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. "

Comments

No Link?

[neonprimetime]

At least provide a link to the iMac page

Re:No Link?

[NiceGeek]

Not really new...the Mini has had Bluetooth and Airport Extreme since the switchover to Intel chips.

Wrong implication

[ZachPruckowski]

The 7600GT has 256 MB of RAM. The summary implies it's still 128.

Re:Wrong implication

[ergo98]

The Apple Store also says its 128. Even though they may now come with 256, it seems the ones Apple are using still have 128.

The highest card you're seeing in the "preconfigured" bundles is the 7300GT with 128MB, however select that and update the details -- you'll now have the option of choosing the 256MB 7600GT.

These are amazing prices for extraordinary levels of power. While I still need my Windows box (and no I wouldn't get a Mac as a Windows box), this would definitely serve as a very useful second PC. I think it's time that I'll take the plunge, maybe writing it off for "cross platform testing".

Re:Wrong implication

[Graff]

Basically almost all Linux apps that are open source just work. Mac has a pretty standard POSIX command-line and X11 environment, as well as an excellent version of GCC. There are several package systems such as Fink that provide an easy way to install programs. A lot of closed source Linux stuff is being produced for the Mac also since porting them over is usually just a minor cleanup and compile. Microsoft Office, Photoshop, Firefox, OpenOffice, and many other major programs all work on the Mac.

WoW runs nicely on any Mac, better on the high-end stuff but it all runs pretty decently. The Macintosh operating system has a bit more overhead than Linux but it is pretty on-par with Windows. You'll get a bit more bang for your buck running Linux on the Mac hardware but then again you'll lose some of the nice GUI features of the Mac.

One of the nicest things is it is easy now to double or triple boot Mac OS, Windows, and Linux on Mac hardware. There are even some free and commercial software out there that enables you to run Windows applications directly under Mac OS X, without having to boot Windows.

As far as price, well building it yourself will always be the least expensive method. However, once you figure in time spent, support costs if something goes wrong, overall compatibility of the hardware components, and so on I'd say that the difference between a Mac and a self-built are pretty close. When you buy a Mac you are pretty certain you'll get a solid machine with a solid operating system. Throw in the fact that the new Macs can run just about any modern software and are in some sweet form-factors and I'd say buying a Mac is a win.

After all, if you end up hating Mac OS you can just wipe the drive install Windows or Linux on it, no harm no foul!

Re:Wrong implication

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Care to educate a noob on OS X and linux apps?

Most Linux apps either have a port to the native UI, or will still run under X Windows as a child of the native UI. There is also a good selection of the commercial, professional applications including most of the very popular games. What is missing is the odd, niche application for Windows. You can run most of these by dual booting, or more conveniently using Crossover or Parallels, which both do a good job of running different apps at reasonable speeds.

I was actually looking at a MacBook, but the 24" monitor with the "tower" built in is really really slick lookin.

The imac and macbook are both "all-in-one" solutions. As such, neither is very upgradeable. Don't plan to change the video card in either, or do much else other than add RAM. Personally, I really like portability, so my solution for years has been a mac laptop, driving the built in display and a second, larger monitor when I am at my desk at work or home. But then I'm the type who does a fair bit of work in coffee shops, or under a tree in a park. Since all mac laptops now support independent displays as well as mirrored displays, this provides me with more screen real estate than a single monitor on the imac, although the total price is probably higher.

I'm also curious as to how well the GPUs perform, as I'm still into gaming and might go back to WoW.

The GPUs are nothing to write home about in either model. They are adequate. You won't have any problem playing WoW or most other mainstream games, but you're not going to be getting any bragging rights for highest FPS with the latest and greatest games. If you're a casual gamer, don't worry. If you're a hardcore gamer dude, buy something else.

I also do a lot of simulation (of multi-agent/robot systems) for my masters thesis, so I need the horsepower. What are the pros and cons, as you see them, of buying this beast, and how does it compare with what I could build myself for the same price if I wanted to?

Depending upon what type of bottlenecks you have for your modeling, a mac may or may not be right for you. The raw horsepower CPU limited, non-multithreaded program will not perform as well in most cases on OS X as it does in Linux. OS X has a number of tradeoffs in this area and they are targeted at the desktop workstation, not number crunching in the background. If you build with the right compiler options, I'm guessing you'll be in the neighborhood of 90% of the performance of the same chip running Linux. If the process is more parallel or easily offloaded to the GPU using the built in dev tools, you'll do better yet. Also, if you can take advantage of the Xgrid technology, offloading batches of work to other machines on the LAN is pretty simple.

As far as price is concerned, macs cost about the same as any other vendor, which is to say not too much more than it costs to build a machine yourself. The disadvantage is they only offer a few models, so you'll almost certainly be buying features you don't want or particularly need. It simply is not as customizable as building yourself from the full set of available hardware.

Personally, that trade off is worth it to me, but it is hard to tell for another person, without really having a good idea what they are doing. Good luck.

Re:Wrong implication

[Peter Cooper]

iTerm. Just Google it :) It's the same as Terminal, but with tabs.

Re:Wrong implication

[Van Halen]

Terminal is certainly better than cmd.exe or straight xterm. However, it doesn't do tabs or any of the really whizzy stuff that you expect on your Linux/BSD box's kterm/gnome-terminal. Incidentally, what do other slashdotters reccomend as a replacement?

Not a true replacement, but I swear by Terminal + screen (included with OS X). The major advantage is that you can attach to the same screen session from anywhere in the world, resuming exactly where you left off. You can even be attached from multiple places at once (work, home, etc). This is also handy for viewing multiple screen windows at once by simply opening multiple Terminal windows and attaching them to the same session.

The keyboard shortcuts for managing "windows" are also quite handy, easier than clicking a mouse. I can't imagine why anyone would use anything else, but I guess that's just me.

Anybody have any other good Mac OS X "gotchas" for the average technically competant switcher that I've forgotten?

A couple off the top of my head:

If you're doing serious administration, learn niutil and its gui sibling, NetInfo Manager. User account settings, groups, NFS mounts, etc, are all stored in the NetInfo database. Learn it and love it.

OS X's built in fsck is crap. If you're ever unfortunate enough to get a corrupted HFS+ filesystem, invest in a copy of DiskWarrior. It's fixed everything I've thrown at it that wasn't a hardware failure, where most of the time fsck (also wrapped in the Disk Utility gui) gave up. I still don't understand why Apple doesn't just buy it and bundle it with the OS.

External disks are mounted by default with permissions such that the currently logged in user owns everything on them. This is not always desirable (when backing up files that should retain owner/permissions). To disable this behavior for a volume, either use vsdbutil -a /Volumes/diskname or in the Finder, right-click the drive icon, Get Info, uncheck "Ignore ownership on this volume" (not sure of the exact label, not in front of a Mac now!).

Short list of helpful command-line utilities to look up:

• ditto (copy files with metadata, etc -- though in Tiger, the standard file utilities finally handle resource forks)
• open (open a document or application in the gui)
• osascript (execute an AppleScript -- ie, osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to pause')
• /Developer/Tools/SetFile (set obscure HFS+ file attributes -- only available if Xcode is installed)
• softwareupdate (commandline version of -- you guessed it -- Software Update)
• hdiutil (mount, unmount, and manage automounted disks and disk images)
• diskutil (commandline version of Disk Utility)

Finally: macosxhints.com.

Man Mini was updated as well

[10Ghz]

1.66Ghz Core Duo in the low-end, 1.83Ghz Core Duo in the hi-end. No pricedrop though :(.

All Mac Mini now have Core Duo inside...

[IYagami]

Previously, the cheapest model had a Core Solo inside.

Now, all macs have dual core processors

Re:Seperation is needed

[955301]

There's a video out as well, so you can make due for a bit if the display goes out. And personally I'd just pull the drive before sending it back - or better yet, encrypt it on the volume and rely on your backups.

You are keeping backups, aren't you?

Re:FW 800 included

[Rocketship Underpant]

Apparently they weren't able to satisfactorily cram the FW800 controller into the 15" Macbook in time for launch. Someone at Apple has said this, either officially or semi-officially. I'm hoping the next Macbook revision will include it.

Re:Cool... dammit... cool... dammit

[frankthechicken]

Why do Apple magically release bigger, faster, shinier versions of things right after I buy something?
 
Because you don't study the buying guide. Unfortunately, in a non too informative manner, it usually tells you to wait.
 
Curse the continuous flow of new technology, and the insatiable curiousity of the human mind if you wish.

Re:HD iMac?

[Jasin Natael]

Umm... Firewire (esp. FW800)? There are HDMI / SCART / DVI / etc. input boxes available that plug into it, and this way Apple doesn't have to produce region-specific versions of their hardware.

Re:No Apple Remote?

[Roadstar]

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.

The other 17" model does come with the remote, and that's the one that used to be the base model (it has an ATI X1600). The base model you're referring to now is the stripped-down model (Intel GMA950) that was previously sold only in the Apple Store for Education, and it didn't come with a remote back then either. So nothing has been done to the lineup remote-wise, it is just that the stripped-down model is now available to everyone instead of just students.

Re:Apple made that mistake once

[mitchell_pgh]

The problem is, the Mac mini isn't a headless iMac.

It:
- uses a smaller laptop hard drive (a bit slower than the iMac)
- has no video card
- "only" has a core duo (not a core 2 duo) [that may change]
- doesn't include a keyboard or mouse
- 2GB max of ram (ok, I'm stretching it a bit here)
That being said, it's clear that the Mac mini is a subset of the iMac beyond simply not having a screen.

Re:24" cinema display please?

[drinkypoo]

The best thing about the 24" iMac is that it's got a full-HD resolution panel. In fact, if I remember my numbers properly (but I probably don't) the width of the panel is precisely the width of 1080p. It's a little taller, but that's not as bad as not using the full width of the panel. The MBP doesn't even have full-HD. (The Compaq nw9440 I use now has the same size/res panel as the MBP, but at least HPQ offers a higher-res panel. Same size though, and a couple hundred more, so I didn't get it.)

Re:24" cinema display please?

[John Straffin]

How likely is it that you have the Dell monitors set to the wrong resolution? My Dell 19" is razor sharp...

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCD_monitor#Drawbacks :

LCD displays produce crisp images only in their "native resolution" and fractions of that native resolution. Attempting to run LCD display panels at non-native resolutions usually results in the panel scaling the image, which introduces blurriness or "blockiness".