The new iMac design isn't just about a new case or the next wierd look from Apple. It's all part of apple's new strategy. Apple lost the "big market-share and superfast speeds" race long ago, way back in 1996. That isn't where Apple is focused anymore.
Instead, Apple has come up with this concept of the "Digital Hub". Admittedly, the concept is not new, but Apple is marketing it, and sucesfully I might add. No longer is Apple selling a computer, they're selling a lifestyle. Think about what they provide. A series of softwares which touch on almost every aspect of life.
1) OS X- For the computer geek in the house, a *NIX underpinning, with plenty of built in power and a ton of open source aspects, and a fast and worthy GUI on top of it. Combinned with the support of comercial software backers, Apple is bringing *NIX to consumers.
2) iMovie- For the parents, finaly those really dull home movies can be livened up, even if they still won't ever be watched.
3) iPhoto- Steve was right, every family has a photo buff, and this product makes things unbelievably easy.
4) iTunes+iPod- Say what you will about it's price, the iPod is still one of the best MP3 players arround, and I can boot my comp with it. iTunes has a lot of power behind it, and while there may be other more feature packed products out there, almost none of them have such seamless support with so many MP3 players. Plus, it burns CDs for you. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Apple believes in being able to use music you own (and if you ask Steve off the books, probobly even some you don't) in any way you like.
5) iDVD- a new concept, burning your own DVDs. And while DVD burners aren't anything new, I don't see anyone else promoting the idea.Not only that, but someone mentioned to me, that even though Apple doesn't support it, the drives in the high end products are apperently not only DVD-R, but actualy RWs. (Unconfirmed, I guess you would have to find out what drive exactly is being used and find a market version somewhere
6) New iMac design- The look is more than just shock value. The concept behind the digital hub is that it is the center of your technological needs. The new design is something you could put in the center of your house. Where most computers have traditionaly enjoyed a spot against the wall, under a desk, or in a back room, this computer could sit comfortably in your living room, and it wouldn't look all that out of place.
7) Expandable- Not in terms of conventional PCI slots or drive bays, but in terms of versitility. The power of UNIX, combined with the imagination and wierdness of Apple developers and the OpenSource compuntiy you suddenly have a computer capable of being more than just a worprocessor and graphics station. This thing could actualy be the brain of a computerized home. It has the look and feel of being part of the future and has the potential to be part of it.
This is not to say the PC's don't have the ability to do this, but if you ask me, the only real innovation I see is from Sony, and Sony costs about as much as Apple.
Apple lost the power race years ago, as well as the OS race. Now Apple is running a new race, one of style, class and usefulness, and so far, the contenders are way behind.
For a superior explination of what I'm saying here go to:
http://www.macslash.com/articles/02/01/10/224920 6. shtml
You obviously did not note that the iMac is equiped with an (S?)VGA out port as well as dual monitor support. Loosely translated, two screens worth of data at once. For example, graphics buffs who are working could place the actual image on a CRT with better color display and place the tool bars on the LCD display.
Go check out apple's web site. All the iMacs coem with the Apple Pro speakers. Admittedly, it's only two speakers, but if your've ever heard them, they generate a nice sound. Go out and buy yourself an iSub (a very kick ass subwoofer, you can hear it from anywhere in my local compUSA store) and you've got a very nice sound system.
If I may, allow me to run off a list of computers for you:
Power Macintosh/Performas (education versions, all in one design)
iMac
G4 Cube
All of these computers have one thing in common, they all use the whole idead of a computer cramped into a small space, and what is one of the first complaints from the Wintel flunkies and the critics? NO EXPANDABILITY!
I thought the whole reason to buy a PC was because it was expandable, this MiniPC most certainly is not. Sure you can take things out and move things arround, but it would be like trying to service the old PowerComputing Macs, or any of the old desktop style (horizontal, for the technicaly impaired) and those were a real pain.
As far ies equipment goes, this thing is underpowered for a PC, and lacks everything that my PC using buddies criticise my mac for not having (large HD, expansion bays, a good graphics card, lots of PCI slots etc etc etc).
This is really just the PC version of an iMac, sans 15 inch LCD screen. I'm not impressed because I've seen the same concept before. On the other hand, it is nice to see someone finaly realizing that computers are getting way too big.
Ya know, with how dirt cheap memory is, maybe we should go back the the old C64 way of doing things and have our OS stored in memory chips instead of on the harddrive, maybe then our boot speeds will be within reasonable limmits.
Bah! Just because you add more features, doesn't mean it should be slower. Just look at the relative speed of other OS's as they've gotten older. Mac OS, muchos improved from good ol 7.5.5. OS X, muchos improved just between version X and X.1. BeOS, muchos improved. And even linux, good god, anyone remember trying to run RedHat 5 + GNOME with any real speed. Didn't work out all that well. Now it's at least usable by someone with a deadline.
Is that as long as the media (video, or audio) get's decoded and displayed in human interperateble format, it can be hijacked and copied. Even if they were to embed the decoders into TVs, all it would take is someone to pick out the decoded signal, before, during or after, it is displayed.
Media sharing will continue to exist in it's present form untill a new form comes along. We went through all this when audio cassette recorders came out, and then when recordable VHS. The same arguments over and over, it will canibalize sales and the creative industry will crumble to dust. Sorry to say, it doesn't happen. Untill the impossible happens, and copies become better than the original (though this does occasionaly happen with programs, espesialy M$ ones:)) people will still buy originals.
On laptops, I've found it is fairly easy to misclick. Mice however are another matter, but geeze, 5 buttons?! That's overkill, even for gaming.
Re:Yeah, but try to add a drive... whoops...
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New iMac Announced
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Doesn't mean you couldn't run a cable from inside the imac, out the bottom and to the 22 inch monitor placed conveniently elsewhere, but I think a 22 inch LCD would be wasted on an iMac, even witha g4 in it.
...and you get a contextual menu. No control button nessesary. On the otherhand, this is where I stand. I own a logitech 2 button optical mouse. I use it on my PC, I also have one for my desktop mac (a Power Mac 5400/180 with G3 upgrade from 1997). However, on my mac laptop, one button is actualy very nice, I never mis-click, and the control button is so close, it's like having a second button anyways.
Sell the PC, then combine that with your current budget to get a tower. Sides, I prefer laptops anyways, but that's just me. And yes, OS X is everything it's cracked up to be and then some.
yeah I know, macs lag a bit in sheer power, but they more than make up for it in usablility. I can actualy stand to sit on my mac for longer than nessesary rather than on my PC. (And the curvy design of the mac makes it a much more comfortable seat). In all seriousness though, I pay more, but I like my mac better than my PC. Give them a try, you might be surprised
Re:Yeah, but try to add a drive... whoops...
on
New iMac Announced
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· Score: 1
Not for the home user, never confuse the home user (the people who would buy an iMac) with a power user (the people who would add a drive) two different markets
Watch what you say. The money M$ pumped into Apple was part of a setlement to drop the long running "look and feel" lawsuit. The apps, while quite successful, are certainly not nessesary. I am quite content with Apple Works, Opera, Netscape and iCab, the only time I use IE is when I have all the other browsers open for something else.
Are you kidding? Apple's been in way over their heads (45 million in debt) and still kept going. They may have a small niche, but it's a creative one, that
A) is loyal
B)Keeps them in business
C) Provides free advertising (just look at all the mac people here)
D) Allows them to make creative screw-ups (like the cube)
E) Allows them to make creative advances (like the Mac, iMac, iPod, Newton, OS X, etc)
F) Allows them to push technology otherwise not touched (Intel developed USB, Apple made it famous, Apple had firewire support way back in system 7)
No, Apple will always be arround if for no other reason than Bill Gates needs new ideas.
You show me a company that will sell me that system. You can't compare buying components and slapping them together and buying from a retailer. Thats like saying I can go to the manufacturers of the parts and build a car for cheaper than I can buy it for.
You know, for all the complainign everyone does about how "unexpandable" apple computers are, you forget the average lifespan of a mac is 3+ years, the average lifespan of a PC is 1.5 (both numbers are assuming no upgrades have been installed) Thats a big difference.
The difference between windows and mac software (espesialy that developed my Apple) is the mac software is almost always easier to use and has a much better interface. For every second of clock speed you save, I save the same ammount not having to hunt for a command that isn't where it should be.
And what happened to the turbo button? It went away cause everyone said, "why can't they just make processors that run at the speed the turbo button makes the current one run at?"
The last time I used a game that pushed my processor to the max was when I was playing Deus Ex (a system intensive game, horibly so) and set off 250 mines at once. Every other time, the games rarely go above 85% processor usage. And with the size and types off chips apearing on graphics cards, I should hope that that card would handle the video, not my main processor, afterall, that was the point of providing seperate graphics and video chips.
I know overclocking is often as easy as pulling a jumper or two, but the point I was making is that it seems fairly rediculous to be rating processors based on how high you can overclock them. I bet if I tried, I could overclock a 1 ghz processor all the way up to 2, and it would last about 5 seconds before it burned out. The point is, we should be more concerned about how the other components of the processor are working and not how high can we get it to overclock.
Have you considered the fact that they probobly ran those tests on a clean system? I don't know about you, but most people I know, don't just have Quake 3 installed on their machine. They have many other little apps and extra files, all of which chew up this or that system resource. Background apps etc all affect the overall usage of the system. And since when did Quake 3 become the standard for computer usage?
Wouldn't that defeat the point of the FF games? Maybe, but I'm open to new ideas, but this one I don't like. And I don't want to have to buy the game and then pay for a seperate connection (other than the $40 a month cable) just to play the damn game, espesialy if I also have to pay to use the servers too.
Ok, first my macintosh-user-super-ego must rear it's ugly head: "I've been saying this for years."
Now on to the real text of my post. I shall first list the OS's I've used:
1)Win 3.1
2)Win 95
3)Win 98 (se as well)
4)Win 2k
5)WinNT 4
6)Mac OS 7.5 - X
7)RedHat Linux
8)MkLinux
The reason I did that is so people won't tell me I don't know OS's. Now, in my opinion windows stopped getting useful arround 3.1 and only picked up again with 2k. 98 did a good job with games but it was just as unstable as every other version. 2k has improved considerably in stability, but even then, it's still not impresive. In all honesty, Dave Barry isn't telling the Mac and/or *NIX people anything they don't know. Maybe some of you windows people should switch up.
Once again I rear my super-ego: "If you really want to be impressed, give OS X a try."
Does anyone besides me find it slightly disturbing that we now judge processors not only by the clock speed but also now by how far we can overclock them? It used to be overclocking was a hardware hack that only hardcore geeks did, just for fun and to squeeze a bit more out of their system. Now it's almost become standard, I can't wait to see do-it-yourself-EZ-Overclocking-kit bundled with overclocking for dummies on the store shelves.
That and I really don't think 2 Ghz, espesialy from intel *gag* is a very good performance boost, even if the tests (which sorry to say can never simulate real life usage) show 10% more speed (only noticable if you push your CPU to the limmit, which mst of us don't do anyways). I'd prefer to see our current processors pushed all the way to their max before they redesign the processor.
Slashdot Mirror
I can try:
Ooga, MAC GOOD, SPIFFY COLORS, LONG LIFE
Booga, WINTEL BAD, CRAPPY OS, LOUSY LIFE SPAN
I don't get any more genral than that, it causes my brain to hurt.
The new iMac design isn't just about a new case or the next wierd look from Apple. It's all part of apple's new strategy. Apple lost the "big market-share and superfast speeds" race long ago, way back in 1996. That isn't where Apple is focused anymore.
0 6. shtml
Instead, Apple has come up with this concept of the "Digital Hub". Admittedly, the concept is not new, but Apple is marketing it, and sucesfully I might add. No longer is Apple selling a computer, they're selling a lifestyle. Think about what they provide. A series of softwares which touch on almost every aspect of life.
1) OS X- For the computer geek in the house, a *NIX underpinning, with plenty of built in power and a ton of open source aspects, and a fast and worthy GUI on top of it. Combinned with the support of comercial software backers, Apple is bringing *NIX to consumers.
2) iMovie- For the parents, finaly those really dull home movies can be livened up, even if they still won't ever be watched.
3) iPhoto- Steve was right, every family has a photo buff, and this product makes things unbelievably easy.
4) iTunes+iPod- Say what you will about it's price, the iPod is still one of the best MP3 players arround, and I can boot my comp with it. iTunes has a lot of power behind it, and while there may be other more feature packed products out there, almost none of them have such seamless support with so many MP3 players. Plus, it burns CDs for you. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Apple believes in being able to use music you own (and if you ask Steve off the books, probobly even some you don't) in any way you like.
5) iDVD- a new concept, burning your own DVDs. And while DVD burners aren't anything new, I don't see anyone else promoting the idea.Not only that, but someone mentioned to me, that even though Apple doesn't support it, the drives in the high end products are apperently not only DVD-R, but actualy RWs. (Unconfirmed, I guess you would have to find out what drive exactly is being used and find a market version somewhere
6) New iMac design- The look is more than just shock value. The concept behind the digital hub is that it is the center of your technological needs. The new design is something you could put in the center of your house. Where most computers have traditionaly enjoyed a spot against the wall, under a desk, or in a back room, this computer could sit comfortably in your living room, and it wouldn't look all that out of place.
7) Expandable- Not in terms of conventional PCI slots or drive bays, but in terms of versitility. The power of UNIX, combined with the imagination and wierdness of Apple developers and the OpenSource compuntiy you suddenly have a computer capable of being more than just a worprocessor and graphics station. This thing could actualy be the brain of a computerized home. It has the look and feel of being part of the future and has the potential to be part of it.
This is not to say the PC's don't have the ability to do this, but if you ask me, the only real innovation I see is from Sony, and Sony costs about as much as Apple.
Apple lost the power race years ago, as well as the OS race. Now Apple is running a new race, one of style, class and usefulness, and so far, the contenders are way behind.
For a superior explination of what I'm saying here go to:
http://www.macslash.com/articles/02/01/10/22492
You obviously did not note that the iMac is equiped with an (S?)VGA out port as well as dual monitor support. Loosely translated, two screens worth of data at once. For example, graphics buffs who are working could place the actual image on a CRT with better color display and place the tool bars on the LCD display.
Go check out apple's web site. All the iMacs coem with the Apple Pro speakers. Admittedly, it's only two speakers, but if your've ever heard them, they generate a nice sound. Go out and buy yourself an iSub (a very kick ass subwoofer, you can hear it from anywhere in my local compUSA store) and you've got a very nice sound system.
If I may, allow me to run off a list of computers for you:
Power Macintosh/Performas (education versions, all in one design)
iMac
G4 Cube
All of these computers have one thing in common, they all use the whole idead of a computer cramped into a small space, and what is one of the first complaints from the Wintel flunkies and the critics? NO EXPANDABILITY!
I thought the whole reason to buy a PC was because it was expandable, this MiniPC most certainly is not. Sure you can take things out and move things arround, but it would be like trying to service the old PowerComputing Macs, or any of the old desktop style (horizontal, for the technicaly impaired) and those were a real pain.
As far ies equipment goes, this thing is underpowered for a PC, and lacks everything that my PC using buddies criticise my mac for not having (large HD, expansion bays, a good graphics card, lots of PCI slots etc etc etc).
This is really just the PC version of an iMac, sans 15 inch LCD screen. I'm not impressed because I've seen the same concept before. On the other hand, it is nice to see someone finaly realizing that computers are getting way too big.
Ya know, with how dirt cheap memory is, maybe we should go back the the old C64 way of doing things and have our OS stored in memory chips instead of on the harddrive, maybe then our boot speeds will be within reasonable limmits.
Bah! Just because you add more features, doesn't mean it should be slower. Just look at the relative speed of other OS's as they've gotten older. Mac OS, muchos improved from good ol 7.5.5. OS X, muchos improved just between version X and X.1. BeOS, muchos improved. And even linux, good god, anyone remember trying to run RedHat 5 + GNOME with any real speed. Didn't work out all that well. Now it's at least usable by someone with a deadline.
Is that as long as the media (video, or audio) get's decoded and displayed in human interperateble format, it can be hijacked and copied. Even if they were to embed the decoders into TVs, all it would take is someone to pick out the decoded signal, before, during or after, it is displayed.
:)) people will still buy originals.
Media sharing will continue to exist in it's present form untill a new form comes along. We went through all this when audio cassette recorders came out, and then when recordable VHS. The same arguments over and over, it will canibalize sales and the creative industry will crumble to dust. Sorry to say, it doesn't happen. Untill the impossible happens, and copies become better than the original (though this does occasionaly happen with programs, espesialy M$ ones
On laptops, I've found it is fairly easy to misclick. Mice however are another matter, but geeze, 5 buttons?! That's overkill, even for gaming.
Doesn't mean you couldn't run a cable from inside the imac, out the bottom and to the 22 inch monitor placed conveniently elsewhere, but I think a 22 inch LCD would be wasted on an iMac, even witha g4 in it.
...and you get a contextual menu. No control button nessesary. On the otherhand, this is where I stand. I own a logitech 2 button optical mouse. I use it on my PC, I also have one for my desktop mac (a Power Mac 5400/180 with G3 upgrade from 1997). However, on my mac laptop, one button is actualy very nice, I never mis-click, and the control button is so close, it's like having a second button anyways.
Sell the PC, then combine that with your current budget to get a tower. Sides, I prefer laptops anyways, but that's just me. And yes, OS X is everything it's cracked up to be and then some.
133, so there :P
yeah I know, macs lag a bit in sheer power, but they more than make up for it in usablility. I can actualy stand to sit on my mac for longer than nessesary rather than on my PC. (And the curvy design of the mac makes it a much more comfortable seat). In all seriousness though, I pay more, but I like my mac better than my PC. Give them a try, you might be surprised
Not for the home user, never confuse the home user (the people who would buy an iMac) with a power user (the people who would add a drive) two different markets
Watch what you say. The money M$ pumped into Apple was part of a setlement to drop the long running "look and feel" lawsuit. The apps, while quite successful, are certainly not nessesary. I am quite content with Apple Works, Opera, Netscape and iCab, the only time I use IE is when I have all the other browsers open for something else.
Are you kidding? Apple's been in way over their heads (45 million in debt) and still kept going. They may have a small niche, but it's a creative one, that
A) is loyal
B)Keeps them in business
C) Provides free advertising (just look at all the mac people here)
D) Allows them to make creative screw-ups (like the cube)
E) Allows them to make creative advances (like the Mac, iMac, iPod, Newton, OS X, etc)
F) Allows them to push technology otherwise not touched (Intel developed USB, Apple made it famous, Apple had firewire support way back in system 7)
No, Apple will always be arround if for no other reason than Bill Gates needs new ideas.
You show me a company that will sell me that system. You can't compare buying components and slapping them together and buying from a retailer. Thats like saying I can go to the manufacturers of the parts and build a car for cheaper than I can buy it for.
And what apple has been doing for 20+
You know, for all the complainign everyone does about how "unexpandable" apple computers are, you forget the average lifespan of a mac is 3+ years, the average lifespan of a PC is 1.5 (both numbers are assuming no upgrades have been installed) Thats a big difference. The difference between windows and mac software (espesialy that developed my Apple) is the mac software is almost always easier to use and has a much better interface. For every second of clock speed you save, I save the same ammount not having to hunt for a command that isn't where it should be.
And what happened to the turbo button? It went away cause everyone said, "why can't they just make processors that run at the speed the turbo button makes the current one run at?" The last time I used a game that pushed my processor to the max was when I was playing Deus Ex (a system intensive game, horibly so) and set off 250 mines at once. Every other time, the games rarely go above 85% processor usage. And with the size and types off chips apearing on graphics cards, I should hope that that card would handle the video, not my main processor, afterall, that was the point of providing seperate graphics and video chips.
I know overclocking is often as easy as pulling a jumper or two, but the point I was making is that it seems fairly rediculous to be rating processors based on how high you can overclock them. I bet if I tried, I could overclock a 1 ghz processor all the way up to 2, and it would last about 5 seconds before it burned out. The point is, we should be more concerned about how the other components of the processor are working and not how high can we get it to overclock.
Have you considered the fact that they probobly ran those tests on a clean system? I don't know about you, but most people I know, don't just have Quake 3 installed on their machine. They have many other little apps and extra files, all of which chew up this or that system resource. Background apps etc all affect the overall usage of the system. And since when did Quake 3 become the standard for computer usage?
Wouldn't that defeat the point of the FF games? Maybe, but I'm open to new ideas, but this one I don't like. And I don't want to have to buy the game and then pay for a seperate connection (other than the $40 a month cable) just to play the damn game, espesialy if I also have to pay to use the servers too.
Ok, first my macintosh-user-super-ego must rear it's ugly head: "I've been saying this for years." Now on to the real text of my post. I shall first list the OS's I've used: 1)Win 3.1 2)Win 95 3)Win 98 (se as well) 4)Win 2k 5)WinNT 4 6)Mac OS 7.5 - X 7)RedHat Linux 8)MkLinux The reason I did that is so people won't tell me I don't know OS's. Now, in my opinion windows stopped getting useful arround 3.1 and only picked up again with 2k. 98 did a good job with games but it was just as unstable as every other version. 2k has improved considerably in stability, but even then, it's still not impresive. In all honesty, Dave Barry isn't telling the Mac and/or *NIX people anything they don't know. Maybe some of you windows people should switch up. Once again I rear my super-ego: "If you really want to be impressed, give OS X a try."
Does anyone besides me find it slightly disturbing that we now judge processors not only by the clock speed but also now by how far we can overclock them? It used to be overclocking was a hardware hack that only hardcore geeks did, just for fun and to squeeze a bit more out of their system. Now it's almost become standard, I can't wait to see do-it-yourself-EZ-Overclocking-kit bundled with overclocking for dummies on the store shelves. That and I really don't think 2 Ghz, espesialy from intel *gag* is a very good performance boost, even if the tests (which sorry to say can never simulate real life usage) show 10% more speed (only noticable if you push your CPU to the limmit, which mst of us don't do anyways). I'd prefer to see our current processors pushed all the way to their max before they redesign the processor.