about a 24" Video iPod? That would be mad...
What is so bad about the idea of a tower for ~$12oo with theose specs and the option of adding a cinema display?
Anyone who says "Oooooooh, shiny!" again - Can bite my shiny metal ass!
idiots...
ouch.
Oooooooh, ducky!
I ordered a 17" MBP about 10 days ago, and the ship date was going to be on the 13th despite being "in stock and ready to ship."
Perhaps a MacBook Pro upgrade next week, as well?
The 17" iMac with 1.83GHz Core Duo processor comes in at $899. That's some seriously lucrative stuff for incoming college freshmen!
And it has FireWire-800 too (in additon to FireWire-400).
I'm not sure I understand Apple policy with FW800. Used to be there on the PowerBook... removed in the MacBook Pro (except the 17"). And it's never been in an iMac.
I like FW-800 but odds are E-SATA would be more useful in future. I have seen profesionnal cameras using the FW-800 interface (Allied technologies), but never heard about mass market ones...
1.66Ghz Core Duo in the low-end, 1.83Ghz Core Duo in the hi-end. No pricedrop though :(.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Excellent price/value ratio. This seems to be the a new Apple, more competitive and more focused.
One would first think that the lack of Conroe would make a mid-range headless Mac a sure shot, but the new iMacs cover every price point from $1000 to $2000, including the "entry pro" market with a large 24" screen (which is normally out of home reach) and a BTO 7600 GT and FW800.
Anyway, this is pretty cool. The bigger, the better, is we talk about monitors.
In other new, there's a 17 and 20 inch Mac too.
Prices:
17 Inch -- from 999$
20 Inch -- from 1499$
And the famous 24 Inch -- from 1999$ (ah, don't you just love those nines?
Only for the 24". I forgot to mention it :)
Previously, the cheapest model had a Core Solo inside.
Now, all macs have dual core processors
Surely the most glaring error is that, out of the box the only way of getting HD content into this Mac is via the ethernet cable. Guess this will make more sense on the 12th?
Why no HDMI/SCART/S-Video in? Surely a windowed HDMI input screen isn't beyond the Apple engineers, and Front Row would provide an excellent way of accessing it.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
I dont know if i would get right now. I just reinstalled windows XP so i should be good for about a week. Then i might think about it.
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
Rumors have it that Apple and Samsung just teamed up to bring you the new 82" iMac. This will be the largest display on a desktop computer. The source can't confirm it yet, but they say Apple will aggressively price this new iMac at 16,999$ USD.
It creates a big gap in the lineup, but Apple bets that it will be very popular ith pr0n users and it expects to get ROI within the fisrts 4 months of shipping.
The new iMac will be demo'ed at next week "It's showtime!" media event.
Got MILF? It does a body good!
I am looking at a sweet return this year and now know what I am dropping it on...
A dual Xeon Mac Pro with dual 24" monitors.
And you thought I was going to say an iMac...
No animals were harmed in the making of this sig.
Well, there was that one puppy, but he is all better now.
Why do Apple magically release bigger, faster, shinier versions of things right after I buy something?
... gimme.
Curse you, Apple!
Why did they put in so much white space between the bottom and the screen. I find it distracting when working on the new IMAC.
An interesting point is that the base 17-inch model no longer comes with an Apple Remote by default, you have to cough up another $29 to get that bit of Apple goodness. Fine for those of us that have quite a few of them lying around, but not so good for people buying their first iMac. An odd choice for Apple IMHO.
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
It may not be interesting to you, but to me it was like realizing Steve Jobs has been staring over my shoulder for the last week.
On a side not, what's with the 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo chip? The E6600 stock speed is 2.4, and the next one down is 2.1something. Where's that figure coming from? Or are they using lower-spec CPUs and overclocking them all? They are exceptionally stable for Intel, after all.
Meta will eat itself
When the iMacs where still somewhat new, there was a vocal crowd yelling "we want an iMac without a monitor!"
There were a lot of people saying it, and they were all very vocal. "We're not buying until we can get a headless iMac with a G4" they said
So Apple made one, and it was called the Cube.
And all the people who said they would buy a machine if this was available (the specs were pretty much exactly what was asked for), suddenly clammed up, and slowly backed out the door with a myriad excuses why they suddenly had something else to do.
I think Apple learned an important lesson that day. The most vocal group of people demanding a specific product and promising to buy it will usually not actually buy what they say they want. They are just looking to get something they can't have, and when they can have it, they don't want it anymore.
Shawn's Tech Articles
Why when Apple does minor upgrades to hardware is it news. If HP did this (larger marketshare) it would not be worthy of a mention.
That's the second biggest iMac I've ever seen!
(Monkey Island, kids.)
Wow, that's actually a pretty nice lineup. I have always subscribed to the "hipster" theory of Apple: Overpriced and more trendy than practical. However, this is a very reasonable price/performance ratio.
Hell, if they can increase their gaming marketshare I might contemplate treason to my Microsoft overlords.
Why such an outdated video card when every other spec is so advanced? There has just been a ton of new video card technology released - full of much better choices.
That's one Big Mac !
Not true
I just ordered my mini YESTERDAY.
Informatus Technologicus
I selected all top top options (with the exception of software,) included AppleCare, and the thing came out to $3,553.00! Wow. That's certainly not the price point I think of when iMac crosses my mind.
Soccer Goal Plans
...I couldn't imagine buying a computer built into a 24" monitor. If I'm gonna make an investment in a screen that nice, I'd darn sure want to be able to hook it up to any computer I had and be able to use in in a few years when I needed a system upgrade.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
The cube wasn't an iMac without the monitor. It was a PowerMac packed into a very small case.
Why it failed:
Price... period.
You could buy a cheaper and faster PowerMac for $200 less (with expansion bays [still important in 2000], space for a 2nd [or third] HD, space for a full sized video cad, etc. etc.) Benchmarks showed that the singe 400MHz PowerMac was faster than the 450MHz cube [Macworld]
In my humble opinion, the cube would have sold much better if it had been $1199 ($100 less than the iMac of the time) while having the same feature set and a nice mini-tower type enclosure. It was VERY difficult to justify the price of the Mini in contrast to the PowerMac.
Why is the parent post still marked as "informative" even when there are posts underneath it pointing out the inaccuracies in it?
This guy's the limit!
Last time I checked (ie last week, building my new silent rig), the 7600GT was just about the most powerful proven graphics card that was available with a fanless heatsink - very important when you're after a silent rig, especially considering Apple's "Cinema" selling point.
Meta will eat itself
I think after the 3rd different processor in the new form factor imac, its time to change the icon.
Although I miss the monitor on the arm concep.
"Intel GMA 950 graphics with 64MB of shared memory"
I was hoping for the upgraded intel graphics with the C2D, but why would Apple give the customers what they have been asking for(improved graphics).
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
What's the point? Even a 20" Apple screen has a higher resolution than a 42" LG (designed for TV instead of computer graphics), let alone the 23" and 30" ones!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The lesson that Apple SHOULD have learned that day was "people won't buy an overpriced, underpowered Mac (with limited expansion capability too) just because it looks fairly cool". For the same money you could buy a superior PowerMac.
for Apple's 24" laptop.
I will create a sig when innovation restarts in the U.S.
That's $4,632.83 according to xe.com o_O
It would be nice to be able to upgrade the graphics. I had a cube, and eventually got rid of it because I couldn't upgrade the graphics card - the processor and memory where fine. I now have a mini, and its weakness again is the underpowered (for me) graphics card. However, for the price I paid, I'm very happy with it.
"No pricedrop though :(."
Stop smoking that rock -- the 1.66 Ghz CoreDuo Mac Mini is now about 200-300$ cheaper than it was yesterday, and they have a new "highend" model you couldn't buy for love nor money yesterday (although you could've upgraded the CPU separately, if you had your putty knife handy).
200-300$ seems like a pretty big pricedrop to me.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Remove Apple remote.
Add Core2Duo processor, 512Mb of RAM (1Gb total), and make the whole unit about $100 cheaper (education pricing).
Why, with that price difference, you could get 3 Apple remotes, in addition to the sexier specs!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
why does a $2000 desktop have laptop ram and room for only 1 hard disk in it?
Since I ordered my Mac Pro, the price for one of the components dropped, so I got the following from Apple...
... just a form-letter, but they did drop the price. I'd expect you to get the latest and greatest mini too... Apple are pretty good about that sort of thing...
To Our Valued Apple Customer:
Apple is pleased to announce a price drop for the Mac Pro you recently
ordered. We have automatically adjusted your order to reflect the new price.
For up-to-date information on your order, please visit our Order Status
website at http://www.apple.com/orderstatus. Once your order is shipped, you
can also obtain tracking information on this site.
Thank you for your interest in Apple products.
Sincerely,
Apple Store Customer Support
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
It's great to hear that the price/performance ratio of macs are becoming more competitive but why is apple so slow to adopting to Intel's Core 2 Duo? Apple touts the 'new' xeon mac pro as being x times faster than before, but the xeon hardware is nothing new for 90% of the rest of computer users. It seems that a great deal of hype surrounds Apple's latest products, but no one notices that they're months behind on the latest hardware. I'll put a bet down that once they go with the Core 2 Duo (guessing in 4-6 months), Apple will say it is 40 to 70% faster than any other Apple. All the while, PC users will say, "Welcome to the club. That was half a year ago for us, we're using quad core chips (aka Kentsfield chips) now." Why such the slow development cycle?
Why not 2 x 2MB modules?
lucrative, a.
1. Yielding gain or profit; gainful, profitable.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
...thanks for the loan!
When will they come up with a 50" iMac? It would basically look like a big-screen flat TV. That would be good for having lots of windows open. Especially when they come up with the dual-headed model.
This would make a perfect HTPC for my living room... Think of it - hang a 24" HDTV on your wall and use it 85% of the time (for news, backround tv, etc) then when it's time for a movie, drop down the projection screen and have the same 24" PC feed your HD projector... I've thought about doing this for a while with a Cinema display and an iMac, but honestly this is even slicker!
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
Apple also intended the Cube to have a replaceable GPU, which marks the separation of this product niche from the Mini (which is a low-budget machine), but they didn't quite reach that goal.
They chose to use a halfsized board, which fit the chassis, but was basically an evolutionary dead end. Not a lot of update options there. A number of people could anticipate this and went for the cheaper G4 tower instead.
I have a Cube, it was great for it's time. Now I'm hoping to replace my aging Mini and Shuttle PC with one box, with room for a GPU. And a Mac Pro workstation would be overkill for this.
J
While I initially was thinking the same thing and questioning the wisdom of building a computer into a monitor stand, is it really any different than owning a laptop? If you break the display or CPU, the other is essentially useless unless you get it repaired (which is likely to be less cost effective than buying a new one).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
"We now have the Mac mini (which is good but can't be upgraded)"
They can be upgraded, you can upgrade the hard drive and the RAM. Not much, but still upgradable. I just wish they'd put two damned RAM slots in the mini. One slot kinda defeats the performance of DDR2, which works best in pairs.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
At the introduction of the first imac
everyone was crazy about the awesome size of the display, which was 15".
I mean, i can understand the reason of hardware becoming faster and bigger all the time, but displays? why?
1)remove Hard
2)Place HD in an external case
3)using second machine copy files across to a back up drive
4)Replace drive and send machine back to Apple
Only own one machine? Massive geek demerits. Take the external drive and your new back up drive that you should have bought six months ago to your neighborhood computer shop and have them copy the files across. A chimpazee can do it. It dies three years from now? What are you word processing? Insert crowbar into wallet and buy a new system then follow steps 1 -3. See now wasn't that easy?
Deeply missleading slashdot picture. The current imac monitor appears to be fixed in place, can you even tilt it? Lousy ergonomics. You will have to prop it up on a block to get it to the right eye level so you don't destroy your back slouching down and anyone else, of different height, who tries to use it is doomed. Why have they regressed to something this stuppid?
Think about what kind of resolution a 42" computer lcd would have to run at...heh i think youd need quad sli just to run the osx desktop. Unless of course, you ran it so far off native res that it looked like garbage.
NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT or 7600GT with 128MB GDDR3 Video card
Why should Mac users have to settle for middle of the road Video performance, yet again. 1920x1200 displays, and yet 128mb Video cards from last year that will have trouble rendering a game at the monitor's native resolution. How does this make sense?
Where is the industry leader that the Mac name was built on? Everyone waited forever for a credible OS like OSX, and now Apple's hardware lineup has gone to middle of the road crap. Why?
Please, Mac users stand up and scream at Apple for something that can at least compete with a freaking 7lb Dell Laptop. These are Macs not glorified eMachines. Argh!
According to every price sheet available from Intel or outside news sources, the price of Core 2 Duo (Merom) is the same as (or lower than) Core Duo (Yonah) at the same clock speed. We'll ignore Conroe for now because it isn't socket-compatible.
Why the heck is Apple (or anyone really) still using Yonah when you can replace it with Merom at no cost? The only non-evil reason would be that Intel's Merom production hasn't caught up to vendor demand yet. But even if, that's 2-3 months delay at most, after which Core 2 should entirely supplant the standard-version Core 1. It would be very out of character for Lord Steve to upgrade a Mac model, then change it again in the same season.
I certainly hope he isn't falling back into Apple's mid-90s habit of directly hamstringing certain models (i.e. lower performance without any reduction of Apple's manufacturing cost) so the complete Mac line has clearer price points.
No one buys an iMac for performance.
Why can't Apple just build in a DVI-in on the back that can bypass the internal video connection?
This way, you could hook up an auxiliary Mac Mini, gaming console, or anything else and switch between that and internal video -- and then, in a few years when you decide to upgrade, you've got yourself a perfectly capable monitor that happens to have a slower Mac inside in case you should need it.
Maybe Apple could even build it so the screen can be powered independently from the internals. Why not?
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
No, plenty of people did figure out how much a headless iMac SHOULD have cost. That figure was hundreds of dollars lower than the Cube, even after you count the luxury form factor. With the possible exception of Steve Jobs himself (due to recursive RDF effects), I am confident that EVERY significant executive at Apple knows EXACTLY what our crowd was (and still is) clamoring for: a low-frills minitower, possibly based on the iMac mobo if that helps to save cost, but with a standard replaceable GPU slot and one or two open drive bays. It's not rocket surgery.
Oooooooh, shiny! for the low low price of $2k, does that come with Free starbucks, and a steve jobs sharpie autographed black t-shirt?
The mini is pricy when compared to a no-brand minitower that occupies several times as much volume. A whole lot of what you're paying for is the form factor. Take a look at Cappucino, AOpen, etc. But you better look very quickly, because I see those guys going out of business in the near future. You can buy a Mac mini AND a retail copy of Windows for much less than those guys' little Pentium M boxes.
Now, if what you want is a low-frills minitower *Mac*, well, join the club. We've been waiting all millennium.
No, it's not the end of the world to have them combined, but in this case, with a very nice monitor and nice computer specs, it would be more valuable to the consumer to have them seperate.
So much for laptops...
Discussion System prefs link: http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=editcomm
So I've been looking to buy a new monitor recently. I need at least a 23" so this new 24" iMac actually might do very well for me (considering I would end up buying a new computer anyway by early next year). However after looking at the specs there is only one thing I really see missing - why not another bay for a second hard drive? With the extra room created by another 4 inches of screen I would think it pretty easy for Apple engineers to find space for two hard drives. I can only see this as not wanting buyers of the Mac Pro buying the iMac instead. Sure I can by some Firewire external drives but I'd rather have two drives inside.
On a side note it would be nice for Apple to be competitive on graphic cards and offer newer models than they usually do.
. . . who finds it interesting that they have replaced the ATI graphics with Nvidia boards. This obviously looks to me like the first fallout of the AMD acquisition, but maybe I'm making more out of this than it deserves. I wonder how much presure Intel put on Apple to make the "switch".
I am actually kind of disappointed. Though it appears that Intel's Core architecture has the upper hand right now, AMD is likely to hold that card again in the not to distant future, and I would have like to see Apple in a relationship of sorts with them. Oh well.
I do agree with another poster, however, that I think it's a poor decision to not include a at least a 7900-level card in the 24" unit. Maybe I'm cheap, but a $2000 PC with a 24" screen is not a Middle-of-the-road solution, as another poster suggested. 1920X1200 is quite a field to fill, and it's ashame that they can't include a card capable of really filling it in anything but the low-demand circumstance. If Apple want's to crack the chicken-and-egg scenario regarding developers (especially game developers) putting out software for Macs, they need to give them an exciting platform to work with.
I have always thought it remarkable that game developers weren't more interested in Macs. With their closed-source hardware, it's about as close to developing for a console as you can get with out paying royalties to "the big three". think how much easier it would be to dial in F.E.A.R. for the 8-10 imac configs they have sold in the last year vs. the 10 zillion combinations of processor, memory and graphics in the PC world. But, again, you have to give them an exciting pallate to work with. Like a 24" High-Def+ running one of the best new processors on the market and combining it with a strong graphics solution (OC 7900).
But maybe they just couldn't get a solution like that packaged / cooled. Either way, I guess were stuck, until some daring and inventive slashdotter posts a How-to on smacking a water-cooled 7950. Hope I won't need a dremmel tool!!!
So much for laptops...
The value of a 24" LCD vs. a 17" LCD is pretty large. Gets even larger for a 15".
That said, laptop owners have always accepted that they're paying a premium, both for price vs. performance and the inability to reuse components like monitors. Presumably iMac users are accepting a similar tradeoff for an all-in-one unit.
But you have to wonder, with the Mini showing that desktop computers don't have to be very large, wouldn't the average iMac buyer get better value if the monitor was a seprate unit? There's very little advantage to having an iMac vs. a Mini and monitor either in footprint, complexity or portability.
TW
Why should Mac users have to settle for middle of the road Video performance, yet again.
Because to most users you just asked, "why should the iMac have gobbledeygook video instead of gurbledorb video." The answer, because the former is cheaper than the latter and most users don't know or care about the video so long as the average game plays on it without problems, which almost every game on the market does. The imac targets average consumers, not professionals or gamers.
Where is the industry leader that the Mac name was built on?
The Mac name was built on solid, easy to use home computers, not gaming rigs. Apple is not and likely will not be targeting hardcore gamers for a long time.
Everyone waited forever for a credible OS like OSX, and now Apple's hardware lineup has gone to middle of the road crap. Why?
Umm, because you're pricing a middle of the road machine. Why not buy a high end system if that is what you want?
Why don't you just buy a television? 42", 1080p TV's cost under $2000 now, that's at least a grand less than Apple would charge for the exact same panel (with only one DVI input, of course).
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
"wouldn't the average iMac buyer get better value if the monitor was a seprate unit? "
Clearly, they don't think so, because they're an iMac buyer, not a Mac Mini buyer. What an utterly astounding revelation! It's almost like different people can have different sets of needs and values!
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
So this is the nice shiny iMac that I've known about since late July when I got a tour of NVidia HQ and then never saw [that lovely, white, monster of an iMac] anything. ;P
Clearly, they don't think so, because they're an iMac buyer, not a Mac Mini buyer. What an utterly astounding revelation! It's almost like different people can have different sets of needs and values!
Interesting viewpoint.
I don't see why we'd spend any effort at all letting them know there's another, possibly better choice if they've already made up their mind about which is better. After all, different people do have different sets of needs and values and they're never mistaken about their assesments of these qualities.
And people who buy 480p "HDTVs". We're not going to let them know it's not a very good deal. We won't spend any time letting our parents know about the difference between display resolution and input resolution. The difference between a single core and dual core at the same Mhz speed may be lost on my sister, but why waste the energy letting her know the difference? She's a big girl who understands what she needs. Heck, I might not even tell my wife she could get the same gear cheaper at Newegg.com. She's probably assessed CompUSA and knows her purchases will have more value in the long run.
Sure.
TW
Well, we know that YOU know best, so we'll just check with you. Could I please have your home phone number? That'd be great.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
If the only difference between and iMac and a Mini was the screen, you might just have a point.
But it's not. The internal differences are significant.
A rather large proportion of users have been calling for a headless iMac pretty much since the first G3 iMac was released, precisely because they know it *would* be better value.
Apple won't do it, of course, because such a machine would absolutely slaughter PowerMac (/"Mac Pro") sales.
"The internal differences are significant."
For varying values of "significant", this can mean whatever you want it to mean.
And what the heck would Apple want with a machine they could sell a lot of? Heaven forfend!
There are people who whine that the mini is too expensive. Apple cannot and should not be all things to all people.
Look, there's lots of fish in the sea. Buy a Mac, or don't. You are the only person who can make the determination for what suits your needs.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
If you want top of the line video in the mac, you buy a proper Mac Pro (you know, one of those ones in a seperate box with expansion slots), not an Imac.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Power button :/
--- Do you believe in the day?
You could get a fanless Cube.
Fans suck in dust. Everything inside the computer gets an icky coating of insulating dust. The fan bearings start to go, making the noise problem grow with time... until one day it goes silent and the computer crashes.
The Cube does not collect dust.
What the Cube really needed was solid-state storage. Few computer problems are as bad as losing your data. Solid-state may lose a file every now and then, but won't get a head crash or bearing failure that wipes out everything you have. Solid-state is also silent; that would eliminate the last noise source when not using the DVD or speakers.
I'm REALLY hoping that Apple will soon upgrade the MacBook to a Core 2 Duo CPU and 965 graphics. That would make the ULTIMATE dual-booting Mac/Linux box. (64 bit + decent video with open drivers = SWEET)
The Cube is passively cooled.
The video card backplane has holes in it. The video card heat sink fins are aligned with convection air flow (vertical) and spaced wide for less air resistance. The card itself is chosen to fit within the available cooling.
Putting in some random monster AGP card would cause overheating.
I got a 20" iMac a few months ago and absolutely love it.
My old PC, on the other hand, was not at all happy about being replaced by a younger, thinner model.
I tried to explain to her all the benefits I got from this newer, younger, thinner model - things it could do that she couldn't or wouldn't do for me, but no... all she complained about was the 7 years we had together... all those memories stored on the (Windows95) hard disk, and didn't that mean anything to me...
when I ordered my Mac Book Pro earlier this year. It was upgraded to the faster processor before it shipped. I like the way Apple does business. B-) Since then, I've purchased a Mac Mini for my son who's entering high school, and brought my sister to the local Apple store. She got a Mac Mini too!
"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair" - George Washington
It means that a Mac Mini is not just an iMac without a screen, as you suggest it is.
And what the heck would Apple want with a machine they could sell a lot of? Heaven forfend!
They don't want a machine that would take substantial sales away from their high end machine with its much better margins.
The situation is pretty simple. If you want a Mac without a screen (which covers the vast majority of purchasers who are replacing an existing machine) you either have to get a Mac Mini or a Mac Pro. Given the vast gulf in capabilities between the Mini and the Pro, and that the Pro - even in its cheapest configuration - is an expensive high-end machine, it's quite obvious that there are a large proportion of buyers who are interested in a machine that sits between the two. In particular, professional and enthusiast users for whom the Mini is inadequate, but the Pro is overkill.
Or, to put it more succintly, there is a gaping hole in Apple's lineup for a machine without a builtin monitor, but with options for a mid-range to high-end CPU and video card (there are some other holes as well, but that's the most obvious one).
What customers want is a headless iMac. This is pretty obvious to see from the fuss that gets kicked up whenever some rumor circulates that Apple are going to come out with a mid-range, non-integrated machine with limited expansion capabilities, with a starting price a bit lower than an iMac.
There are people who whine that the mini is too expensive.
It's definitely "expensive". Whether it's "too expensive" depends on the buyer being more interested in form factor or hardware resources.
Apple cannot and should not be all things to all people.
Indeed. Heaven forbid Apple have machines that *everyone* is willing to pay for.
It would not be particularly difficult for Apple to plug the holes in their lineup and make it attractive to 99% of purchasers. In increasing order of importance: A bottom-end machine priced lower than the current Mini (but not necessarily with the tiny case). A low end (single processor, dual core) Mac Pro. A MacBook Pro replacement for the 12" PowerBook (to compete with the tiny Sony Vaios). An option on the MacBook Pros for a docking station. And, of course, a mid-range non-integrated desktop.
Apple had the perfect opportunity to seemlessly introduce a headless iMac with the introduction of the G4 iMac, simply by making the screen+arm assembly modular. But they didn't. Then they redesigned the G5 iMac to return it to an extremely integrated design like the G3 iMacs. It's pretty obvious they have little interest in producing a headless iMac, because they know it will have a massive negative impact on Mac Pro sales.
Look, there's lots of fish in the sea. Buy a Mac, or don't. You are the only person who can make the determination for what suits your needs.
Which I do. But that's no justification for me not to complain about Apple not catering to it.
WORD! :)
"It means that a Mac Mini is not just an iMac without a screen, as you suggest it is."
It doesn't have a dedicated GPU, and it has a laptop hard drive. For a whole lot of people, these are not significant omissions. They may be significant to you. Hence, "varying values of significant".
"It's definitely "expensive"."
Sure. It's not free. Compared to similar machines, it's a great deal.
Yes, you want a low-priced tower. I hear you. Apple, for whatever reason, does not elect to sell you the machine that you allege 99% of people on Earth (or 99% of some non-specified population, whatever) will buy. I suggest that, if there were a computer that Apple could sell profitably to 99% of anything, they'd make it. I'd venture to guess that, perhaps, there's more going on than you acknowledge.
Complain away. Just don't hold your breath. You either want to buy a product, or you don't. Either are fine options.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
The Mac name was built on solid, easy to use home computers, not gaming rigs. Apple is not and likely will not be targeting hardcore gamers for a long time.
Ok, and what about our 3D, Video, and Graphic Designers that are being 'continually' POed at the low quality Video ALL Macs have offered for several years.
Why not buy a high end system if that is what you want?
Even the top of the line Macs over the past 5 years have offered middle of the road GPU Chipsets.
Ok, so you say OSX isn't strong enough to be a gaming OS, if that is what you want to believe fine. However I only used gaming as a reference, there are other industries that DO take advantage of the Graphical capabilities, and Apple is falling way short.
Besides I disagree if Apple can't pull gaming up to an acceptable and 'expected' level, even on their middle of the road systems, Microsot is going to continue to wipe the floor with the Home consumer market.
I pointed out the other day that some of our Graphic Designers are already drooling over Vista because the Redraw and Real-Time Render Rates are 10x faster than WindowsXP and OSX. Apple needs to take notice and stop slacking here.
As for this being a middle of the road machine, you don't drop an eye catching 24" 1920x1200 display on a machine and not put in even enough Video RAM to run an OpenGL game at its native resolution realistically. I have a year old Laptop that can out bench these Macs, and that is REALLY REALLY sad.
Maybe that is middle of the road for what people have come to expect from Apple, and if that is true, maybe the 'quality' that once the Apple logo enstilled no longer is relevant.
So if your conclusions are correct, maybe Apple should partner with eMachines afterall and become the 'good enough for people that don't know better' computer company.
If you want top of the line video in the mac, you buy a proper Mac Pro (you know, one of those ones in a seperate box with expansion slots), not an Imac.
I get ya; however, for middle of the line and even iMac you don't drop a 1920x1200 display on a unit and not pack enough RAM to run 3D applications on it at its native resolution realistically.
As for buying the top of the line Mac, you still get a 'middle level' Graphics Card and have to upgrade the Video the moment you pull it out of the Box for good graphics performance. (So much for the commercials of just plug it in, uh?)
There is no excuse for Apple STILL putting mid grade video in their products, they truly are starting to look more like the eMachines of the *nix world. BSD, Candy Desktop, and just enough hardware it gets by.
It's no longer like the days of EGA/VGA where screen resolution was a function of your available video memory - the major consumer of video memory these days is textures...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
CmdrTaco's "from the thats-a-lotta-disposable-screen dept." is spot on.
Who would spend the money on a 24? LCD attached to a quicker-to-age (and Apple, so quick-to-rot) hardware? An LCD in that configuration is in fact essentially disposable. Although with the switch to Intel it will be possible to drop a an upgraded CPU into the motherboard -- still, I'm not paying for a big chunk of LCD attached to hardware with a shorter half-life.
So, I'll check out the Mac Mini. What? Just Core Duo? No Core 2 Duo? Increase the form factor and put a real chip in it! And put real graphics in it too!
So, to get a decent Mac without a disposable LCD, I need to buy a Mac Pro, it seems. OK, but at $2399 (with student discount), that's not going to happen.
What happened to the equivalent of the single-CPU G5 that used to run about $1500 or so? But I don't actually want a box that big and that metallic.
What I want is a signficantly souped-up Mac Mini to attach to a standalone 23? Cinema display. That souped-up Mac Mini would look an awful lot like the Apple G4 Cube. So, let's imagine a Core 2 Duo in a slightly larger Mac Mini form-factor with some real graphics.
Bring it back Apple. Something like it, anyway. Bitte bitte, bitter apple. Right now you're not selling anything I will buy.
Terminal is naff, slow and has useless copy/paste.
iTerm is, unbelievably, slower. Still no decent copy/paste
GLTerm is a bit quicker and even has an option for auto-copy.
However, TBQH if I want to be doing real work I actually fire up my PC for the exclusive reason that I can use putty. Maybe I should get an intel mac and use parallels. Mmmm. Shiny new mac mini...
A 1900x1200 display only uses ~10mb of ram in 32 bit colour (for the screen buffer). The memory for textures, etc is the same regardless of screen resolution.
It's no longer like the days of EGA/VGA where screen resolution was a function of your available video memory - the major consumer of video memory these days is textures...
Ok, do you really think SlashDot readers are this stupid?
Try WoW at 1920x1200 with medium detail even and see how much GPU RAM is utilized for textures... 128MB is what you call 'getting by'...
If I was talking about bit depth in correlation to pixels, then sure 128mb is fine. Even for the Bitmap composer in OSX 128mb is easily enough to handle the screen buffer at 1920x1200.
However this is NOT what I was refering to.
Maybe you haven't tried some of the latest games(like last two years) that can literally suck every MB out of a Video Card. Something Like Doom that won't even run at High Resolution unless your Video Card has 256mb to hold the textures when doing 1024x768...
that's not true - i've pulled drives and even memory before sending iMacs in for warranty service - apple called to say 'you know, there's no hard drive or memory in this iMac' - they were annoyed that they had to put in their own to test it, but it was a bad motherboard, and was replaced without question . . .
Ask Me About... The 80's!
Adding a couple of eSATA ports would be icing on the cake!
Problem: a "proper Mac Pro" is $500 more than the 24" iMac to start with, and that's without a display. The Mac Pro also comes with a wimpy 7300 GT, and to upgrade to the more capable Radeon X1900 will set you back another $250. Getting a 23" display from Apple will set you back another grand.
So, you have to spend almost another $2,000 to get a Mac with the same display size with a decent video card. Pretty crappy.
read all about it here.
Everyone waited forever for a credible OS like OSX, and now Apple's hardware lineup has gone to middle of the road crap. Why?
Apple's hardware has almost always been middle of the road at best, from the Apple ][ or the original badly-underpowered Macintosh onwards. They've occasionally had a high-end machine that's competitive on the hardware side, but it's been more the exception than the rule.
What I want is for them to provide at least a competant middle-of-the-road box that doesn't lock me in. I hoped the Mac mini was a sign that Apple was shedding some of Jobs' obsession with style over everything. Yes, it was stylish, but at least he had to go back on the "no ugly monitors on nice Macs" promise. But they need a "Mini Pro" with a video card slot and room for a 3.5" hard drive. It wouldn't cost them any more to make than the Mini, and would bring an awful lot of fence-sitters into the fold.
I want a Mac mini Pro, iSlab, Macstation, or New Cube.
Whatever it's called, give it room for a 3.5" hard drive and a PCI-E video card.
like this one. It works with HDTV!
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
So order online and upgrade to the 7600 GT. Doubles the graphics memory, and it's only an extra $125.