eMac and iMac EOL'd?

[MacRumors]

According to Appleinsider (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=394), the eMac and iMac have been "end of lifed" (EOL'd).

End of life status on products occurs when products are discontinued or about to be upgraded.

[Savage Henry]

iMac G5 1.6ghz with good bus and graphics card.

That'll do me a treat.

But I can't see the eMacs and iMacs being announced until a couple of months after the Pro line.

[KC9AIC]

If they do this, they had better make one very good line that has a wide variety of configurations, as I currently really like the eMac line (though not so much the eMac looks).

[lind0834]

While, I'm not in the market for either of these machines, the outcome of this particular upgrade sets a standard for if Apple intends to drop the G5 to the consumer level.

[CmdrLaForge]

These are good news. I hope they are true, because beside the iBook the whole offering is really overdue for an update.

[Zaty]

I'm pretty sure they will eol the eMac because a computer featuring only USB 1.1, SDRAM and ATi 7500 is so outdated. As for the iMac, I'm not sure if we'll see a G5 iMac before summer.

[Mord]

exellent

i'll probably never buy an imac i need the power

as soon as we get g5 powerbooks i am gonna get one with my hords of g5pb savings(£1253.41 to date)

[nargot]

This rumor may have some credibility as the current australian deals run out the end of next week. (The current deals are basicly cheap ipod deals, to shift certain stock... good indication of an update... well i don't mind either way)

[dieselg4]

on my part would be a g5 iMac (come on kids, its really time. Let's not wish it a G4 just to keep G5 owners feeleing superior!)
As for the eMac, that's a wild card. I'd love it to go headless (besides, it'd be tree-huggy thing to do, sparing the landfills some 17" CRTS) but it probably won't.
If it does keep a built in screen, it would be wicked hot if it turned into a TAM (20th anniversary mac) format, with posable stand, 15" LCD, and side slot loading drive. For those of you with a knack for photoshop, I'd love to see and "artist's rendition" of such a device! (hint hint)

[wrldwzrd89]

While, I'm not in the market for either of these machines, the outcome of this particular upgrade sets a standard for if Apple intends to drop the G5 to the consumer level.
I'm not in the market either (I bought my iMac in late January of this year); I think this upcoming iMac (G5) revision is coming right when I expected it to, which was sometime around the time of the PowerMac update. I haven't followed the eMac line, so I don't have any guesses as to what will be in it. This is good news for iMac and eMac buyers, though.

[Dont Hurt Me]

we know moto has been making 1.4 and 1.5 G4s, what if apple is just going to bump the imac/emac. this is my fear. another bump. i have been running a 1.4 at 1.47 for almost a year now in my powermac. what if apple was sitting on this because they were to close to the 1.6 G5 powermac. with new 90nm g5s almost here they very well may do another motorola bump to the consumer line. lets hope not.

[wrldwzrd89]

we know moto has been making 1.4 and 1.5 G4s, what if apple is just going to bump the imac/emac. this is my fear. another bump. i have been running a 1.4 at 1.47 for almost a year now in my powermac. what if apple was sitting on this because they were to close to the 1.6 G5 powermac. with new 90nm g5s almost here they very well may do another motorola bump to the consumer line. lets hope not.
DHM, are you concerned about other people who may want an iMac/eMac rather than yourself? Based on what you've posted, I don't think you would be in the market for an iMac right now. I do agree with you though; I'd hate to see another iMac with a Motorola G4 processor.

[Photorun]

Apple needs to pour R&D into more than just their music players, let's get back to basics here, let's make faster COMPUTERS and stop this nickel-and-diming "speed" increases with lackluster Moto chips!

[Dont Hurt Me]

I really like the all in one design,less cable clutter,more space on and in your desk. But it has to be current hardware. If Apple were to release a 2.0 G5 Imac that had a 9600 or better video system I would order it today. I kind of doubt this looking at the history of the past few years. They will make sure it dont step on powermac toes in many ways,video,cpu and memory and then we end up with a machine that is lacking. Just because it is a all in one means it starts life handicapped with no upgrades so please dont handicap it more Apple. thats what im saying. STOP HANDICAPPING IMAC!

[BillyBunter]

I just bought an emac for the wife and after less than a day we decided to return it. Slower than a slow dog in Slowsville, it seemed to me to be deliberately handicapped by the lack of ram. Bring on the new models!

[AirUncleP]

Remember the e in eMac stands for education. Schools are spending money right now for next year. An upgraded eMac would make a lot of schools happy. By the way....In a school environment the eMac rocks.

[Phobophobia]

I just bought an emac for the wife and after less than a day we decided to return it. Slower than a slow dog in Slowsville, it seemed to me to be deliberately handicapped by the lack of ram. Bring on the new models!

*rolls eyes* How much ram did you have? Why didn't you upgrade the ram?

[wrldwzrd89]

I really like the all in one design,less cable clutter,more space on and in your desk. But it has to be current hardware. If Apple were to release a 2.0 G5 Imac that had a 9600 or better video system I would order it today. I kind of doubt this looking at the history of the past few years. They will make sure it dont step on powermac toes in many ways,video,cpu and memory and then we end up with a machine that is lacking. Just because it is a all in one means it starts life handicapped with no upgrades so please dont handicap it more Apple. thats what im saying. STOP HANDICAPPING IMAC!
You kind of doubt that this will happen? Judging by Apple's history of how they update their computers, this won't happen until none of the PowerMacs have a processor rated at 2.0 GHz or slower and none of them come with the ATI Radeon 9600 or worse graphics card as standard. This probably won't come until the iMacs and PowerMacs have gone through at least 1 more, possibly 2 more revision(s).

[Lord Bodak]

I just bought an emac for the wife and after less than a day we decided to return it. Slower than a slow dog in Slowsville, it seemed to me to be deliberately handicapped by the lack of ram. Bring on the new models!

Unless you're gaming, there's nothing wrong with the eMac except the stock RAM. I have a 1GHz PowerBook and with 768MB of RAM that thing FLIES-- significantly faster than my PC at work (although my work PC isn't top of the line, it's no slouch either at 1.8)

[Dont Hurt Me]

I just bought an emac for the wife and after less than a day we decided to return it. Slower than a slow dog in Slowsville, it seemed to me to be deliberately handicapped by the lack of ram. Bring on the new models!I feel your pain, they really went to work on Emac so it didnt hurt Imac sales. But Emac is a good machine give it more memory and break open that case and let it run at 1.26 or 1.33 like it was suppose to and its not bad. Apple underclocked that machine on purpose. again playing the game instead of selling computers.

[miloblithe]

The 128MB eMac is unusable out of the box. Apple really shouldn't sell anything with less than 256MB of memory and I certainly hope that minimum standard is reached with the next round of revisions. But that said, once I threw in another 512MB, my eMac been fine. It's hardly a speed demon, but it's perfectly good for everything I use it for.

Still, remember when the iMac first came out? It was really fast. The top-of-the-line Mac was a 300Mhz G3. The iMac had a 233Mhz G3. Everything else was stripped down for _power_: crappy keyboard, no disk drive, little expansion. It was a perfect cheap computer; powerful, but basic.

I realize Apple isn't going to return to that philosophy, but it would be awesome if they did.

[wrldwzrd89]

I feel your pain, they really went to work on Emac so it didnt hurt Imac sales. But Emac is a good machine give it more memory and break open that case and let it run at 1.26 or 1.33 like it was suppose to and its not bad. Apple underclocked that machine on purpose. again playing the game instead of selling computers.
If I were you, I'd send feedback to Apple, if you haven't already. Knowing the way Apple sells computers, though, I would be surprised if they listened to you. To be quite honest, I don't know what Apple's true motivations behind manipulating their lines by 'playing games' with the components are either.

[iHack]

I like your sig:

Its time to start looking for Space stuff that may cross our path. It will take only 1 large Comet or Asteroid to mess up our planet. What we are doing now is inadequate to say the least. Doing nothing is still nothing. Welcome to Nasa and Politicians.

You're right. The way we're screwing up this planet is WAY in adequate. We need an asteroid. At the current rate we will at least need few more decades before global mass extinction will kick in. Yeah, we need an asteroid!

M.

[jsw]

A G5 version of the iMac/eMac would, of course, be great. However, given the heat issues with the G5, there'd have to be a complete redesign. So, I'm guessing that we'll see faster G4 versions.

However, if there's a redesign, I sincerely hope that they make the systems more expandable/future-proof. Yes, I love the all-in-one design. But...no other manufacturer produces a consumer line - an entire line of all non-pro systems - which is effectively non-expandable (yes, you can add RAM and an AirPort...). I'd really like to see a non-all-in-one, like the rebirth of the cube design which has been spoken of before. A cube - which at least has replaceable parts, even if it isn't truly expandable - coupled with your choice of monitors would be my ideal. All-in-one is nice, but surely they could design something that looks almost as good but won't be "obsolete" so quickly (yeah, I know Macs take a long time to be obsolete, but they can get dog slow very quickly...especially when underpowered at birth).

BTW, there's a part of the Bluetooth spec that would allow for wireless monitors. Don't know if it'll ever get used, but it's a cool thought...don't know what max res would be (probably minimal).

[RichardCarletta]

iMac G5 to follow new PowerMacs, at or before WWDC. The latest from Cupertino: iMac G5s are nearly ready to roll and the only things holding back the new PowerMacs are supplies of new motherboards and higher-clocked PowerPC 970FX CPUs.

If the new PowerMacs ship on schedule in mid to late April, sources believe that a new iMac family with 1-2 G5 models and 2-3 G4 models will follow 5-8 weeks after that -- definitely no later than Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference at the end of June. More details soon...

[jsw]

I really like the all in one design,less cable clutter,more space on and in your desk. But it has to be current hardware. If Apple were to release a 2.0 G5 Imac that had a 9600 or better video system I would order it today. I kind of doubt this looking at the history of the past few years. They will make sure it dont step on powermac toes in many ways,video,cpu and memory and then we end up with a machine that is lacking. Just because it is a all in one means it starts life handicapped with no upgrades so please dont handicap it more Apple. thats what im saying. STOP HANDICAPPING IMAC!

The system of which you speak is basically a 1.6 G5 with a monitor. By the time the new announcements come (next week or two?) there may very well be a single 2.0 GHz G5 PowerMac. Buy that and a monitor, and there's your perfect iMac. But it's gonna cost you.... If you're waiting for an iMac looking all-in-one with a 2.0 GHz G5, you might want to get comfortable. It's going to be a while...

[agentmouthwash]

The eMac has to stay the way it is - as far as looks. Kids poke at the LCD screens of the Imac and schools stopped buying them..
that's way the eMac exists.

The real question is: Will apple release a headless imac?

I would love to see the cube again, but it's just going to confuse
the clutter the Apple lineup already.

[Mord]

the imac has to have a piece of plastic or glass or whatever to protect the lcd.

most uk schools have lcd's they never get poked at with one exeption when a kid threw a dart at one (RM pc so i dont care)

as much as i like my cube apple wont go that way again

[Sun Baked]

They killed (sort of) OS 9 Bootability on the latest eMacs, so there is no reason to stay with the old SDR PowerMac chipset on that machine any longer -- unless it comes down to price, but at some point it's too expensive to keep that chipset in production (it's the only machine using it).

Even the Legacy MDD PowerMac G4 uses a newer chipset.

So there are two old PowerMac chipsets being used when one might have made a bit more sense (keeping both a SDR and DDR PowerMac chipset in production seems pointless).

---

So it's looks like it's time to finally update the old eMac, and it'll be interesting to see if the OS 9 Bootable Legacy MDD PowerMac gets cut.

[BillyBunter]

*rolls eyes* How much ram did you have? Why didn't you upgrade the ram?

Roll your eyes as much as you want, but Apple shouldn't sell machines which, out of the box, can barely run the OS, never mind the Apps. I have an iMac to which I recently added half a gig of Ram, and I'm very happy with it, but, nevertheless, the 256 ram it came with was sufficient for my initial purposes. The 128 ram that the emacs come with is just useless.

I don't need to be sold on Macs, but there are plenty of people out there who do. Selling them an emac which crawls along is not a good advert for Apple and then obliging them to spend more money on ram just adds insult to injury.

How are those eyes doing?

[fabsgwu]

Crap, I'd have to clear some room on my credit cards :p

[Cheap-Chopstix]

You kind of doubt that this will happen? Judging by Apple's history of how they update their computers, this won't happen until none of the PowerMacs have a processor rated at 2.0 GHz or slower and none of them come with the ATI Radeon 9600 or worse graphics card as standard. This probably won't come until the iMacs and PowerMacs have gone through at least 1 more, possibly 2 more revision(s).

Well couldnt they release a 1.4 gigahertz g5...juss underclock a g5 1.6. It would produce less heat and require less power. They've done it before and im sure they wouldnt hesitate to do it again. And at that speed it would not really encrouch on powermac performance.

[Dippo]

As nice as it would for Apple to completely move away from the G4...it's not going to happen anytime soon.

If I was Steve Jobs:

I would give the eMac a speed bump, and give the iMac a G5 and a good video card (at least Radeon 9600)

The eMac sales will always eat away at the iMac sales if they have similar speeds and components.

If the Powermacs are made to be all duals, then maybe that would make way for a headless single processor Mac Cube.

[wrldwzrd89]

Well couldnt they release a 1.4 gigahertz g5...juss underclock a g5 1.6. It would produce less heat and require less power. They've done it before and im sure they wouldnt hesitate to do it again. And at that speed it would not really encrouch on powermac performance.
That would meet the requirements, but would it run cool enough to fit in the existing iMac design? If it doesn't, that may explain why Apple hasn't done this yet.

[Foxer]

Would they EOL these products for speedbumps or does this (if true) clearly indicate a whole new prodcut revision? We've had enough speedbumps in the past, you'd think we would have noticed.

[Flowbee]

How are those eyes doing?

:rolleyes:

[noel4r]

i hope this is true, coz if they release a G5 iMac sometime soon, i just might buy one.

[chasingapple]

Roll your eyes as much as you want, but Apple shouldn't sell machines which, out of the box, can barely run the OS, never mind the Apps. I have an iMac to which I recently added half a gig of Ram, and I'm very happy with it, but, nevertheless, the 256 ram it came with was sufficient for my initial purposes. The 128 ram that the emacs come with is just useless.

I don't need to be sold on Macs, but there are plenty of people out there who do. Selling them an emac which crawls along is not a good advert for Apple and then obliging them to spend more money on ram just adds insult to injury.

How are those eyes doing?

You could have just tossed a single 128MB stick of memory into that thing for $40 (crucial.com) and been fine. Matter of fact when I bought my 2 new macs the other week my daughter was sitting with my wife on an eMac playing the demo games they have and it was quite zippy, even though it had only 128MB of ram. I think your exaggerating just a bit :D

[edenwaith]

I was just contemplating about getting an eMac relatively soon, and so I decided to check the Buyer's Guide to see how current the eMac was. Not only do I get to this site, but see this new rumor. Glad I checked, so now if I get an eMac, I can get a higher quality machine for my money. I'm hoping for a larger hard drive for the base configuration. USB 2 would also be a welcome addition.

[macnews]

I want an all in one, and for those who don't want one, then buy a power line model. The all in one is good for two reasons: One the education market needs something simple and easy. Both the emac and imac are great for that market - I run a small lab so I speak from experience. To keep yearly IT costs down we rotate out machines every 3-4 years. Each year buying a few newer computers. By doing so we spend about ten grand a year which is much easier to budget for compared to 40-50 grand every three of four years. Back before the imac this meant we would keep old monitors around for ever, which might have saved some money but often resulted in poor color after 6 years and was much harder to sell needing to buy 20 new monitors. I would always run into the question "well the ones we have work don't they? Does it really matter if you have some color issues? Ok, but you can only buy x (much less than what I asked for) new monitors." I don't have to worry about that headache with all in ones.

The second good thing an all in one is good for is home use. I just looks so much better not to have wires all over the place! For those who do gaming, graphics, what ever - get a powermac. The low end power mac sans a monitor is about the same price, or less, than some imacs! For those of us who surf the internet, use email, and the iapps from time to time an imac works fine. Sure, I know imovie, iphoto would/could be faster on a powermac but to be honest they run fine on my home imac.

Of course on ALL mac lines you need to upgrade the ram. Then again, I think you need to upgrade the ram on ANY computer (mac or pc) you buy. They all stick in the bare min. and say "see how price competative we are?" And yes, you even need to upgrade the top end machines 99% of the time. Work bought me a 17" powerbook and I upgraded the ram to 1G. Sure the 512 was nice but I do run photoshop, illustrator and manage the server from time to time so the extra ram will help extend the life of this machine.

If the macs go to an all G5 line up, great. I do hope they keep some all in one form factor - although the imac design is going to be tough to beat. It is the ONLY computer I happily display in my living room (good for kids to keep an eye on), not tucked back in some room with tie wraps hiding and organizing all the cables.

[kryten2000]

Remember the e in eMac stands for education. Schools are spending money right now for next year. An upgraded eMac would make a lot of schools happy. By the way....In a school environment the eMac rocks.



My first and only mac is a emac 700 with the geforce 2 and in a home enviroment its a great machine as well. I hope they keep the emac line in some way (low cost all in 1 mac).It handles everthing i throw at it well.Of coures its no g5 but its a great entry level mac.

[neon]

so i was going to purchase an emac in two weeks - should i wait?

i was going to get an emac not because its the machine i WANT :p but as my first mac it'll do what i'd use it for and it's affordable - adding some more ram and a larger hard drive really takes it up to my budget (£800, i qualify for educational discount)

help? :confused:

[0 and A ai]

I think they were prepping the imac line in terms of price for the g5 intro. i think at least the 20 inch will get a g5. 1.4 1.6 1.8 g4 g4 g5 respectively mabye? or maybe cost too much to have different mobos for the machines. If not i guess a redesigned imac g5 across the board. i think apple will have all machines with g5 bye end summer of 05 yes even the ibook and emac. powermacs might even have 980 by then or what apple might call the g6

[LoonyPandora]

Well, I certainly haven't received any notification that they have been EOL'd :-/ - While I think they will be updated soon, they have not been EOL'd - I work in the channel, so I would have heard about this if it were true. - last I heard stock levels were OK to meet demand (although I only get monthly updates)

[Postal]

If the iMac starts using the G5, it won't be until the PowerMacs have had their update - and I think that means April at the earliest.

What they really need to do is, as Fred Anderson pointed out in a recent conference call, to hit the $999 sweet spot. Even if they have to use a 15" LCD to do it, there should be a flat-panel iMac at $999. Believe it or not, I don't think that using a G5 at that price point is impossible (the G5 is supposedly cheaper to manufacture than the G4 as a general rule). The main thing Apple needs to have for this to happen is a stripped-down mainboard and system controller. Single-channel memory only, no accomodation for dual processors, a single SATA channel, and so on. With the 970FX, it should be no challenge to have a 1.6 GHz (or maybe even as high as 2 GHz) G5 in the existing enclosure.

[applekid]

Just update them and don't kill them off. Simple.

[BornAgainMac]

I just bought an emac for the wife and after less than a day we decided to return it. Slower than a slow dog in Slowsville, it seemed to me to be deliberately handicapped by the lack of ram. Bring on the new models!

Buy more ram. You can get a 2 512 Mb yourself for under $150. If Apple included it, the cost of the eMac would have been too expensive. I found the eMac to be very fast with 1 GB of ram. Except for my G5, I always installed the maximum ram. My 4 year old iMac has d 1 GB, it was a 450 ghz G3 but it had more memory than any Mac sold day in it's standard configuration. My iBook has 640 Mb of ram and it also screams even though it is a G3 at 600mhz. Windows laptop users are actually impressed with the performance of this iBook and can't believe it's only 600 mhz.

I only wish I could afford 8 GB for my G5 but it would cost as much as the 23 inch monitor that I am saving up for.

[jade]

Buy more ram.

Sure that is the logical response, but typically if you buy a similar price range PC you will get 256 or 512 RAM, not a ton but enough to feel comfortable opening your web browser and send email. So it will feel speedier. If I buy a new computer, the last thing I want to thing about is having to open it up and put more RAM in for me to feel ok turinging the thing on. It should feel fast enough fot minimal tasks. Not to come from the perspective of a new computer buyer, who had been looking at Dells of HPs or emachines, getting this new computer home and having it feel half as fast as the cheaper celeron computers. Well you would probably trade it in for the cheaper computer: os and ilife becoming irrelevant. And that, to me is a huge problem.

[BornAgainMac]

Sure that is the logical response, but typically if you buy a similar price range PC you will get 256 or 512 RAM,

Apple should provide a healthy dose of Ram as a standard option. But still provide the option for people like me so that I can buy a eMac with ZERO ram. This would cut the price of the eMac to probably $600 bucks. Then I can install a ***** load of ram for a fraction of the price that Apple would charge me. Everyone would be happy.

[aswitcher]

Apple should provide a healthy dose of Ram as a standard option. But still provide the option for people like me so that I can buy a eMac with ZERO ram. This would cut the price of the eMac to probably $600 bucks. Then I can install a ***** load of ram for a fraction of the price that Apple would charge me. Everyone would be happy.

Then again if they just dropped 128 sticks all together I wonder if they could reduce the price of the 256 and 512s because they would be buying more of them... Personally I would like them to just focus in on 512s...a G5 would therefore have 2 for a minimum of a gig. Buying a majority of 512s should bring the price down. They could still sell 256s but the price difference would be far better for the 512s... This will eventually happen I suggest, I just wish Apple would do it now to bring prices down and base performance up.

[visor]

Roll your eyes as much as you want, but Apple shouldn't sell machines which, out of the box, can barely run the OS, never mind the Apps. I have an iMac to which I recently added half a gig of Ram, and I'm very happy with it, but, nevertheless, the 256 ram it came with was sufficient for my initial purposes. The 128 ram that the emacs come with is just useless.

I don't need to be sold on Macs, but there are plenty of people out there who do. Selling them an emac which crawls along is not a good advert for Apple and then obliging them to spend more money on ram just adds insult to injury.

How are those eyes doing?

They are all looking at the apple ram prices - and the real prices at local retail stores. Save $200 on a 512 MB ram stick - and you know why apple sells little ram computers.
Probably thos market analysts say people like to buy macs with little ram...
:rolleyes:

[Naimfan]

I posted elsewhere on (finally!) receiving a refurbished 1 GHz eMac for my six year old. I've played on it some, and it seems quite good--iTunes is in the background, I've been able to play Civ3 with no hiccups while surfing the web, etc. It came with a 256 stick of ram instead of the advertised 128, and I had ordered a 512 stick, so am currently running with 768, soon to be a gig. It seems like quite a good machine, and perfect for a lot of people.

I think Apple really needs to be in the inexpensive but not cheap market, and the eMac allows them to do that. And I think it slaughters an iMac on value grounds--sure, the iMac is slightly better (and much cooler), but its pricing is absurd at the moment.

Would it be even better if it were updated? Of course--put a 1.25/1.33/1.42 GHz G4 or a 1.4/1.6 G5 in it, bigger HD, etc., whatever can be done while still keeping the pricing keen.

Best,

Bob

[rdowns]

Apple needs to pour R&D into more than just their music players, let's get back to basics here, let's make faster COMPUTERS and stop this nickel-and-diming "speed" increases with lackluster Moto chips!

amen, my brother.

[rdowns]

To be quite honest, I don't know what Apple's true motivations behind manipulating their lines by 'playing games' with the components are either.

I call it Job's Head Up His Ass marketing. I wonder if I could get a local college to let me teach that course.

[Dont Hurt Me]

hey rdowns, how you doing tonight? can i sign up for that course? Jobs whole tier system is good for his and those executives pocketbook but it sucks if you want to expand your market. I just cant get on the Jobs is so great bandwagon when Apple finds new ways to screw up good things. hope you saw that rumor from appleinsider about newer Imacs coming but they are saying its going to be handicapped at 1.6 G5.

[Ashwee]

I hope this is true, I'm looking to buy a new mac over the coming months and the thought of a G5 17" iMac is truely adorable.

[Dont Hurt Me]

I hope its true also but at 2.0 not 1.6. Give Imac real muscle so it can compete with the PC side. also they could make it a little less goofy and give it a sleeker base instead of the basketball. add some color options and videocard options and it could be a great big hit but i dont think Apple will allow that. I really feel it will be more of the same,restricted,limited and overpriced. There was a rumor of a new form factor for the display, I wonder what that means.

[aswitcher]

I hope its true also but at 2.0 not 1.6. Give Imac real muscle so it can compete with the PC side. also they could make it a little less goofy and give it a sleeker base instead of the basketball. add some color options and videocard options and it could be a great big hit but i dont think Apple will allow that. I really feel it will be more of the same,restricted,limited and overpriced. There was a rumor of a new form factor for the display, I wonder what that means.

2.0 would be nice but I can see that in the second rev...
4 RAM slots would be excellent for the G5 config, like th 1.6G5PM
Sleeker design, I actually wonder if it might get slightly bigger to accomodate G5 and possibly one or two PCI slots to make it appeal to a wider market. I like th G5PM design ease of access...nice if iMac was like that.
A detactable screen is the other winner, just have an arm that mounts the standard 17 or 20 which you buy as a package or seperately, so in 3 years you can just upgrade the base...which brings back cube thoughts

[Dont Hurt Me]

2.0 would be nice but I can see that in the second rev...
4 RAM slots would be excellent for the G5 config, like th 1.6G5PM
Sleeker design, I actually wonder if it might get slightly bigger to accomodate G5 and possibly one or two PCI slots to make it appeal to a wider market. I like th G5PM design ease of access...nice if iMac was like that.
A detactable screen is the other winner, just have an arm that mounts the standard 17 or 20 which you buy as a package or seperately, so in 3 years you can just upgrade the base...which brings back cube thoughtsby having a standard mount that almost will draw back customers in that alone, i mean in 3 or 4 years it would be nice to get a new machine and just use your monitor again. it would be a selling point. Pci would be nice but remember this is Apple we are talking about. they dont want you inside Imac or Emac.

[rdowns]

I hope its true also but at 2.0 not 1.6. Give Imac real muscle so it can compete with the PC side. also they could make it a little less goofy and give it a sleeker base instead of the basketball. add some color options and videocard options and it could be a great big hit but i dont think Apple will allow that. I really feel it will be more of the same,restricted,limited and overpriced. There was a rumor of a new form factor for the display, I wonder what that means.

2.0 for me too. Make mine a 20". I'd order one immediately. Dying for a new computer. Guess I can still wait a while but if a crippled G5 iMac is announced, I'll probably buy used.

[Dont Hurt Me]

2.0 for me too. Make mine a 20". I'd order one immediately. Dying for a new computer. Guess I can still wait a while but if a crippled G5 iMac is announced, I'll probably buy used.Buy used what? I would buy a G5 Imac 17" or 20" but I dont think I would drop the cash if it had more fx5200 garbage.

[ClimbingTheLog]

iMac G5s are nearly ready to roll and the only things holding back the new PowerMacs are supplies of new motherboards and higher-clocked PowerPC 970FX CPUs.

That's the most interesting bit.

The 970FX's were supposedly getting pretty good yields, at decent clock rates, compared with current PowerMac G5's speeds.

So, this sounds like the iMac is going to be running faster than the current PowerMacs, i.e. faster than 2GHz. If the iMacs are running that fast, it sounds like we're going to see the 3GHz PowerMacs sooner rather than later.

[acerbas]

I like your sig:


You're right. The way we're screwing up this planet is WAY inadequate. We need an asteroid. At the current rate we will at least need few more decades before global mass extinction will kick in. Yeah, we need an asteroid!

M.Or at very least another eruption of the Yellowstone caldera, which is overdue. But I am glad I am old because I am not rich, or at least not rich enough to insulate me from the coming catastrophic reshaping of civilization brought on by the end of cheap oil.
http://www.museletter.com/partys-over.html

[Les Kern]

Remember the e in eMac stands for education. Schools are spending money right now for next year...... In a school environment the eMac rocks.

I hear you. I'm spending a gob of cash right now for next year. See This? (http://www.mchs.net/techweb/2004-5TechPlan.htm) I knew that there was "something" going on, you just kind of feel it. I can't actually say how I strongly feel that April 1st or there about is it. I wan't told either. I've been doing this long enough that it's almost a sixth sense. And know what? I really don't care. Chasing upgrades is silly. I mean, a USB 2.0 and 200 extra Mhz? Big deal. I got work to do. (That said, a G5 eMac would be cool, but I doubt its coming)

[~Shard~]

2.0 for me too. Make mine a 20". I'd order one immediately. Dying for a new computer. Guess I can still wait a while but if a crippled G5 iMac is announced, I'll probably buy used.

I totally agree with you, but just one little comment - I wouldn't exactly callan iMac with a G5 in it "crippled" regardless of the processor speed. ;) The G5s are FAST chips, and putting one in an iMac will be an amazing improvement, regardless of the speed. But yah, faster is better, in a perfect world...

[Ensoniq]

I totally agree with you, but just one little comment - I wouldn't exactly callan iMac with a G5 in it "crippled" regardless of the processor speed. ;)

Couldn't have said it better myself.

A 1.6 GHz G5 with an 800 MHz bus (always half the speed of the processor) using DDR memory would be very close to TWICE the speed of a 1 GHz G4 on a 167 MHz bus.

If Apple can bring out the G5 iMacs at the same exact price with twice the speed, that is a damn good upgrade. Only on paper does it seem bad because 1.6 doesn't hit the magic 2 GHz number everyone is craving.

Considering how long it took the G4 to get to 1 GHz, 2 GHz G5 chips with 3 GHz around the corner shows impressive work by IBM. The G5 is only "slow" if you obsess over benchmark specs.

[adamjay]

If Apple can bring out the G5 iMacs at the same exact price with twice the speed, that is a damn good upgrade. Only on paper does it seem bad because 1.6 doesn't hit the magic 2 GHz number everyone is craving.


Amen, give me a G5 in an iMac 17" and i'll empty the bank account the next day.

and is that Ensoniq as in Ensoniq - makers of the SQ-80 (aka the best synthesizer/controller EVER!) ??

[MacFinn]

I do find this thread funny. People are clamoring for 2.0 GHz G5 in entrylevel Macs. Get real.
If you NEED 2.0 GHz G5, buy a PowerMac already. iMac/eMac is not for you, it never was.
I'm buying an eMac for my daughter's birthday next month. For her, eMac with 512 MB to 1 GB RAM and 80 GB HD is about perfect. I would like more speed to run GarageBand (the main reason for the purchase. as she's studying music). But I like the price point of eMac very much. So let's hope Apple keeps that.

[Griffindor73]

I really want a new iMac as I am still using my purple 400MhzDV which is four years old this month (Happy Birthday!-I treated it to a new keyboard!)

When I bought it it was fast, and certainly knocked the pants off all my PC owning friends computers.

Now I need a new one.

BUT- I am not going to buy one until it at least knocks some of the pants off my PC owning friends computers.

However, I think the next upgrade will be 1.25 for the eMac, and 1.5 for the iMac (G4)

When the PowerMacs get to 3Ghz I think that Apple will announce a new 1.8 or 2Ghz G5 iMac so everyone goes "WOW" and buys it and then the eMac will get the G4 1.5.

So it looks like I'll have to wait just a little longer- Hold in there old girl! I just hope my purpel iMac won't be celebrating it's fifth birthday.

[takao]

same boat...... i like the look of the imac but with the "laptop" dimm,the 256 mb and the g4 i'm not going to buy one

for me as a future switcher (end of year ,next spring) i only look at the iBook which is great at the moment

i would like a lcd for my next main computer so the eMac is out

and the imac at the moment is too overpriced(with a G5,512 ram(normal ddr),bigger hd as standard and lower price i guess 1500 $ (that would translate to 1700€ apple-europe)for the 17" i would get one for my parents)

i guess apple want me to save up more money for a powermac (which is overkill for me) 2238,31€ and counting, but for computer _and_screen :rolleyes:

[folding_kayaker]

If it is possible Apple has to move to G5 as fast as possible, duel G5's for the powermacs and single for the other lines. I, like many G3 i-mac owners am comming to the end of the useful life of my machine. When I purchased it it was better value than the vast majority of intel rivals and respectably close to the powermac line in performance. If Apple is to survive it has to hold onto sufficient a market share to be worth developing for. When I replace this mac I want one that will be adaquate for the next four years, not one that is adaquate today but will be left behind as the apple world optimises for 64 bit. Apple survived the 1990's because it threw away preconceptions about the need to hinder its "consumer" option to protect its "professional" lines. The commercial logic remains the same to day, to hold onto and gain market share Apple has to offer the best value it can possibly can to all its customers.

[Dont Hurt Me]

If it is possible Apple has to move to G5 as fast as possible, duel G5's for the powermacs and single for the other lines. I, like many G3 i-mac owners am comming to the end of the useful life of my machine. When I purchased it it was better value than the vast majority of intel rivals and respectably close to the powermac line in performance. If Apple is to survive it has to hold onto sufficient a market share to be worth developing for. When I replace this mac I want one that will be adaquate for the next four years, not one that is adaquate today but will be left behind as the apple world optimises for 64 bit. Apple survived the 1990's because it threw away preconceptions about the need to hinder its "consumer" option to protect its "professional" lines. The commercial logic remains the same to day, to hold onto and gain market share Apple has to offer the best value it can possibly can to all its customers.boy do i agree, imac crt was at the same speeds as those powermacs it just didnt have altivec, thats part of the reason they sold millions. If apple wants to sell millions again it wont happen by holding down Imac with last years G5s entry level. from benches i have seen single 1.6 is not all that great. Apple needs to let the consumer make the choice not Apple. put matching single G5s in Imac at whatever speed they are being made at. if 2.4 then so be it give Imac one of those and consumers will come running. Play the cripple game such as 1.6 G5 in Imac while Powermacs have dual 1.8,2.2,2.4 and it will be more of the same we have had for the past 2 years.(Yawn) who says consumers dont need higher clocks? ever do any gaming? apple has to address the poor game performance on its machines and the best way is with higher clocks.the consumer line is selling as poorly as the pro line when they should sell 10 units of consumer models to each pro model. crippling is to blame.

[_iCeb0x_]

Apple has been doing this for a long time now...

EOL'ed models and others models soon to be EOL'ed are sold for dirty cheap in Brazil. There's a bargain right now. You can buy an eMac (1GHz/256/80/Combo) in 20 monthly payments... They call it "back2school". I am not sure if it's the same over there in the northern hemisphere, but here it's going like this.

I remember I bought my first Mac in a promotion like this. It was a Performa 630, in 1995. They also had the "new" 6100, 7100 and 8100 PowerMacs at that time, but these were pretty expensive. They also did it a couple of years later with the PowerMac 5500 and they keep doing it. They have a promo right now, directly from Apple, where you can buy refurbished XServe G4's with 60% off the retail price. These are demo units, open box items and stuff like that, I think.

Well... Based on the facts, Apple seels old stuff here (and in other 3rd world countries, I assume) when they are soon to EOL them or when they still have supplies of EOL'ed stuff.

_iCeb0x_

[edenwaith]

who says consumers dont need higher clocks? ever do any gaming? apple has to address the poor game performance on its machines and the best way is with higher clocks.the consumer line is selling as poorly as the pro line when they should sell 10 units of consumer models to each pro model. crippling is to blame.

I would say that intense game playing would require a top of the line machine, not intended for lower level "consumer" machines. If you used a PC for gaming, you probably wouldn't invest in some cheap-o $500 Dell machine, but might go the Alienware route, instead.

Now if I had a 1GHz iMac, I would be sitting pretty well with pretty much any product, I believe, but that might not be true in a couple of years. It seems that games are the products which really push forward and test the limits of current technology. I would say it might be time for some game programmers to take some intense optimization classes if games are now requiring 700+ MHz to run. But here is an interesting phenomenon: Shadowbane requires a 700MHz Pentium class chip to run on a PC, but only a 350 MHz chip to run on a Mac. Go figure.

[takao]

I would say that intense game playing would require a top of the line machine, not intended for lower level "consumer" machines. If you used a PC for gaming, you probably wouldn't invest in some cheap-o $500 Dell machine, but might go the Alienware route, instead.

Now if I had a 1GHz iMac, I would be sitting pretty well with pretty much any product, I believe, but that might not be true in a couple of years. It seems that games are the products which really push forward and test the limits of current technology. I would say it might be time for some game programmers to take some intense optimization classes if games are now requiring 700+ MHz to run. But here is an interesting phenomenon: Shadowbane requires a 700MHz Pentium class chip to run on a PC, but only a 350 MHz chip to run on a Mac. Go figure.

hm i'm sitting on a "cheap-o" PC (perhaps 700-800$ 1,5 years ago) and i can run UT2004 with 30+ frames with ICQ,iTunes,firewall,mozilla in the background, at 1024x768 full details...
most "pro-gamers"(like some friends) don't buy a system like from alienware ....(those are made for rich kids IMHO)....most gamers build them on their own

Half Life 1 requieres a 133 mhz Pentium chip on a PC, but on a Mac: "it's not gonna happen". Go Figure.

</rant off>
macs. aren't made for gaming and that won't chance in the near future ...i have no problem with that: i will still switch in the next year and keep my PC for gaming .... PCs & Consoles are best for games... The best for apple would be increasing speed/specs of computers and not concentrating on trying to get more games for the OS that market is already very crowed
(with one of my favourite games civ3 already on mac osx it's not hard for me to switch ;-) )

[Sun Baked]

Single channel DDR memory anyone...

Everybody wants a few memory upgrades in the machine, and single channel memory would give it to you. Though the memory would operate at 1/2 the bandwidth of the PowerMac G5.

Those pesky 4 pairs of DIMMs take up a lot of room in the PowerMac.

[chaos86]

which means new architechture or form factor which means this isnt a moto speed bump. from what ive seen, emacs have been killing imac sales. i can see them combining the emac and imac (closer to the imac but with a more protected screen for schools) and going back to one consumer desktop (imac), one consumer notebook (ibook), one pro desktop (powermac), and one pro notebook (powerbook). and the serves. and the pods. that would make sense.

now what would not make sense-- having g5 'consumer' imacs that way outperform the g4 'pro' powerbooks. they wont release a new proc to the consumer level until its already used in the whole pro level. they never have and never will.

[Dont Hurt Me]

which means new architechture or form factor which means this isnt a moto speed bump. from what ive seen, emacs have been killing imac sales. i can see them combining the emac and imac (closer to the imac but with a more protected screen for schools) and going back to one consumer desktop (imac), one consumer notebook (ibook), one pro desktop (powermac), and one pro notebook (powerbook). and the serves. and the pods. that would make sense.

now what would not make sense-- having g5 'consumer' imacs that way outperform the g4 'pro' powerbooks. they wont release a new proc to the consumer level until its already used in the whole pro level. they never have and never will.man you are clueless, G4 thats way overpriced is killing Imac sales. and by the way they count Imac & Emac sales as Imac sales(Apple spinning the truth) and those numbers still are the same as powermac G5. Dismal. why? old stale technology that apple charges twice what its worth thats why 1.7% of all new computers were macs. Only mac faithful would be dumb enough to buy old hardware at new hardware prices. new buyers flock to the PC world where they can get fast new machines at 1/2 what apple charges for old slow G4s. I also love the logic of cant make a decent Imac because Powerbook doesnt have G5 in it. Brilliant! way to go! Just keep making old crap. with that thinking Apple is sure to hit 1% marketshare or less this qtr. they must have someone like you running Apple.

[adamjay]

Only mac faithful would be dumb enough to buy old hardware at new hardware prices. new buyers flock to the PC world where they can get fast new machines at 1/2 what apple charges for old slow G4s.

every Mac user here knows that we aren't spending money on old hardware, we are spending money on 1) SOFTWARE *Hello, OSX!!!, followed by hardware (which may not stack up to the Speed of a PC but both have advantages and disadvantages *see below), support, piece of mind.

and PC's lose their ability to be "fast" once bombarded with Spyware, Worm Attacks, and the lack of BSD. The "Mac Faithful" have faith that their computers will do what they want, when they want, and how they want. Hell that's not even faith, thats logic!

[adamjay]

Apple has been doing this for a long time now...

EOL'ed models and others models soon to be EOL'ed are sold for dirty cheap in Brazil. There's a bargain right now. You can buy an eMac (1GHz/256/80/Combo) in 20 monthly payments... They call it "back2school". I am not sure if it's the same over there in the northern hemisphere, but here it's going like this.


how many Reai's is the monthly payment in Brazil for an eMac, iCeb0x ?
Electronics in generaly (even mac's) are very inexpensive in the US compared to the rest of the world. I would jump to say because of the consumerist nature of our culture. Everyone wants the latest, and every company pushes to make the latest, its an endless cycle.

i remember being in Sao Paulo in October, shopping on Avenido Paulista and seeing the prices for even cheap non-brand PC Laptops were outrageous!

would you be surprised if i said you could get a brand new eMac here in the US with the specs you listed above for 2,184 Reai's ??

[MarkCollette]

There's a simple rule in marketing: sell people what they want. The pro line should be what pro people want, and the consumer line should be what sonsumers want. That means not keeping the consumer line down to save the pro line. I personally think that everyone else's suggestion of duals for pros and singles for consumers is a sufficient compromise, as long as the clock rates are as high as possible for both.

But, to push my point even further, if for some reason consumers wanted the same specs as pros, then they should have the same specs. Give people what they want. If for some neurotic reason you really really need to separate lines, than differentiate by style, software bundles, system support contracts, etc.

Obviously there are price point differences between consumer and pros, but if the consumer price point fits with a high end chip, then don't down clock it for some self-defeating reasons.

[aswitcher]

SNIP

</rant off>
macs. aren't made for gaming and that won't chance in the near future ...i have no problem with that: i will still switch in the next year and keep my PC for gaming .... PCs & Consoles are best for games... The best for apple would be increasing speed/specs of computers and not concentrating on trying to get more games for the OS that market is already very crowed
(with one of my favourite games civ3 already on mac osx it's not hard for me to switch ;-) )

Mac might do well to push the design of games that aren't FPSs which form the bulk of PC and especially games machines like the XBOX and PS2, to see if they can increase a market share with games that don't rely on expensive graphics cards and top Ghz. Military and construction stratergy games, iSight based games, turn based strategy games of old (reach for the stars was cool) and games that heavily use video and music... just an errant thought :rolleyes:

[aswitcher]

There's a simple rule in marketing: sell people what they want. The pro line should be what pro people want, and the consumer line should be what sonsumers want. That means not keeping the consumer line down to save the pro line. I personally think that everyone else's suggestion of duals for pros and singles for consumers is a sufficient compromise, as long as the clock rates are as high as possible for both.
SNIP

Yeah, this is a sore point for a number of forum posters. Apple telling us what we want, not building their lines to reflect what the market wants.

Biggest issue (I guess) is the jump from an iMac to a G5PM... at present there is a huge gap in performance. Huge. Its been there for 6+ months, and even before that the jump from a iMac to a Dual G4 was pretty signficant. As for gaming, lack of decent iMac upgrades for graphics and ram has crippled it.

[rdowns]

There's a simple rule in marketing: sell people what they want. The pro line should be what pro people want, and the consumer line should be what sonsumers want. That means not keeping the consumer line down to save the pro line. I personally think that everyone else's suggestion of duals for pros and singles for consumers is a sufficient compromise, as long as the clock rates are as high as possible for both.

But, to push my point even further, if for some reason consumers wanted the same specs as pros, then they should have the same specs. Give people what they want. If for some neurotic reason you really really need to separate lines, than differentiate by style, software bundles, system support contracts, etc.

Obviously there are price point differences between consumer and pros, but if the consumer price point fits with a high end chip, then don't down clock it for some self-defeating reasons.

I agree, give the people what they want and stop playing daddy with the damn marketing.

There are plenty of ways to diffrentiate lines other than the processor. Dual vs. single, expansion slots, RAM expanability, video cards, FireWire 800, bundled software, tower vs. AIO.

I just got my Apple 10K in the mail today for the fical year ending Sept. 2003. (Note- that means PM G5 sales are not reflected here) Man, their sales numbers are dismal. Aside of the PB (unit sales up 69% 2003 vs. 2002), all other computers were way down. Here are the numbers

Numbers are unit sales in thousands for 2003, 2002 and 2001 respectively.

PowerMacs (includes severs), 667, 766, 937
PowerBooks, 604, 357, 346
iMacs (includes eMacs), 1094, 1301, 1208
iBook, 647, 677, 596

Total unit sales were down 3% for 2003

You can interpret these any way you want but to me it screams that their desktop line ups are inadequate. The G5 addressed the PM six months ago while the iMac still languishes with almost 3 year old technology. 2001 was a pretty good year for Apple, many of those buyers are ready for an upgrade. Does Apple have what to offer them? I think not.

A 2.0 GHz or faster processor in a revamped iMac would sell like iPods.

rant over

[Dont Hurt Me]

interesting numbers rdowns, sure apple is making money but selling less and less. no mater how exclusive people want Apple to be this isnt good news for shareholders or Apple. the whole product line has become current technology, current technology handicapped, old technology,old technology thats handicapped, old technology thats handicapped and then crippled. this philosophey may put money in Apples pockets but its a looser if you want to grow or even keep your current market. Apple had almost 20% of new sales in 1997, today it has 1.7% new sales yet we have people posting even today that this is terrific. I just dont see it. Apple has to market what the market wants. not what Apple wants. consumers will go elsewhere and have.

[CrackedButter]

I went from a powerbook (1.25ghz) to an emac (1ghz), the emac is fine for the amount I paid, its the powerbook that was overpriced imo.

It has 640 RAM and it stays on 24/7 for the 3 months I have had it now, it is also folding proteins all the time while I run iTunes, Safari, mail, acqusition + Photoshop CS and mplayer.

To be honest however, safari is a bit on the slow side with scrolling and tabs but thats it.

[Naimfan]

The numbers, as they say, don't lie. Apple really does need to revamp the lineup, although I would suggest that the G5 PMs were the first step. Now they need to bump the PMs and they really need to do something with the iMacs. Then again, I was just at the Cherry Creek Apple store, and I saw 3 iMac sales... Along with 4 PBs and 3 iBooks. Not a single PM, but Saturday probably isn't a big PM sales day...

And there were a TON of iPods etc being sold, as well as the last silver mini. And at least two of the laptop sales were switchers, who switched because they got an iPod, so perhaps the strategy of using the iPod to draw people in does have some validity.

Best,

Bob

[CrackedButter]

The numbers, as they say, don't lie. Apple really does need to revamp the lineup, although I would suggest that the G5 PMs were the first step. Now they need to bump the PMs and they really need to do something with the iMacs. Then again, I was just at the Cherry Creek Apple store, and I saw 3 iMac sales... Along with 4 PBs and 3 iBooks. Not a single PM, but Saturday probably isn't a big PM sales day...

And there were a TON of iPods etc being sold, as well as the last silver mini. And at least two of the laptop sales were switchers, who switched because they got an iPod, so perhaps the strategy of using the iPod to draw people in does have some validity.

Best,

Bob

I wish I could sit in an Apple Store and watch that kind of stuff go on.

[MarkCollette]

2001 was a pretty good year for Apple, many of those buyers are ready for an upgrade. Does Apple have what to offer them? I think not.

A 2.0 GHz or faster processor in a revamped iMac would sell like iPods.


On the PC side of things the industry average is to upgrade every 3 years. I have no idea what the Mac average is. But anyway, you raise a really good point, that we're reaching a timeframe where Apple has the chance to make a grand slam, if they simply don't fumble.

And I fully agree about the 2 GHz thing. Whether or not it's what people "need" (as others mention), it just so happens to have a huge psychological factor to it. People want 2 GHz, just like how 1 GHz was a major point, years ago.

[de_construct]

I am thinking Apple may ditch the G4 entirely, as it did with the G3s ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/35749.html ) This has a precedent, as Apple unexpectedly went G4 with the iBook line, even though IBM had the PPC 750GX ready to go past 1GHz, and despite having both multiprocessing capabilities and AltiVec added, it went with hand-me-down PPC 7455 instead. I am thinking that the megahertz myth still holds sway in Apple's marketing, it would have looked stupid if the iBooks with G3s were out-megahertzing the PowerBooks. I always considered the G4 line as a bad egg, the G3 always held its own, Moto's financial problems probably negatively impacted the G4's development. Now if IBM could make enough G5s...

[aswitcher]

I am thinking Apple may ditch the G4 entirely, as it did with the G3s ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/35749.html ) This has a precedent, as Apple unexpectedly went G4 with the iBook line, even though IBM had the PPC 750GX ready to go past 1GHz, and despite having both multiprocessing capabilities and AltiVec added, it went with hand-me-down PPC 7455 instead. SNIP


Well I think we would all like to think that in 2005 all machines will have a G5...

[yamabushi]

Well I think we would all like to think that in 2005 all machines will have a G5...
Except of course the dual G6 PowerMac in Fall 2005. :D

[edenwaith]

Mac might do well to push the design of games that aren't FPSs which form the bulk of PC and especially games machines like the XBOX and PS2, to see if they can increase a market share with games that don't rely on expensive graphics cards and top Ghz. Military and construction stratergy games, iSight based games, turn based strategy games of old (reach for the stars was cool) and games that heavily use video and music... just an errant thought :rolleyes:

Personally, I'd like to see more adventure games, and I don't mean slide-show crap like Myst or The Crystal Key. But these days aren't real bad for Mac games. Certainly not everything makes it to the Mac, but there are a decent number of games, at least. Enough to keep me busy. Lately I've been slugging my way through the original Diablo (yes, I haven't completed this one yet, same with Warcraft 1).

[edenwaith]

and PC's lose their ability to be "fast" once bombarded with Spyware, Worm Attacks, and the lack of BSD. The "Mac Faithful" have faith that their computers will do what they want, when they want, and how they want. Hell that's not even faith, thats logic!

Hmm...and I thought PCs lose their ability to be fast once Windows is loaded. Once I have the money, I'll have to try and create a multi-boot PC with Linux and several forms of Windows and experiment from there. Every Windows OS I've used (95 through XP) has had one very critical problem: they get EXTREMELY sluggish and error prone after too much use, especially if a bunch of programs have been put on (and removed) from a computer. My fiancee has two Dells, one is 1.6GHz and the other is a 2 GHz machine. Isn't it funny how these two machines, each with Win XP, and should theoretically be 4 and 5 times faster than my 400 MHz G4 PowerMac, respond much slower than my Mac? Part of it might be Windows' poor handling of multi-tasking. With OS X, I can just hop between my programs, even if one program is highly time consuming or is locked up. Win XP is very sluggish in responding properly, and these computers are much newer than my Mac! My Mac has never had its OS reinstalled. I've upgraded it several times (OS 10.0 to 10.1 to 10.2), but that is all, and I don't have any severe speed issues. And if I installed OS 10.3, it might even run a little faster.

What I have mentioned here are my observations, not necessarily facts written in stone. But considering how slow Windows feels to me, in addition to all of the !%@#$ ads and pop ups, I really know that XP isn't for me. The last linux I used (RedHat 8) was shaping up pretty well, but there were still some problems with hardware configurations. So, for me, Macs and OS X are about the perfect combination. Great UNIX tools and legacy, but without the problems of Linux, and all the simplicity of a well constructed user interface.

[aswitcher]

Except of course the dual G6 PowerMac in Fall 2005. :D

Don't you mean Quad G6 PowerMac... ;)

[aswitcher]

Personally, I'd like to see more adventure games, and I don't mean slide-show crap like Myst or The Crystal Key. But these days aren't real bad for Mac games. Certainly not everything makes it to the Mac, but there are a decent number of games, at least. Enough to keep me busy. Lately I've been slugging my way through the original Diablo (yes, I haven't completed this one yet, same with Warcraft 1).

Sure, any games that aren't FPS should run ok on Macs...run as they should that is without hiccups.

A few good adventure games would be nice...

On the other hand Halo 2, optomised for use by dual G5 chip set would rock...if I had one... :(

[maxterpiece]

i don't see why apple can't put a g5 in the imac. it is hardly cheaper than the g5 and is much less expandability. I remember back when imacs were the hot item it was because what was built in wasn't much worse than the pro line... it was just the expandability that lacked. Pro users will still need the pro computer.

[Dont Hurt Me]

i don't see why apple can't put a g5 in the imac. it is hardly cheaper than the g5 and is much less expandability. I remember back when imacs were the hot item it was because what was built in wasn't much worse than the pro line... it was just the expandability that lacked. Pro users will still need the pro computer.Very true but then Apple got on this idea of not only it will be limited in expansion but we will also hold down that CPU,Bus speed,video but then again they had to cripple it in some way because Moto never advanced and was using G4 in its high end machines so though Imac was a real looker its hardware was not.
This is still just a rumor Imac/Emac being EOL and the better rumor sites like think secret have said nothing on this.

[Bendit]

Sure, any games that aren't FPS should run ok on Macs...run as they should that is without hiccups.

A few good adventure games would be nice...

On the other hand Halo 2, optomised for use by dual G5 chip set would rock...if I had one... :(

I have a 12" PowerBook (second revision, FX5200) and it can play all the new games, including Halo and Ut2k3 (haven't tried UT2k3) very well. If my PowerBook can handle it I am sure all the models (save the iBook and eMac) can handle them too. Including the newest games.

[~Shard~]

I have a 12" PowerBook (second revision, FX5200) and it can play all the new games, including Halo and Ut2k3 (haven't tried UT2k3) very well. If my PowerBook can handle it I am sure all the models (save the iBook and eMac) can handle them too. Including the newest games.

For the record, my FX5200 works great as well and does everything I need it to. I agree with some of the above posts that Apple should keep its hardware more current, and not put "older" cards in their machines, however I don't understand where some of the posters are coming from when they say the 5200 is garbage. It's way better than my GeForce 2 I was running before, and like I said, runs things pretty good. Yah, not as good as the 9600/9800, but still, it's a good card and definitely not garbage...

[Dont Hurt Me]

maybe garbage is a strong word, lets just say its last in class. its at the bottom. nvidea has 5200,5700,5900,5950. it holds the bottom slot and if you check any benches as soon as you start cranking up resolution from 640 x 480 it starts dropping frames. 5200 was designed for manufactors to have a inexpensive video system so it was cheap for them to buy and it was easy for nvidea to sell. they both were happy. see toms hardware for more info on video systems. or inside mac gaming.

[~Shard~]

maybe garbage is a strong word, lets just say its last in class. its at the bottom. nvidea has 5200,5700,5900,5950. it holds the bottom slot and if you check any benches as soon as you start cranking up resolution from 640 x 480 it starts dropping frames. 5200 was designed for manufactors to have a inexpensive video system so it was cheap for them to buy and it was easy for nvidea to sell. they both were happy. see toms hardware for more info on video systems. or inside mac gaming.

And that's fair enough. I by no means am trying to play UT2004, etc. with all features turned on, and with high resolutions on my 5200! But it's quite a step above my GF2, and again, for my limited gaming and usage, it's a perfectly fine card. Lowest in its class, yes, but it still does the trick.

[dieselg4]

In the previous post I mentioned the eMac morphing into something similar to the TAM format. There's been lots of comments as to why this wouldn't happen (mostly little kiddies poking at the LCD) but I figured I'd take a Photoshop stab at what it might look like. I couldn't find a TAM image with a good foot, so its "floating" right now . . . picture a slot CD on the oposite side.
PS: this image is not based on ANY reliable information. Its just my mind wandering. . .

[Dont Hurt Me]

thats nice looks a lot like this cocept

[Danrose1977]

The problem with the two concepts above (at least for me) is that if it can be made that compact, why not just have a laptop? Both concepts look sort of Like a Tablet iBook...

I have the same issue with the current iMacs... If Ihad £1000 to spend and the choice between an iMac and a iBook, I'd opt for the iBook. There just isn't enough bang for your buck with current iMacs. A redesign of the outside would need to keep the role of the machine the same, and on the inside there needs to be more for my money to tempt me....

[dieselg4]

[QUOTE=Danrose1977]The problem with the two concepts above (at least for me) is that if it can be made that compact, why not just have a laptop? Both concepts look sort of Like a Tablet iBook...

Because the iBooks only have 1024x768 screens.

[visor]

I am thinking Apple may ditch the G4 entirely, as it did with the G3s ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/35749.html ) This has a precedent, as Apple unexpectedly went G4 with the iBook line, even though IBM had the PPC 750GX ready to go past 1GHz, and despite having both multiprocessing capabilities and AltiVec added, it went with hand-me-down PPC 7455 instead.

Well, where did you get that GX info? IBM hasn't got anything on it, so either the GX is still a myth, or you're just dreaming up facts. Anyway, it still isn't availabe, and the iBook was updated half a year ago... does that ring any bells?

[visor]

In the previous post I mentioned the eMac morphing into something similar to the TAM format. There's been lots of comments as to why this wouldn't happen (mostly little kiddies poking at the LCD) but I figured I'd take a Photoshop stab at what it might look like. I couldn't find a TAM image with a good foot, so its "floating" right now . . . picture a slot CD on the oposite side.
PS: this image is not based on ANY reliable information. Its just my mind wandering. . .

Poor design - all those cables are bound to cause trouble at that side. Do a redesign that the cables wont interfere with user actions.

[_iCeb0x_]

how many Reai's is the monthly payment in Brazil for an eMac, iCeb0x ?
Electronics in generaly (even mac's) are very inexpensive in the US compared to the rest of the world. I would jump to say because of the consumerist nature of our culture. Everyone wants the latest, and every company pushes to make the latest, its an endless cycle.

i remember being in Sao Paulo in October, shopping on Avenido Paulista and seeing the prices for even cheap non-brand PC Laptops were outrageous!

would you be surprised if i said you could get a brand new eMac here in the US with the specs you listed above for 2,184 Reai's ??

The problem with Macs pricing in Brazil is that our government charges huge taxes for imported stuff. There's no Apple plant in Brazil (and there will never be -- HK is cheaper) so we have to pay taxes well in excess of 100%. Add that to the fact that US$1.00 is worth R$2.90 and there we go! A US$900 machine will cost over R$5,220.00 because the shops gotta earn something, right? =)

Well... Check this: http://www.apple.com/br/promo/back2school/

R$4,990.00 or 20 x R$289.04 (there's is an interest rate of between 2% and 3% - a grand total of R$5,780.90)

You see, it's cheaper than it was before -- something like R$5,900, even with the g--damned interest rate! There's something really fishy in that. Apple only does that because it can't/shouldn't hold those machines anymore. Gotta sell it fast because of logistics (extra costs for longer than intended storage at a third party warehouse) or because there is new stuff coming.

I would bet that it's both in this case...

There are other problems with electronics pricing in Brazil, but that's much more complicated and the problem has to do with social problems. Let's put it simple: you americans got more bang for the buck than us brazilians have. Even if you could buy that eMac for R$1,800 (a modest price for a no-brand PC with a 17" monitor here), not much people would do it...

Edit: You said about paying R$2,184 for a Mac: that's why most people smuggle Macs instead of buying them through the correct channels over here.

[Danrose1977]

[QUOTE=Danrose1977]The problem with the two concepts above (at least for me) is that if it can be made that compact, why not just have a laptop? Both concepts look sort of Like a Tablet iBook...

Because the iBooks only have 1024x768 screens.

Good point, but one thats not personally a problem, I'd still take the iBook... in fact I did!

[lewdvig]

The base iMac should outperform ANY pc, not just the PM G5.

This is Apple's bread and butter computer. They need to get it right. I have been cycling through Apples lately trying to find the right price/performance. I am just about through waiting. Maybe I will go back to intel - I can buy a single machine that I can carry, burn DVDs and play the LATEST games on in native LCD resolution. Nah. I will just wait for Stevie Wonder to get a clue.

[lewdvig]

man you are clueless, G4 thats way overpriced is killing Imac sales. and by the way they count Imac & Emac sales as Imac sales(Apple spinning the truth) and those numbers still are the same as powermac G5. Dismal. why? old stale technology that apple charges twice what its worth thats why 1.7% of all new computers were macs. Only mac faithful would be dumb enough to buy old hardware at new hardware prices. new buyers flock to the PC world where they can get fast new machines at 1/2 what apple charges for old slow G4s. I also love the logic of cant make a decent Imac because Powerbook doesnt have G5 in it. Brilliant! way to go! Just keep making old crap. with that thinking Apple is sure to hit 1% marketshare or less this qtr. they must have someone like you running Apple.

True. I had a 1.25 iMac for a day. Took it back and got the PM G4. Kept that for four months. Sold it. Too slow. Took my PB G4 apart and sold it in pieces. Now I am patiently waiting for a G5 PB. Apple has one seriously borked up lineup. I can honestly say that not one of their computers is desirable.

[lewdvig]

maybe garbage is a strong word, lets just say its last in class. its at the bottom. nvidea has 5200,5700,5900,5950. it holds the bottom slot and if you check any benches as soon as you start cranking up resolution from 640 x 480 it starts dropping frames. 5200 was designed for manufactors to have a inexpensive video system so it was cheap for them to buy and it was easy for nvidea to sell. they both were happy. see toms hardware for more info on video systems. or inside mac gaming.

No, it's garbage. Your words were well chosen. One step above integrated. What you will find in $500-999 PCs.

[lewdvig]

And that's fair enough. I by no means am trying to play UT2004, etc. with all features turned on, and with high resolutions on my 5200! But it's quite a step above my GF2, and again, for my limited gaming and usage, it's a perfectly fine card. Lowest in its class, yes, but it still does the trick.

Faster than a 4 year old video chip? It _MUST_ be good then.

Hey, we are just advocating for better value from Apple. Stop defending them. Is Steve Jobs your child or something.

[mklos]

In the previous post I mentioned the eMac morphing into something similar to the TAM format. There's been lots of comments as to why this wouldn't happen (mostly little kiddies poking at the LCD) but I figured I'd take a Photoshop stab at what it might look like. I couldn't find a TAM image with a good foot, so its "floating" right now . . . picture a slot CD on the oposite side.
PS: this image is not based on ANY reliable information. Its just my mind wandering. . .

Neither of the above will even be close! Apple said when they redesign the iMac to its looks that they looked at that kind of design and there are some problems that go along with that type of design. For one thing is that you have to slow the optical drives way down and possibly the hard drive too. Also it doesn't quite look right. You would have to make it a little thinker to accommodate a Hard Drive, Optical Drive, and still allow for cooling. I just don't see this happening, or anything even close to it. It is great to use your imagination though! Its a nice thought!

[paulsecic]

[QUOTE=wrldwzrd89]I'm not in the market either (I bought my iMac in late January of this year); I think this upcoming iMac (G5) revision is coming right when I expected it to, which was sometime around the time of the PowerMac update. I haven't followed the eMac line, so I don't have any guesses as to what will be in it. This is good news for iMac and eMac buyers, though.[/QU
I'll pray for a G5 Imac. I'm selling my Dell to my roommate & need an all in one solution!

[RichardCarletta]

if the Powermacs are updated tommarrow ( I doubt it ) , the PM G5 configurations may point to where Apple will take the IMAC . A top of the line DP 2.5 GHZ 970FX Powermac selling for $3000 or less as well as a DP 2.2 GHZ 970FX Powermac selling for $ 2500 or less followed by a bargain priced DP 1.8 GHZ 970FX Powermac selling for $1700 or less might really help elevate sales of the G5 Powermacs as well as raise the bar for the IMACs .

[GFLPraxis]

If they give me an eMac G5 I'm buying it this summer...

[aswitcher]

If they give me an eMac G5 I'm buying it this summer...

That would be a big surprise to me...maybe next year

[~Shard~]

Faster than a 4 year old video chip? It _MUST_ be good then.

Hey, we are just advocating for better value from Apple. Stop defending them. Is Steve Jobs your child or something.

Wow, someone's getting all defensive for no good reason here!

Your reply to my post makes no sense whatsoever - did you even read my post? There is no way you could have. Is my 5200 faster than my GeForce 2? Yes. Of course it is. That's what I said. What's your point? "It _MUST_ be good then" - yes, actually it is good - as I have previously said, (which I will repeat for you since you obviously didn't read it the first time), the card does everything I need it to and I have not had any issues or complaints with it. Therefore, it is not garbage. Garbage to me means it does NOT do what it's supposed to, or perhaps it malfunctions, or acts like, well, a piece of garbage. Playing games and displaying my screen - it passes with flying colors! (And I am not saying it would if I tried playing UT20004 maxed, did intense PhotoShop work, or used FCP, 3D modelling, etc. - of course it wouldn't.)

"Stop defending Apple"? Where did I even make 1 comment regarding Apple in this whole thing? I was simply talking about a video card. How do you know I even have a Mac? Maybe I have a PC which I upgraded from a GF2 to a 5200. Your illogic boggles my mind, yet curiously amuses me - thanks for the laugh.

And is Jobs my son? Wow, impressive - THAT one made me laugh. Can you get anymore over the top? If so, please let me know! Talk aboout hitting a nerve...

Anyway, thanks for the chuckles, and relax buddy - there's no need to get your pink panties in a knot. :cool:

[CmdrLaForge]

Wow, someone's getting all defensive for no good reason here!

Your reply to my post makes no sense wh....

"Stop defending Apple"? Where did I even make 1 comment regarding Apple in this whole thing? I was simply talking about a video card. How do you know I even have a Mac? Maybe I have a PC which I upgraded from a GF2 to a 5200. Your illogic boggles my mind, yet curiously amuses me - thanks for the laugh.

And is Jobs my son? Wow, impressive - THAT one made me laugh. Can you get anymore over the top? If so, please let me know! Talk aboout hitting a nerve...

Anyway, thanks for the chuckles, and relax buddy - there's no need to get your pink panties in a knot. :cool:

Just ignore the stupid ones.
:D

[~Shard~]

Just ignore the stupid ones.
:D

Yah, I'll try and follow your advice in the future, CmdrLaForge - but it's just so damn hard to bite my tongue sometimes! ;) :cool:

[lewdvig]

Yah, I'll try and follow your advice in the future, CmdrLaForge - but it's just so damn hard to bite my tongue sometimes! ;) :cool:

I think you guys are the ones getting worked up and not reading very well.

Drink more punch knucklehead!

My point, and it is a valid one, is that the parts in your machine are not worth the premium you paid. Just because you are ingorant of this does not make it OK. When this obvious fact is pointed out, you claim it's OK because it is faster than the obsolete card it replaces.

It is not OK. The moment you try to play Tony Hawk 4, or some other 2003/2004 game you will find your card insufficient. Even if you never, ever, play a game you were still ripped off. You paid for more than you received.

Regarding gaming: No one other than Mac users is playing these games at 6*4 with low detail. Why? Simply because they blindly follow the bad decisions made by Apple. Apple even has the nerve to publicize how good Mac are for playing games!

For all the years I have been a Mac user, there have always been people like you: the dwindling niche that Apple relies on that accepts everything Apple says and voraciously consumes all the tainted punch it can get.

I for am not spending another dime on an Apple until they make some thing that doesn't cost twice as much as an eMachine and perform half as well (I am talking laptops here).

And don't bother telling me about Apple quality either. I have disected more than my share of these things. Yes they are well made, but I don't just want to look at it.

There is no question Apple is holding back technology. They could made a G5 notebook last year. There are P4 Prescott laptops and they put out 100 watts of heat - way more than a G5.

[dieselg4]

[QUOTE=lewdvig]I think you guys are the ones getting worked up and not reading very well.

Well, your partly right. This discussion has gotten WAY off topic - iMac & eMac EOL'd . . whatever happened to that?

[lewdvig]

The point applies to all Apple products really.

Apple needs a lineup where desktops are not available slower than 1.6GHz. If people are really going to enjoy their macs with all the great software Apple makes - they need this power. Also, put in graphics parts that are cutting edge. This way, one year from now people will still be able to play highly hyped-up games. Even for people who don't play games, they have paid a premium for an Apple, they deserve something good.

Don't kid yourself, Apple could do this tomorrow if they wanted. I think the margin is there too. I will need to see a comparitive bill of parts between a current spec eMac and a G5 one with a RADEON 9600 before I believe otherwise.

[Hattig]

I agree with the people posting that Apple just has nothing for the average consumer who wants to buy a machine.

Apple has a professional machine that is very nice.

Apple has a small form factor machine with attached LCD. Again, this is a nice SFF machine. It has virtually no upgradability (even less than a PC SFF machine).

Apple has no mass market consumer machine (single processor, some expandability, nothing amazingly fancy). Most people want this. However they are forced to choose between the limited upgradability of the SFF machine, or the overspecified, overpowerful and much more expensive professional line ... or that cheap HP/Dell/Toshiba machine nearby. This is why Apple is not selling vast quantities of computers these days.

The laptop line-up is nice though, not complete, but Apple wouldn't want to sell a fat ugly laptop that ran a 2GHz G5 just to compete with Dell's 3GHz P4 laptops.

In my opinion, Apple needs to make a standard consumer machine. Yes, it might cannibalise a lot of PowerMac and iMac sales, however if you can sell 3m of them a year ...

My specs for the new Mac:

- Small Tower, PowerMac G5 style, made with cheaper materials though
- Single G5, but the speeds the same as the PowerMac G5 line, which will be dual-processor across the line
- Single channel memory, PC3200
- AGP 8x graphics card (with selectable options - cater for gamers)
- Standard PCI expansion, no PCI-X

Then the hard bit ... sell these for not too much premium over a similarly specced consumer machine from Dell/HP/etc ... the premium is for the decent OS and software - and would be worth $200 for me.

[lewdvig]

I agree with the people posting that Apple just has nothing for the average consumer who wants to buy a machine.

Apple has a professional machine that is very nice.

Apple has a small form factor machine with attached LCD. Again, this is a nice SFF machine. It has virtually no upgradability (even less than a PC SFF machine).

Apple has no mass market consumer machine (single processor, some expandability, nothing amazingly fancy). Most people want this. However they are forced to choose between the limited upgradability of the SFF machine, or the overspecified, overpowerful and much more expensive professional line ... or that cheap HP/Dell/Toshiba machine nearby. This is why Apple is not selling vast quantities of computers these days.

The laptop line-up is nice though, not complete, but Apple wouldn't want to sell a fat ugly laptop that ran a 2GHz G5 just to compete with Dell's 3GHz P4 laptops.

In my opinion, Apple needs to make a standard consumer machine. Yes, it might cannibalise a lot of PowerMac and iMac sales, however if you can sell 3m of them a year ...

My specs for the new Mac:

- Small Tower, PowerMac G5 style, made with cheaper materials though
- Single G5, but the speeds the same as the PowerMac G5 line, which will be dual-processor across the line
- Single channel memory, PC3200
- AGP 8x graphics card (with selectable options - cater for gamers)
- Standard PCI expansion, no PCI-X

Then the hard bit ... sell these for not too much premium over a similarly specced consumer machine from Dell/HP/etc ... the premium is for the decent OS and software - and would be worth $200 for me.

Send a resume to Apple. This is a nice spec! I would consider it.

Some people still like CRTs too (myself included).

[Meemoo]

I'd like a pizza top box :)

[oingoboingo]

The point applies to all Apple products really.

Apple needs a lineup where desktops are not available slower than 1.6GHz. If people are really going to enjoy their macs with all the great software Apple makes - they need this power. Also, put in graphics parts that are cutting edge. This way, one year from now people will still be able to play highly hyped-up games. Even for people who don't play games, they have paid a premium for an Apple, they deserve something good.

Don't kid yourself, Apple could do this tomorrow if they wanted. I think the margin is there too. I will need to see a comparitive bill of parts between a current spec eMac and a G5 one with a RADEON 9600 before I believe otherwise.

I agree. Apple's desktop lineup doesn't get even slightly interesting until you get to the G5 PowerMacs...and then they ship the 1.6GHz G5 with only 256MB RAM, an 80GB hard drive and a GeForce FX5200 as standard. Come on...that kind of crap would barely make it into the cheapest PC you could buy from your local screwdriver shop. Thankfully, Apple appears to be willing to let you in on the joke, and they allow you to upgrade your FX5200 to a Radeon 9600 at ordering time for only AU$89 or AU$99 (can't remember, I bought mine about 7 months ago). But even so...a G5 which is upgraded to a decent level is still quite an expensive computer...without a screen.

The EOL rumour for iMac and eMac is a good one...because it hopefully means Apple will do something to address the complete lack of attractiveness of both of their consumer desktop machines. Nobody except the most hardened Apple zealot or willfully ignorant hardware moron would want to shell out a premium amount of cash for a desktop system which comes with a 32MB Radeon 7500, a 1GHz G4, USB 1.1...AND THEN CAN'T BE UPGRADED. The 128MB standard RAM is also disgraceful...Apple's minimum system requirement for iLife '04 are 256MB RAM!!! How can Apple sell a machine which doesn't even meet their own minimum specification for their bundled flagship consumer apps? Take a look at the calendar...it's 2004. Software evolves, and user's needs evolve. The entry-level systems Apple sells leave no room for growth at all.

Please please please don't let the updates just be a speed bump from 1GHz to 1.25GHz and changing the included DIMM from 128MB to 256MB (although that would be a start).

[jade]

I agree. Apple's desktop lineup doesn't get even slightly interesting until you get to the G5 PowerMacs...and then they ship the 1.6GHz G5 with only 256MB RAM, an 80GB hard drive and a GeForce FX5200 as standard. Come on...that kind of crap would barely make it into the cheapest PC you could buy from your local screwdriver shop. Thankfully, Apple appears to be willing to let you in on the joke, and they allow you to upgrade your FX5200 to a Radeon 9600 at ordering time for only AU$89 or AU$99 (can't remember, I bought mine about 7 months ago). But even so...a G5 which is upgraded to a decent level is still quite an expensive computer...without a screen.

The EOL rumour for iMac and eMac is a good one...because it hopefully means Apple will do something to address the complete lack of attractiveness of both of their consumer desktop machines. Nobody except the most hardened Apple zealot or willfully ignorant hardware moron would want to shell out a premium amount of cash for a desktop system which comes with a 32MB Radeon 7500, a 1GHz G4, USB 1.1...AND THEN CAN'T BE UPGRADED. The 128MB standard RAM is also disgraceful...Apple's minimum system requirement for iLife '04 are 256MB RAM!!! How can Apple sell a machine which doesn't even meet their own minimum specification for their bundled flagship consumer apps? Take a look at the calendar...it's 2004. Software evolves, and user's needs evolve. The entry-level systems Apple sells leave no room for growth at all. .



AMen: outdated specs are no way to grow marketshare when your competition is offering 2-4 times the specs at 20-50% less.

[aswitcher]

I agree. Apple's desktop lineup doesn't get even slightly interesting until you get to the G5 PowerMacs...and then they ship the 1.6GHz G5 with only 256MB RAM, an 80GB hard drive and a GeForce FX5200 as standard. Come on...that kind of crap would barely make it into the cheapest PC you could buy from your local screwdriver shop. Thankfully, Apple appears to be willing to let you in on the joke, and they allow you to upgrade your FX5200 to a Radeon 9600 at ordering time for only AU$89 or AU$99 (can't remember, I bought mine about 7 months ago). But even so...a G5 which is upgraded to a decent level is still quite an expensive computer...without a screen.


And thats especially true in the land of Oz.


The EOL rumour for iMac and eMac is a good one...because it hopefully means Apple will do something to address the complete lack of attractiveness of both of their consumer desktop machines. Nobody except the most hardened Apple zealot or willfully ignorant hardware moron would want to shell out a premium amount of cash for a desktop system which comes with a 32MB Radeon 7500, a 1GHz G4, USB 1.1...AND THEN CAN'T BE UPGRADED. The 128MB standard RAM is also disgraceful...Apple's minimum system requirement for iLife '04 are 256MB RAM!!! How can Apple sell a machine which doesn't even meet their own minimum specification for their bundled flagship consumer apps? Take a look at the calendar...it's 2004. Software evolves, and user's needs evolve. The entry-level systems Apple sells leave no room for growth at all.

Please please please don't let the updates just be a speed bump from 1GHz to 1.25GHz and changing the included DIMM from 128MB to 256MB (although that would be a start).

I am hoping for a significant jump...we may have to wait even longer for it but to pull sales back I would prefer another 3-6 months to bring out a beauty than a half baked machine anytime soon.

[MacinDoc]

I suspect Apple may come out with G5 iMacs this summer (by that time, there should be considerable cost savings to use the 970FX), and I hope that they will come with flexible arms that can attach interchangeably to the new Cinema Displays. This would allow users to upgrade the CPU and display seperately, but they would still have to use Apple products to create the all-in-one product.

I'm also hoping (but not holding my breath) for all-in-one (CRT) and headless options in the replacements for the eMac.

[thatwendigo]

The base iMac should outperform ANY pc, not just the PM G5.

Sure thing, ledvig. We'll be sure to have Apple get right on that, as long as you don't mind paying premium prices for a machine that will have to compete against premium hardware. I hear this so often around here, people ranting on and on about how cheap PC X can do thing Y so much faster and cheaper than any Apple machine.

So, once again, I think I'm going to go the pre-assembled and purely parts route...

For parts only, I'm using newegg (www.newegg.com). You ought to be able to figure out Dell (www.dell.com) and Apple (store.apple.com)

Supermicro E7505 Dual-Xeon Mobo $390
(SATA, 8x AGP, PCI-X, gigabit ethernet, but conditional and less supportive than Apple's motherboards)
Intel Xeon 3.06ghz x2 $950
(533 FSB, 512k L3, Hyperthreaded)
Pioneer DVR-A07 DVD +/- RW $188
Maxtor 250GB 7200RPM SATA HD $226
Kingston 512MB PC3200 RAM x4 $344
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB AGP 8x $212
Thermaltake XaserV Aluminum case $115
Antec SL450 2-fan 450 watt PSU $57
Running total, parts only: $2482


Dell Precision
Intel Xeon 3.06ghz x2 (533 FSB, 512k L3, Hyperthreaded)
2 GB PC 2100
250 GB SATA 7200 RPM
8x DVD+RW/+R w/ Roxio Easy CD, Sonic SE plus DVD decode
nVidia Quadro NVS 280 64MB
Soundblaster Audigy 2 (for digital in/out)
Dell TrueMobile 1300 802.11b/g (USB 2.0 external)
No monitor, no productivity software (hint: no iLife)
Running Total: $5,076


Apple G5
IBM 970 2.0ghz x2 (1ghz FSB, 512k L2 cache)
2 GB PC 3200
250 GB SATA 7200 RPm
8x DVD+/-RW
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
onboard 6.1 and digital audio
Airport Extreme 802.11 b/g internal wireless
no monitor, free iLife
Running total: $3,944


Maybe I will go back to intel - I can buy a single machine that I can carry, burn DVDs and play the LATEST games on in native LCD resolution. Nah. I will just wait for Stevie Wonder to get a clue.

If you want to play games, go back to Intel. Period. We don't have the developer support, nor do I want my machines to be so geared to something I only sometimes engage in. At the moment, I can do two out of three of those on Apple's laptops without really worrying about it at all. I expect it to get even better when the revised PowerBooks show up.

[thatwendigo]

AMen: outdated specs are no way to grow marketshare when your competition is offering 2-4 times the specs at 20-50% less.

Are you forgetting to factor in the 100-800% more frequent headaches? :D

[jade]

Sure thing, ledvig. We'll be sure to have Apple get right on that, as long as you don't mind paying premium prices for a machine that will have to compete against premium hardware. I hear this so often around here, people ranting on and on about how cheap PC X can do thing Y so much faster and cheaper than any Apple machine.


It's not the high-end powermacs that can't hang with the PCs. Most of us realize to get a similarly specs PC you need to pay the big bucks. But for 1000-1500 range in PC-land you get a whole lot more performance and specs than you get with an imac oe emac.


Are you forgetting to factor in the 100-800% more frequent headaches?

You know what, I hardly had serious issue in my use of PCs. so the headache factor for the average user doesn't really matter. But of course if you are going to get serious about your digital hub you should get a mac, but there are acceptable movie creation and cd burning stuff availible for PCs, and most users are perfectly happy with it.

I just don't see a lot of value in the current emac/imac line. There is no way I would ever buy an apple desktop right now. Way overpriced for the specs.

In 2004 we should not see any computer shipping with a piddly 256 RAM. And all computers over $1500 should have 512 RAM minimum.

And there should not be any desktop computer shipping with a measly 32MB VRAM, in a super outdated card!

40GB hard drives..those were banished to laptops, the emac is too expensive for that, sorry.

Too an extent you get what you pay for, but you don't wanna walk out of the store and know your computer is outdated. Even if it is an apple with historically high resale values. The 1ghz g4 chips have been around since 2002...that is like 8 product cycles for HP.

[thatwendigo]

But for 1000-1500 range in PC-land you get a whole lot more performance and specs than you get with an imac oe emac.

...

In 2004 we should not see any computer shipping with a piddly 256 RAM. And all computers over $1500 should have 512 RAM minimum.

And there should not be any desktop computer shipping with a measly 32MB VRAM, in a super outdated card!

40GB hard drives..those were banished to laptops, the emac is too expensive for that, sorry.

Funny, I go to Dell's website, and their consumer machines are sporting 40GB 5400 RPM HDs, 256 MB PC 2700 shared RAM and integrated graphics, a 48X CD-RW, no decent software for burning with, no MS Office, no firewire... The list goes on. The one, single place it at all competes is the processor, and that's a 2.6 P4.

So, to spec one out a little more fairly...

P4 3ghz at 800mhz FSB
Windows XP Pro with PLUS!
512 PC3200 DDR
80GB UltraATA 7200 RPM
8x DVD+RW w/ RecordNow and MyDVD Deluxe
MS Office 2003 with Money
17" Ultrasharp Digital Flat Panel
GeForce FX 5200
Integrated Audio
Dell QuietKey and Optical Mouse
Dell Jukebox Premium
Microsoft Digital Media Edition PLUS!
Dell Picture Studio, Photo Album Premium
RealOne Player PLUS
IEEE 1394 Adapter
10/100 Ethernet
TrueMobile 1300 external 802.11b/g
Microsoft Office
Total: $2126

iMac 17"
G4 1.25ghz
512 PC2700
80GB UltraATA 7200RPM
4xDVD+RW
17" Wide-Screen Flat Panel
GeForce FX 5200
Integrated Audio
Apple Keyboard and Optical Mouse
iLife
Built-in Firewire
10/100 Ethernet
built-in Airport Extreme 802.11b/g
Microsoft Odfice
Total: $2122

The only clear loss is the processor. You were saying?

[oingoboingo]

If you want to play games, go back to Intel. Period. We don't have the developer support, nor do I want my machines to be so geared to something I only sometimes engage in. At the moment, I can do two out of three of those on Apple's laptops without really worrying about it at all. I expect it to get even better when the revised PowerBooks show up.

There's no 'gearing' of x86 systems towards playing games. There's no sliding scale with 'Gaming Performance' at one end, and 'Content Creation Performance' at the other. It's a simple question of "are the basic computational and graphical subsystems of this computer fast enough to cope?". The basic computational and graphical subsystems of Apple's eMac and iMac lineup are not powerful enough to cope with the demands of modern games at acceptable levels of performance. And what is one of the most common uses for a home computer? Gaming. No sale for the eMac/iMac.

If these subsystems were improved to play games well, then all of those other non-game tasks which you perform on your Mac would be sped up also. I find your attitude of 'gaming performance is not only unimportant, but undesirable' to be intriguing. There has never been a time in Macintosh history when the overall perceived performance of the system has been more tied to 'gaming' type performance boosts than now. Quartz Extreme acceleration of basic GUI operations is performed through the OpenGL drivers and hardware...exactly the same systems which need to be fast for decent games performance. Quartz Extreme acceleration is proudly touted by Apple as one of the major attractions of Mac OS X (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quartzextreme). Expose, the Panther feature which has all my x86-using friends drooling with envy, is directly tied to having a powerful graphics chip with plenty of VRAM under the hood.

Can profit margins at Apple really be *that* tight that they can't afford to ship an eMac with anything better than a 32MB Radeon 7500? But what really gets me on the eMac is not the graphics chip (yes, it's bad), but the amount of RAM. 128MB of PC133 SDRAM? Yes, say that again...128MB. This is not even enough RAM to meet the minimum official requirements of iLife '04 (256MB physical RAM). If you don't believe me check www.apple.com/ilife. What possible reason can Apple have for not being able to deliver a consumer system which can't even run their own (heavily promoted) consumer application suite? Did someone in the eMac division do something to irritate Steve Jobs one day and now it's payback time?

Bring on the EOL and bring on the updated eMac and iMac range. Fix the 3D graphics performance by including a GPU designed in the last 3 years...if you can play games, more home users will want it, and Quartz Extreme performance will rise correspondingly. And include enough memory to run the bundled apps!!! (I'm still shaking my head on that one...128MB standard...what a total bollocks up).

[RichardCarletta]

Once the G5 Powermac gets updated around April , Apple must introduce a 970FX into their iMac productline (alot better fit for such a small enclosure than the original 970 ) then update the Powerbooks with G5s no later than August . With 3 out of 5 products using G5s , Apple could make the eMac a G5 machine at the end of December, leaving the iBook as a low cost G4 laptop until Spring 2005. The consumer and laptop products are long in the tooth and really outmoded today. Basically 3 months after the Powermacs are updated with each revision B. or later version , the Imac and Powerbook needs to have the same kind of aggressive improvements. Like it or not , the majority of consumer Macintosh buyers are not really wanting , need or can afford the DP Powermac class of computer. However , a reasonable priced and reasonably fast ( not minimum speed ) single G5 iMac would be ideal. Plus a 2 GHZ G5 Powerbook for those who really need portability. The eMac and the iBook can be Apple's budget machines.

[jade]

I never said Dell...once you get past the deal they rip you off. Bad comparison.

Here are the specs on a very equivalent HP I configured, I despecced it and ignored the promos for free RAM and extra hard drive space to come closer to matching the imac. Unlike Dell, HP bundles great software for burning and ilife (PS Windows bundles Easy CD Creater for burning so your need for software was an exaggeration)

*


HP Pavillion A450e
AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3200+
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Professional Edition
256 MB DDR / PC3200 (1 DIMM)
80 GB 7200 rpm Ultra DMA Hard Drive
Primary CD/DVD Drive
4X DVD+RW/+R drive (DVD writer & CD-writer combo
1 USB 2.0, 1 Firewire, ArcSoft, 7-in-1 reader
Graphics Card
64MB NVIDIA GeForce4 MX(TM) 440-8X w/TV-out
Integrated 5.1 Capable Sound w/ front audio ports
HP pavilion vf17 17" LCD flat panel display (actually very user friendly to adjust, similar to imac)
Altec-Lansing 221 2.1 Speakers
HP Internet Keyboard, HP Optical Mouse
Microsoft(R) Works 7.0/Money 2004/MSN Encarta Plus


*HP software bundle includes:
HP Image Zone
Symantec Norton Antivirus 2003 (includes 60 days of complimentary live updates)
RecordNow! (in models with CD writer or DVD writer)
InterVideo® WinDVD® SE (in models with DVD drive)
MUSICMATCH® Jukebox
RealOne™ Player
ArcSoft ShowBiz Video Editor
ArcSoft® ShowBiz DVD (in models with DVD writer)
Microsoft Windows MovieMaker 2.0
Intuit Quicken New User's Edition 2003
Adobe® Acrobat Reader


Price $1495 (not included $100 rebate)


So for $300 cheaper than the imac you get TV-out. A 64 bit processor, and the rest of the specs are similar, but HP is offering a free upgrade to 512 RAM.

And for comparison check out the Sony I configured:

PCV-RS500C Series
Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 2.80C GHz supporting Hyper-Threading
512 MB DDR-SDRAM (DDR333, 256 MBx2)
120 GB Hard Disk Drive
ATi Radeon 9200 (128MB)
DVD+-RW Drive
CD-ROM Drive
Microsoft Works 7.0 with Office 2003 Business Trial Edition
VAIO Creation Suite VIDEO Software:
Video PLUS Package
VAIO Creation Suite PHOTO Software:
Photo PLUS Package
VAIO Creation Suite MUSIC Software:
Music PLUS Package
Accessories:
SDM-HS73/L - HS-model 17" Flat Panel LCD

total $1674

So not only does this include twice the RAM, twice the VRAM and 50% more Hard drive space. It also includes Photoshop Elements (a step up from iphoto), Abode Premier LE (like imovie), Sony''s click to DVD, and SonicStage Mastering Studio and Screenblast Acid LE (never used them but functionally equivalent to garageband). And you save $125 on the deal.


If you only comparison shop at Dell you will notice that the prices are very expensive once you venture beyond the promo. The cheap Dell computers with small hard drives and so on are the price leaders, and also allow a cheap person who wants an LCD to get one and a decent web browsing computer for under 1k. Unlike in Apple-land where 1k gets you an outdated emac or a closeout g3 ibook.

Other tier 1 computer manufacters generally are far less expensive. In my head the processor is the less important of the specs, but you can easily get more of the stuff that is easily comparable cross platform for cheaper.

Apple should match up the hard drive/video card/and RAM with the competion and I would get over it (But I'm not buying a g4 based computer becasue they have been around for 1200 years)

[thatwendigo]

There's no 'gearing' of x86 systems towards playing games. There's no sliding scale with 'Gaming Performance' at one end, and 'Content Creation Performance' at the other. It's a simple question of "are the basic computational and graphical subsystems of this computer fast enough to cope?".

No, that's where you're wrong. There's all kinds of support that developers take for granted, and which never makes it into mac ports of games. DirectX is one, since you hardly ever see anyone using OpenGL on the PC side of things. There's a wider choice in available hardware, too, because the gaming market has long been a stronghold of the PC, and not the mac. Perhaps Apple could be blamed for letting this come to pass, but I don't think that's necessarily the case.

The basic computational and graphical subsystems of Apple's eMac and iMac lineup are not powerful enough to cope with the demands of modern games at acceptable levels of performance. And what is one of the most common uses for a home computer? Gaming. No sale for the eMac/iMac.

Most common for who? The games my little brother and sister play all run stunningly well on an 800mhz iMac G4. I could play Neverwinter Nights and Halo on my eMac, though admittedly not as well as on the 'gaming tower' that my dad and I cobbled together by updating his old Sawtooth.

Contrary to popular belief, games are not necessarily what most people use their computers for at home. We have some nice consoles for most of our gaming needs, and a Blockbuster two miles down the street that we can rent titles for both of our current-generation gaming systems.

If these subsystems were improved to play games well, then all of those other non-game tasks which you perform on your Mac would be sped up also. I find your attitude of 'gaming performance is not only unimportant, but undesirable' to be intriguing. There has never been a time in Macintosh history when the overall perceived performance of the system has been more tied to 'gaming' type performance boosts than now. Quartz Extreme acceleration of basic GUI operations is performed through the OpenGL drivers and hardware...exactly the same systems which need to be fast for decent games performance. Quartz Extreme acceleration is proudly touted by Apple as one of the major attractions of Mac OS X (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/quartzextreme). Expose, the Panther feature which has all my x86-using friends drooling with envy, is directly tied to having a powerful graphics chip with plenty of VRAM under the hood.

Yet it runs not only acceptably, but well enough to get the 'wow' factor from some of my PC friends, while being processed on the same hardware you're laughing at. I'm sitting here, typing at a 700mhz eMac, and my processor monitor is ticking over at roughly 15-25% while I listen to music, have an actively scrolling muck client thrown to the side, and have the display set to maximum resolution. Hey, now watch Expose work flawlessly as I swing windows around without a hiccup...

For daily use, this machine has served me very well. My one complaint is that it tends to lag a little on disk access, though my understanding is that I actually have a better setup on the board than the poor saps with a shared IDE controller in the iMacs.


Can profit margins at Apple really be *that* tight that they can't afford to ship an eMac with anything better than a 32MB Radeon 7500? But what really gets me on the eMac is not the graphics chip (yes, it's bad), but the amount of RAM. 128MB of PC133 SDRAM? Yes, say that again...128MB. This is not even enough RAM to meet the minimum official requirements of iLife '04 (256MB physical RAM). If you don't believe me check www.apple.com/ilife. What possible reason can Apple have for not being able to deliver a consumer system which can't even run their own (heavily promoted) consumer application suite? Did someone in the eMac division do something to irritate Steve Jobs one day and now it's payback time?

Apple's always been stingy on RAM, and a cutpurse on the upgrade prices. We all know it, and none of us terribly like it. I concede the point readily, but I don't see it as something to get mad over. It's the work of a few minutes for me to slot cheaper aftermarket RAM.

Bring on the EOL and bring on the updated eMac and iMac range. Fix the 3D graphics performance by including a GPU designed in the last 3 years...if you can play games, more home users will want it, and Quartz Extreme performance will rise correspondingly. And include enough memory to run the bundled apps!!! (I'm still shaking my head on that one...128MB standard...what a total bollocks up).

What I think you people don't get when I do these posts is that I'm fully in favor of the idea of Apple making faster, more obviously competitive products. More RAM, bigger drives, faster processors... It's all great, but it costs. For a company that does so much of its own work, I think we get an awful lot out of Apple for what we pay, even if it's not perfect.

I'd love to pay $1,000 for a G5 2.0 with a Radeon 9800 XT, 10,000 RPM SATA drive, 1 GB of PC3200, and everything else that would make the iMacs faster. I'm just enough of a realist that I understand how Apple is in unfavorable economy of scale, when it comes to anything but the most simple components.

[thatwendigo]

Here are the specs on a very equivalent HP I configured, I despecced it and ignored the promos for free RAM and extra hard drive space to come closer to matching the imac. Unlike Dell, HP bundles great software for burning and ilife (PS Windows bundles Easy CD Creater for burning so your need for software was an exaggeration)

...

So not only does this include twice the RAM, twice the VRAM and 50% more Hard drive space. It also includes Photoshop Elements (a step up from iphoto), Abode Premier LE (like imovie), Sony''s click to DVD, and SonicStage Mastering Studio and Screenblast Acid LE (never used them but functionally equivalent to garageband). And you save $125 on the deal.

While I can't comment on the programs in particular, I can say one thing... No PC bundle I have ever laid hand to has ever been as easy to flexible, powerful, and yet simple and easy to use as iLife. I have PC friends who gripe constantly about the limitations of MusicMatch, RealPlayer, and other lesser programs. I've used Photoshop Elements for the mac, but not Windows, and I'm not exactly impressed. Most of what I've seen it do is a lot of cheesy filters that Adobe pulled directly from the program's big brother.

I'd pay more just to have the use of OS X and iLife, thanks.

If you only comparison shop at Dell you will notice that the prices are very expensive once you venture beyond the promo. The cheap Dell computers with small hard drives and so on are the price leaders, and also allow a cheap person who wants an LCD to get one and a decent web browsing computer for under 1k. Unlike in Apple-land where 1k gets you an outdated emac or a closeout g3 ibook.

No argument that Dell is expensive compared to some other vendors. They're also the only company besides Apple turning a profit on the last year, and that makes me wonder how much of a cut the others have put on their margins. Since that's the case... Well, do I really have to point out that Dell survives on volume and Apple on margins? To alter the margins significantly is to risk our favorite computer company, unless you can find some magical source of income for them to tap instead.

[lewdvig]

Sure thing, ledvig. We'll be sure to have Apple get right on that, as long as you don't mind paying premium prices for a machine that will have to compete against premium hardware. I hear this so often around here, people ranting on and on about how cheap PC X can do thing Y so much faster and cheaper than any Apple machine.

So, once again, I think I'm going to go the pre-assembled and purely parts route...

For parts only, I'm using newegg (www.newegg.com). You ought to be able to figure out Dell (www.dell.com) and Apple (store.apple.com)

Supermicro E7505 Dual-Xeon Mobo $390
(SATA, 8x AGP, PCI-X, gigabit ethernet, but conditional and less supportive than Apple's motherboards)
Intel Xeon 3.06ghz x2 $950
(533 FSB, 512k L3, Hyperthreaded)
Pioneer DVR-A07 DVD +/- RW $188
Maxtor 250GB 7200RPM SATA HD $226
Kingston 512MB PC3200 RAM x4 $344
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB AGP 8x $212
Thermaltake XaserV Aluminum case $115
Antec SL450 2-fan 450 watt PSU $57
Running total, parts only: $2482


Dell Precision
Intel Xeon 3.06ghz x2 (533 FSB, 512k L3, Hyperthreaded)
2 GB PC 2100
250 GB SATA 7200 RPM
8x DVD+RW/+R w/ Roxio Easy CD, Sonic SE plus DVD decode
nVidia Quadro NVS 280 64MB
Soundblaster Audigy 2 (for digital in/out)
Dell TrueMobile 1300 802.11b/g (USB 2.0 external)
No monitor, no productivity software (hint: no iLife)
Running Total: $5,076


Apple G5
IBM 970 2.0ghz x2 (1ghz FSB, 512k L2 cache)
2 GB PC 3200
250 GB SATA 7200 RPm
8x DVD+/-RW
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
onboard 6.1 and digital audio
Airport Extreme 802.11 b/g internal wireless
no monitor, free iLife
Running total: $3,944




If you want to play games, go back to Intel. Period. We don't have the developer support, nor do I want my machines to be so geared to something I only sometimes engage in. At the moment, I can do two out of three of those on Apple's laptops without really worrying about it at all. I expect it to get even better when the revised PowerBooks show up.

You don't need a dual XEON to kick the crap out of an iMac - a single Athlon64 3000 will do nicely.

[thatwendigo]

You don't need a dual XEON to kick the crap out of an iMac - a single Athlon64 3000 will do nicely.

Way to completely miss my argument, guy.

I'm not talking about the lowend configurations, as they stand right now. However, since you seem set on trying to troll anyone who supports Apple's decisions and understands things like market pressure and economies of scale, let's take a little look at what's likely to be holding back the iMac/eMac in terms of processor updates.

The current form factor is 10.6" x (I have to assume) 5.8" (http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html), and that's about the size of a lot of these microATX conversions you see around the web. They tend to processors that are down in the 500-800 mhz range, for cooling reasons, and use either no fan or one fan in an attempt to manage silent cooling. So, if you want to have a fair comparison, we need to talk things within the same physical spec. It's all well and good to run around and scream "Apple's hardware design department sucks because a cheap, undercut PC can outperform it," but you're leaving out the hordes of reliability issues that cheap parts bring, the massive addition of space to do things like cool and place components, lack of integration, and other factors in the design.

I took a look at the PC all-in-ones at HP and Sony. Guess what they cost? $1699 and up. Gee... Looks like Apple might not be all that stingy, after all.

[jade]

I took a look at the PC all-in-ones at HP and Sony. Guess what they cost? $1699 and up. Gee... Looks like Apple might not be all that stingy, after all.

Well there are a few key differences: Sony and HP don't only sell all-in-ones. For them the all-in-ones are just a niche product, not the bread and butter consumer choice. Also most of the shuttles I have seen still fit in a standard AGP slot and rely on, although slower, AMD chips like the 2500-2800 series ones which still are faster then the old g4s.

The Sony all-in-ones, while very similar in price to the imac, include wireless keyboards, more RAM and hard drive space and even PC card slots for expansion, as well as a TV tuner card. Although they are nowhere near as slick as an imac, they are still overspecced when compared to your imac in the same price range. But of course poor values when compared to your average tower/monitor combo.

But if Apple wants to seriously compete in the consumer space, Apple needs to offer a compelling product that will actually attract new buyers, and keep old customers in the fold. If you are in the store upgrading you g3 imac/blue and white/ beige g3, the current Apple line up offers very little value when compared to the PC competition.

I have seen it firsthand, a lot of classic Mac users pondering if they should switch because the hardware is 50% cheaper and does everything they need to do. It is pretty hard to justify paying the premium for being an Apple user with the current desktop lineup.

I am a switcher and I looked at notebooks, Apple notebooks offer a lot more value when compared to the competition, but I cannot say the same for the desktops.

[thatwendigo]

Well there are a few key differences: Sony and HP don't only sell all-in-ones. For them the all-in-ones are just a niche product, not the bread and butter consumer choice. Also most of the shuttles I have seen still fit in a standard AGP slot and rely on, although slower, AMD chips like the 2500-2800 series ones which still are faster then the old g4s.

I'll concede that point. The G4 is a decent chip for what it does, but what it does is run at low heat and wattage draw, now outperform everything on the PC side.

The Sony all-in-ones, while very similar in price to the imac, include wireless keyboards, more RAM and hard drive space and even PC card slots for expansion, as well as a TV tuner card. Although they are nowhere near as slick as an imac, they are still overspecced when compared to your imac in the same price range. But of course poor values when compared to your average tower/monitor combo.

As much as some people hate it, since Jobs has been back at Apple, we've all been paying a bit of a 'slickness tax' for products that are not only functional, but also better looking than just about anything out there. I refuse to relent on pointing out that Apple can't just buy off-the-shelf as much as other PC vendors, because it's true. Certain components have to be manufactured or specially commissioned by Apple, or they just won't be around, and that costs serious cash when you're both running lower volume than the others, and also avoiding cheap, crap parts.

I have seen it firsthand, a lot of classic Mac users pondering if they should switch because the hardware is 50% cheaper and does everything they need to do. It is pretty hard to justify paying the premium for being an Apple user with the current desktop lineup.

Maybe for the iMac/eMac, I might agree... However, unless you build your own machines, the G5s are an amazing buy for the value, even 10 months after their initial announcement.

I am a switcher and I looked at notebooks, Apple notebooks offer a lot more value when compared to the competition, but I cannot say the same for the desktops.

You keep saying this... Are you including the pro towers in this equation? Also, I find it interesting that you'll praise the PowerBooks while downing the iMac. Isn't that still using the '1200 year old' G4 you were so against a few posts ago?

[jsw]

IMaybe for the iMac/eMac, I might agree... However, unless you build your own machines, the G5s are an amazing buy for the value, even 10 months after their initial announcement.

Definitely. I love my dual-2, and I've had it for over six months. And it is built better than any PC I've ever seen - toppping even Alienware due to the aluminum case.

And good point about quality parts. My 4.5-year-old laptop works admirably well even after constant use. Even my ancient IIci works fine. Apple builds computers to last. PC makers build computers to just make it until the next speed bump comes out.

[xy14]

According to Appleinsider (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=394), the eMac and iMac have been "end of lifed" (EOL'd).

End of life status on products occurs when products are discontinued or about to be upgraded.

Apple is not going to upgrade their eMacs. They are going to discontinue them because they are making the iMacs lose profits. They are probably going to upgrade the iMacs though because it would be horrible if they discontinued them (not everyone wants to pay $1799 for a Mac).

[jade]

You keep saying this... Are you including the pro towers in this equation? Also, I find it interesting that you'll praise the PowerBooks while downing the iMac. Isn't that still using the '1200 year old' G4 you were so against a few posts ago?

Yeah I agree the pro towers are decent value...I just wouldn't pay that much for a desktop. And unfortunately for me, the cheapest superdrive equipped Apple where I can choose my own monitor is $1799. Might as well get a 12" powerbook with super drive for that, at least I can take it with me.

AS for the 1200 year old g4s in a notebook: whole different story. In general notebooks sacrifice power for size (except for those 15lbs p4ee clunkers). Paying a premium for a small notebook with good battery life is completely pratical, and actually the PBs are fairly price competitive for notebooks in their size category. And you don't get top end performance in a notebook unless it never leaves your desk, not exactly my kind of notebook.

Today, I wouldn't buy a g4 powerbook, because a) i am typing this from my g4 ibook and b) holding out for a g5. But I have been back and forth on the whole powerbook issue for the past 2 years. And there really wasn't a lot in terms of thin and lights in PC-land. Actually, that is why I went for the ibook, it is one of the cheapest 12" notebooks around. (the only cheaper one is by a company called Sotec, and only by about $100)

I am willing to pay a "style tax" to get an Apple up to a point, but not more than 20%

[MarkCollette]

Hmm, I wonder if we'll get to the point where the consumers just have notebooks, and maybe a docking station kind of setup, with larger monitors, printers, etc. And then only pros would use desktops.

We've just reached the point where the majority of new computer sales are notebooks, not desktops, and the lowest end new notebooks can do all basic tasks, and with good expansion like FW and USB 2 we have have all expansion external... I wonder if and when.

[thatwendigo]

Yeah I agree the pro towers are decent value...I just wouldn't pay that much for a desktop. And unfortunately for me, the cheapest superdrive equipped Apple where I can choose my own monitor is $1799. Might as well get a 12" powerbook with super drive for that, at least I can take it with me.

Well, I guess that means you have no real need for the power, anyways, if the powerbook does what you need it to. That means the towers aren't marketed at you.

They're not marketed at me, either, if it makes you feel any better.

I am willing to pay a "style tax" to get an Apple up to a point, but not more than 20%

How are you figuring that? Where are you applying that 20%?

[thatwendigo]

Hmm, I wonder if we'll get to the point where the consumers just have notebooks, and maybe a docking station kind of setup, with larger monitors, printers, etc. And then only pros would use desktops.

We've just reached the point where the majority of new computer sales are notebooks, not desktops, and the lowest end new notebooks can do all basic tasks, and with good expansion like FW and USB 2 we have have all expansion external... I wonder if and when.

I know professors who do just that, because they can keep a flat panel, a firewire drive, and their printer in their office, while still being able to carry the lecture slides on their laptop. It also means they can take their work home that much easier, and that's important in some departments.

[thatwendigo]

Sorry, admins. This is a broken-up post because I screwed up and had three different tabs going, and it's after work. I'm a bit tired. :rolleyes:

And good point about quality parts. My 4.5-year-old laptop works admirably well even after constant use. Even my ancient IIci works fine. Apple builds computers to last. PC makers build computers to just make it until the next speed bump comes out.

I had an original iBook Tangerine that last me until it died, somewhat unceremoniously, this past Christmas. It had a fully functional, unblemished LCD, and all the original parts, with the exception of a 256 MB stick of RAM. It was my portable for quite some time, and it wasn't until it was accidentally crushed (LONG story) that it ever had a problem.

Then it had all kinds of problems, from broken frame to shattered screen. At least I got a 600 iBook with a Combo, though, so it worked out alright. :rolleyes:

Apple is not going to upgrade their eMacs. They are going to discontinue them because they are making the iMacs lose profits. They are probably going to upgrade the iMacs though because it would be horrible if they discontinued them (not everyone wants to pay $1799 for a Mac).

Does this completely fail to make sense for anyone else? They're going to kill the eMac to spare the iMac, but it's because the iMac is too expensive? How does updating the machines make them any less expensive, since new components are almost certainly going to cost more?

[oingoboingo]

And good point about quality parts. My 4.5-year-old laptop works admirably well even after constant use. Even my ancient IIci works fine. Apple builds computers to last. PC makers build computers to just make it until the next speed bump comes out.

I'm not disputing that Macs are generally well-built and are made from quality components (I have an LCII and a Quadra 610 which still work perfectly), but don't confuse the more frequent upgrade cycle of PC owners with the reliability of their machines. In addition to those two old Macs I have at home, I also have a Celeron 500MHz system and a Pentium 166MMX box, both of which are still running fine. Just this morning, I was using a piece of equipment in the laboratory where I work, and it was connected to an old 66MHz 486 system, complete with 1x SCSI caddy loading CD-ROM drive. Old PCs are everywhere.

PCs last and last too...and in fact, apart from the CPU and motherboards, the components in Apple's systems and just about any PC system are the same...RAM from Crucial, hard drive from Seagate, video card from ATI or nVidia, SuperDrive from Pioneer, connectors from Molex...the list goes on. PowerBooks and iBooks are just made under contract in the same Compal factory in Taiwan as many x86 notebooks are manufactured in.

Apple generally has a slower rate of product releases than does the enormous x86 market. And that's to be expected...how can one company have a product cycle to compete with literally thousands of different vendors, when that one company has to do much of their own R&D by themselves? PC owners upgrade more regularly becuase they can, and because PCs are cheaper than Apples. If you bought a 1GHz G4 15" TiBook 12 months ago, what are you going to upgrade to? A 1GHz G5 15" AlBook? Same with the eMac spec...it hasn't shifted since it was introduced in May last year. What is an eMac owner going to upgrade to from their May 2003 1GHz eMac? "I'll have another 1GHz eMac thanks!!!". The product release wheel turns slowly at Apple.

Slower product cycles, higher costs of upgrading (not to mention the lack of the *enormous* x86 market in 3rd party upgrade components), and dare I say it, a generally lower level of tech-savvyness (I'm gonna get hit for saying that) are more responsible for the perceived 'longer life span' of Macs over x86 boxes...rather than any real intrinsic physical longevity advantage.

OK! That should get the thread moving along again!

[oingoboingo]

Does this completely fail to make sense for anyone else? They're going to kill the eMac to spare the iMac, but it's because the iMac is too expensive? How does updating the machines make them any less expensive, since new components are almost certainly going to cost more?

The computer industry doesn't work that way. New components that cost the same as the components that you bought this time last year will be faster and have more features. The same component you bought last year will now be cheaper. Knowing this, you can do one of three things: 1) keep the product price the same, but upgrade all the components periodically and end up with a better product, or 2) keep including all the same components from last year, but drop the price of the product, or 3) keep buying the same old components from last year at every decreasing wholesale prices, but keep charging the same amount for the finished product.

But I agree...the original post didn't make a whole lot of sense either :)

[thatwendigo]

Slower product cycles, higher costs of upgrading (not to mention the lack of the *enormous* x86 market in 3rd party upgrade components), and dare I say it, a generally lower level of tech-savvyness (I'm gonna get hit for saying that) are more responsible for the perceived 'longer life span' of Macs over x86 boxes...rather than any real intrinsic physical longevity advantage.

I have no argument with most of what you have to say, man. I just thought I'd be the first to hit you for that comment... :D

See, I do a lot, and I do mean an awful lot, of tech support for people I know who are completely clueless about computers. The vast majority of people I have to help are PC users, but that's probably due more to population size than an inherent knoweldge on the part of mac users. Then again, almost all the mac users I know can do their own troubleshooting and repair work, short of something that will void the warranty.

The computer industry doesn't work that way. New components that cost the same as the components that you bought this time last year will be faster and have more features. The same component you bought last year will now be cheaper. Knowing this, you can do one of three things: 1) keep the product price the same, but upgrade all the components periodically and end up with a better product, or 2) keep including all the same components from last year, but drop the price of the product, or 3) keep buying the same old components from last year at every decreasing wholesale prices, but keep charging the same amount for the finished product.

But I agree...the original post didn't make a whole lot of sense either :)

I don't know if that's as true in the Mac market as it is outside of it, though. We have a limited number of suppliers, and they're all too happy to milk us as hard as they can, whether through the parts in new machines or on the upgrade market. I could have eBayed another iBook for what a G4 upgrade card costs, just to name a particular problem. At least we can use more an more of the non-Processor, non-motherboard, non-graphics card devices...

[oingoboingo]

I don't know if that's as true in the Mac market as it is outside of it, though. We have a limited number of suppliers, and they're all too happy to milk us as hard as they can, whether through the parts in new machines or on the upgrade market. I could have eBayed another iBook for what a G4 upgrade card costs, just to name a particular problem. At least we can use more an more of the non-Processor, non-motherboard, non-graphics card devices...

We certainly get screwed harder than x86 users on CPU upgrades. But then again, companies like Sonnet and PowerLogix do have to do quite a bit of engineering to produce upgrade kits at all, in some instances. There really isn't the mass market equivalent in the PowerPC CPU world like there is in the Intel/AMD camp. Imagine just being able to walk into the local computer store and pick up a 1.45GHz G4 CPU, all nicely packaged up for retail sale like an AMD Athlon XP...and all for $125. Hopefully the adoption of the PowerPC 970 into the Xbox2 and in IBM's blade servers means that we can expect to see some real economies of scale build up there...as long as some upgrade company figures out how to produce a G5 CPU upgrade daughtercard.

In terms of graphics chips though, I think Apple really has as much choice as the PC world in what it decides to go with. If you tally up all the ATI and nVidia GPU variants which have been used at one stage or another in Macintoshs, you come up with quite an impressive list...with drivers to go with them. Apple should be able to buy those GPUs for the same per-1000 price that HP, Dell, Gateway, IBM etc can. Sometimes you see a really good GPU bundling decision being made, like the Radeon 9600 Mobility in the 15" and 17" PowerBooks (top of the line in mobile GPUs at the time). But other times you really have to wonder what is going on behind the scenes at Apple's purchasing and engineering departments (the infamous Radeon 7500 in the eMac, and the liberal use of the cheap, entry-level nVidia GeForce FX5200 in many other product lines, including 66% of the G5 line!). Maybe Apple doesn't have good relationships with either ATI or nVidia...has Steve pissed someone off one too many times? Who knows...

As you say though, for hard drives, RAM, optical drives, USB and FireWire devices and many PCI cards, Mac users can (mercifully) piggy back off x86 economies of scale. And there are plenty of PC users out there who don't realise that.

[jade]

How are you figuring that? Where are you applying that 20%?
the style tax...also known as the Apple premium.

Well the powerbooks are about 10-20% more expensive than equivalent Centrino notebooks..... For me in the relm of possibility and there are significant advantages to an Apple portable over a PC one (wireless networking, bluetooth, and very similar to desktop performance because of Motorola's slcking on the g4 chips)

But on the consumer desktops the premium is much higher, and that is why I would pick a PC. Because for my $1500 I cold get a bigger monitor, or more hard drive space, a faster processor and a better DVD burner. C'est la vie, unfortunately for Apple, a lot more people think like me.

[jade]

Slower product cycles, higher costs of upgrading (not to mention the lack of the *enormous* x86 market in 3rd party upgrade components), and dare I say it, a generally lower level of tech-savvyness (I'm gonna get hit for saying that) are more responsible for the perceived 'longer life span' of Macs over x86 boxes...rather than any real intrinsic physical longevity advantage.

OK! That should get the thread moving along again!

Actually the biggest reason that Apple computers have such a long life span (besided the slow updates) is Apple continues to support old school hardware on new OSes.

Windows XP runs horrible, if at all on a five year old PC. (And I hop you upgraded the motherboard, hard drive processor and RAM on that PC for it to even think about it running.)

Panther runs on 5 year old macs! And there was an appreciable speed boost going from 10.0-10.1-10.2-10.3 on that same hardware. If there is any incentive to keep an old computer around it is that...I can run the latest Apple OS X on an old school g3.

No need to buy a new one yet, unless you heavilty rely on imovie or wanna upgrade you FCP.

At this rate the B&W g3s will be running 10.5...and no one but the speed cravers will need a new computer.

[Dont Hurt Me]

I'm not disputing that Macs are generally well-built and are made from quality components (I have an LCII and a Quadra 610 which still work perfectly), but don't confuse the more frequent upgrade cycle of PC owners with the reliability of their machines. In addition to those two old Macs I have at home, I also have a Celeron 500MHz system and a Pentium 166MMX box, both of which are still running fine. Just this morning, I was using a piece of equipment in the laboratory where I work, and it was connected to an old 66MHz 486 system, complete with 1x SCSI caddy loading CD-ROM drive. Old PCs are everywhere.

PCs last and last too...and in fact, apart from the CPU and motherboards, the components in Apple's systems and just about any PC system are the same...RAM from Crucial, hard drive from Seagate, video card from ATI or nVidia, SuperDrive from Pioneer, connectors from Molex...the list goes on. PowerBooks and iBooks are just made under contract in the same Compal factory in Taiwan as many x86 notebooks are manufactured in.

Apple generally has a slower rate of product releases than does the enormous x86 market. And that's to be expected...how can one company have a product cycle to compete with literally thousands of different vendors, when that one company has to do much of their own R&D by themselves? PC owners upgrade more regularly becuase they can, and because PCs are cheaper than Apples. If you bought a 1GHz G4 15" TiBook 12 months ago, what are you going to upgrade to? A 1GHz G5 15" AlBook? Same with the eMac spec...it hasn't shifted since it was introduced in May last year. What is an eMac owner going to upgrade to from their May 2003 1GHz eMac? "I'll have another 1GHz eMac thanks!!!". The product release wheel turns slowly at Apple.

Slower product cycles, higher costs of upgrading (not to mention the lack of the *enormous* x86 market in 3rd party upgrade components), and dare I say it, a generally lower level of tech-savvyness (I'm gonna get hit for saying that) are more responsible for the perceived 'longer life span' of Macs over x86 boxes...rather than any real intrinsic physical longevity advantage.

OK! That should get the thread moving along again!Boy, have you stated the truth. there are only 2 things Apple has going for it, the OS and wrapping all those parts you mentioned into fancy clothes such as Imac. other then that they use for the most part the same stuff as better quality Pcs. I really dont know what is going on with Apple but it wouldnt surprise me a bit to see another round of G4 bumps in evey G4 product. Apple is very stingy in giving out Hardware. Ill wait for awhile but Alienware is looking so good with a AMD inside. Sure Id like a G5 Imac but heck it may only come in 1.6 and may be another 6 months from now. Like I said earlier Moto has had G4s running at 1.4,1.47 and now 1.5. who's to say if the next Imac/Emac just get the bump. More I think about it the more logical this seems. Perhaps G5 Imac will be next year?

[MarkCollette]

Boy, have you stated the truth. there are only 2 things Apple has going for it, the OS and wrapping all those parts you mentioned into fancy clothes such as Imac. other then that they use for the most part the same stuff as better quality Pcs. I really dont know what is going on with Apple but it wouldnt surprise me a bit to see another round of G4 bumps in evey G4 product. Apple is very stingy in giving out Hardware. Ill wait for awhile but Alienware is looking so good with a AMD inside. Sure Id like a G5 Imac but heck it may only come in 1.6 and may be another 6 months from now. Like I said earlier Moto has had G4s running at 1.4,1.47 and now 1.5. who's to say if the next Imac/Emac just get the bump. More I think about it the more logical this seems. Perhaps G5 Imac will be next year?

We must be getting close to a release, if we're already in the phase of dispair :)

We're all pretty sure that the iBook will stick with the G4, so let's take bets on whether the eMac and the iMac do too :)

I'm betting that the eMac will stick with G4 for another bump, but the iMac (or whatever replaces it) will go to G5. Why? Hell, why not? It wouldn't be an Apple release if it didn't carefully blend exciting new things with a touch of disappointment.

[thatwendigo]

Well the powerbooks are about 10-20% more expensive than equivalent Centrino notebooks..... For me in the relm of possibility and there are significant advantages to an Apple portable over a PC one (wireless networking, bluetooth, and very similar to desktop performance because of Motorola's slcking on the g4 chips)

I think we have different ideas of equivalent, and definitely different values on the use of the operating system. I'd pay 20% more just to use OS X in an ugly machine, and more than that for the elegant, well-constructed machines that I've had for quite some time. In twenty years of macintosh use, I've never had to take one to a dealer to have it fixed, and I'm not an IT professional that has any kind of special link to repair manuals.

Of course, I've already gone on about how I want the 750vx to replace the G4 in the PowerBooks. To me, that's the best solution, because it runs at a better clock, a better FSB, and yet puts out the same or less heat. How can we lose, especially with IBM doing the fabbing and selling them more cheaply than G4s?

But on the consumer desktops the premium is much higher, and that is why I would pick a PC. Because for my $1500 I cold get a bigger monitor, or more hard drive space, a faster processor and a better DVD burner. C'est la vie, unfortunately for Apple, a lot more people think like me.

Yes, it is unfortunate, because you can have all the components you want, but if the system has to be replaced every two to three years just to be functional on the current incarnation of the OS, then it's not a value. We still use, actively, macs that are five or six years old. They run OS X just fine, if given a simple RAM upgrade.

I don't know a single person on the PC side who uses their computers as actively as my family does, yet has the same hardware retention rate.

Boy, have you stated the truth. there are only 2 things Apple has going for it, the OS and wrapping all those parts you mentioned into fancy clothes such as Imac.

Actually, there are a couple of things they have going for them, and they're on both sides of the hardware/software divide. They've got a quality that surpasses anything I see in PCs (I'd ask anyone who wants to bring up the iBooks, to keep in mind that the suit is 3,000 out of some 250,000-300,000 sold. Take a look at Dell's mistake rate.). They've got control of the OS and its integration, while also supporting the open source community in a way that no other major PC manufacturer does. There's a suite of powerful, easy, user-friendly apps that come with every new mac, and they go far beyond the negligably "comparable" offerings on the PC side. They have Jonathan Ives and Steve Jobs, who continue to push the industry in ways that are always emulated, no matter how much people like to say that innovation is dead at Apple. Let's not leave out the small factor of a partnership with the single largest, longest-lived computing company in the history of the field, who just happens to be supplying us with some of the fastest chips on the market.

Oh, yeah... Nothing at all, DHM. :rolleyes:

other then that they use for the most part the same stuff as better quality Pcs.

What the hell, man? First you complain about their components, and now you say that they use the same parts as "better quality Pcs?" Can you at least maintain some degree of consistency in what you're going to whine about?

Apple is very stingy in giving out Hardware.

Name me one company, other than IBM, that does as much of their own R&D and design work as Apple. Name one that uses parts as specialized and limited, by comparison, as the PowerPC, while still being competitive.

Stingy? Only if you have no understanding of economics.

Ill wait for awhile but Alienware is looking so good with a AMD inside. Sure Id like a G5 Imac but heck it may only come in 1.6 and may be another 6 months from now. Like I said earlier Moto has had G4s running at 1.4,1.47 and now 1.5. who's to say if the next Imac/Emac just get the bump. More I think about it the more logical this seems. Perhaps G5 Imac will be next year?

So get an Alienware, which won't cost you any less than a G5 and will perform right around the same level. I honestly don't understand you, DHM, because you constantly whine and gripe about everything Apple does, but you don't do the one thing that really matters. In business, you vote with your dollars. Want Apple to change their ways? Then go buy the competition and quit cluttering the board with your poorly reasoned, illogical screeds, because you don't even grasp the simplest aspects of the computer industry.

[Dont Hurt Me]

I think we have different ideas of equivalent, and definitely different values on the use of the operating system. I'd pay 20% more just to use OS X in an ugly machine, and more than that for the elegant, well-constructed machines that I've had for quite some time. In twenty years of macintosh use, I've never had to take one to a dealer to have it fixed, and I'm not an IT professional that has any kind of special link to repair manuals.

Of course, I've already gone on about how I want the 750vx to replace the G4 in the PowerBooks. To me, that's the best solution, because it runs at a better clock, a better FSB, and yet puts out the same or less heat. How can we lose, especially with IBM doing the fabbing and selling them more cheaply than G4s?



Yes, it is unfortunate, because you can have all the components you want, but if the system has to be replaced every two to three years just to be functional on the current incarnation of the OS, then it's not a value. We still use, actively, macs that are five or six years old. They run OS X just fine, if given a simple RAM upgrade.

I don't know a single person on the PC side who uses their computers as actively as my family does, yet has the same hardware retention rate.



Actually, there are a couple of things they have going for them, and they're on both sides of the hardware/software divide. They've got a quality that surpasses anything I see in PCs (I'd ask anyone who wants to bring up the iBooks, to keep in mind that the suit is 3,000 out of some 250,000-300,000 sold. Take a look at Dell's mistake rate.). They've got control of the OS and its integration, while also supporting the open source community in a way that no other major PC manufacturer does. There's a suite of powerful, easy, user-friendly apps that come with every new mac, and they go far beyond the negligably "comparable" offerings on the PC side. They have Jonathan Ives and Steve Jobs, who continue to push the industry in ways that are always emulated, no matter how much people like to say that innovation is dead at Apple. Let's not leave out the small factor of a partnership with the single largest, longest-lived computing company in the history of the field, who just happens to be supplying us with some of the fastest chips on the market.

Oh, yeah... Nothing at all, DHM. :rolleyes:



What the hell, man? First you complain about their components, and now you say that they use the same parts as "better quality Pcs?" Can you at least maintain some degree of consistency in what you're going to whine about?



Name me one company, other than IBM, that does as much of their own R&D and design work as Apple. Name one that uses parts as specialized and limited, by comparison, as the PowerPC, while still being competitive.

Stingy? Only if you have no understanding of economics.



So get an Alienware, which won't cost you any less than a G5 and will perform right around the same level. I honestly don't understand you, DHM, because you constantly whine and gripe about everything Apple does, but you don't do the one thing that really matters. In business, you vote with your dollars. Want Apple to change their ways? Then go buy the competition and quit cluttering the board with your poorly reasoned, illogical screeds, because you don't even grasp the simplest aspects of the computer industry.Actually Alienware will perform better then the G5s and cost a lot less. Alienware smokes the Mac in all gaming benches and wins in a few others. looses a few by a few seconds like photoshop( who could give a )
Thatwendigo you have to wake up, a hard drive is a hard drive just as a video card is a video card same goes for memory. none of them are made by Apple. even the CPU isnt made by Apple so stop being Blinded like everything Apple does is coming from heaven, most of the time they come from the same manufactors except you will be charge a big premium because its going inside a Mac. Some of you Mac Zealots are so blinded by your own Pride in Apple you dont realize that Apple is selling you Hardware from last year and charging you more for your Mac Fanaticism. Its that simple. Apple screws you hard for the Hardware just as they did 10 years ago. nothing new same old Apple.

[thatwendigo]

Incidentally... The Baseline Alienware Aurora uses the *gasp* GeForce FX 5200 that you're so against, DHM. How terrible of Apple to use the same chip as a major gaming shop!

Alienware Aurora
Athlon 64 3400+
1 GB PC3200 RAM
ATI Radeon 9600 XT 128MB
160GB Seagate 7200RPM SATA
Plextor PlexWriter 8x DVD+/-RW
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2
NEC 20" MultiSync LCD
Logitech Z-680
Cost: $3,828

Apple PowerMAc
Dual G5 1.8ghz
1 GB PC3200 RAM
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro
160 GB 7200RPM SATA
SuperDrive
20" Apple Cinema Display
Logitech Z-680
Cost: $4,341

It's not quite so big a difference as you'd like to make out, man.

[Dont Hurt Me]

The $1500 dollar machine uses the baseline fx5200 but guess what? the Pc version has 128 mb of ram in it vs the 64 mb in the Mac. And the 1.6 G5 cost hundreds more and the single 1.8 G5 lost every test compared to the Alienware in Mac Worlds Tests. Notice all those Mac versions of video cards are behind by 1 generation. Also Apple will sell you a 9600 pro(64) for $50.00 while Alienware will sell you the 9600XT(128) for $30.00 I dont know how much longer i can be a Mac Bitch.

[thatwendigo]

Actually Alienware will perform better then the G5s and cost a lot less. Alienware smokes the Mac in all gaming benches and wins in a few others.

Incorrect, sir.

According to this (http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=2002&p=6), the P4 is about the same as the Athlon 64 3400+ that is in the system I specced out. There's no smoking to be had, so it seems that you're arguing from a position of ignorance once again.

Thatwendigo you have to wake up, a hard drive is a hard drive just as a video card is a video card same goes for memory. none of them are made by Apple. even the CPU isnt made by Apple so stop being Blinded like everything Apple does is coming from heaven,

Ah, so we're back to the attempts to label me as some kind of unthinking Apple worshipper, are we? I think that the established record of argument is one my side, DHM, and you know it. Apple isn't perfect, and I've never said that they are, and I'm certainly not stupid enough to make the kind of mistake that you're trying to pin on me.

Yes, certain components are down to the commodity level, and they're also the ones that tend to be cheapest in any case. What I can't seem to hammer through your skull, though, is that some of the priciest parts are still custom-manufactured for Apple, and that's going to raise the price. Processors, motherboards, ASICS, and graphics cards tend to be the worst parts of the system, in terms of he wallet, and so it's just doubly damning that we have to live with it.

Maybe you need to take a basic course in economics, because I knew this stuff a long time before highschool tried to teach it to me again.

most of the time they come from the same manufactors except you will be charge a big premium because its going inside a Mac

Of course, it has nothing with redesigning the cards to accept an ADC jack, or hiring programmers to write the derivers, or the limited production runs of Apple-specific parts, or the much more limited profit ceiling that one has unless the suppliers also push ridiculous margins... :rolleyes:


. Some of you Mac Zealots are so blinded by your own Pride in Apple you dont realize that Apple is selling you Hardware from last year and charging you more for your Mac Fanaticism. Its that simple. Apple screws you hard for the Hardware just as they did 10 years ago. nothing new same old Apple.

So GO. Jesus, DHM, if it worries you that much that you don't understand my arguments, then buy your AMD and be happy. If you think that it's so much better, then spend the cash and quit trying to peddle your poor arguments and even poorer English skills. We're not zealots, but we do think on our own, and we have evidence on our side.

Where's the backing for you claims?

The $1500 dollar machine uses the baseline fx5200 but guess what? the Pc version has 128 mb of ram in it vs the 64 mb in the Mac. And the 1.6 G5 cost hundreds more and the single 1.8 G5 lost every test compared to the Alienware in Mac Worlds Tests. Notice all those Mac versions of video cards are behind by 1 generation. Also Apple will sell you a 9600 pro(64) for $50.00 while Alienware will sell you the 9600XT(128) for $30.00 I dont know how much longer i can be a Mac Bitch.

You know, I was going to blow this off, but I had to comment again, because you're outright lying again. They'll sell you a Radeon 9600XT for $30 more than whatever they charge you already, not just for that amount. You have a real problem with reading comprehension, and you never back anything you say with hard numbers or sources.

I don't know why I keep responding, aside from maintaining some vague hope that I can provide a voice of reason against your rants.

[Dont Hurt Me]

you are worse then a politician in a businessmans pocket, apple will sell you a 9600pro (64) for 50 bucks more then the 5200, Alienware will sell you 9600xt for $30 more bucks then fx5200. Please correct your lies. you mentioned P4 but never the clock? why? the Fact is a single AMD fx51 2.2 is matching and or winning in benches against the Dual G5s.
Look at Dec issue Mac world. Stop the smoke and mirrors thatwendigo. the single G5 at 1.8 lost every test. not any test was the 1 G5 matching the 1 AMD or Intel.
Now if you want to talk gaming UT2003 is running near 300 while dual G5s are in the 70s. that 200 FPS difference.
Im not going to sit here and argue anymore to the Blind. the fact is Mac Hardware is way behind except for the 2 top dual G5 machines and those arent faster only faster in a few chosen Tests that favor the Mac. Instead of Spin,Smoke and Mirrors thatwendigo I suggest you subscribe to a few publications such as MacAddict or MacWorld and educate yourself. Macs still have the best OS and the slowest Hardware. The latest Tests show without a doubt that only the dual G5s are even in the game.

[xy14]

Does this completely fail to make sense for anyone else? They're going to kill the eMac to spare the iMac, but it's because the iMac is too expensive? How does updating the machines make them any less expensive, since new components are almost certainly going to cost more?

I meant that if they got rid of the iMac & eMac that people wouldn't want to buy a G5 or a notebook to have a Mac.

[jsw]

blah...why? the Fact is a single AMD fx51 2.2 is matching and or winning... blah...Now if you want to talk gaming UT2003 is running near 300 while dual G5s are in the 70s...blah...dual G5 machines and those arent faster only faster in a few chosen Tests...blah...I suggest you subscribe to a few publications such as MacAddict or MacWorld ...blah... only the dual G5s are even in the game.

Well, if speed is all you care about, I more or less grant your posts. Who cares? Speed is only one part. Yeah, faster is better. But I still take OS X over XP (granting that XP is a lot better than 2K, 9x, etc.). I can do most of my work on a 4.5 year old 400 MHz G3.

I'd love to see a faster system offered by Apple - and we will. My G5 works fine for me, though. My 800Mhz G4 iMac does most everything just as well. My G3 Lombard does 50% of it fine. So, yeah, PCs are faster and/or cheaper and it'd be great to have faster Macs.

But the current choices are fine. No one disputes that it's better - of course - to have faster systems. But you're wrong to say that what's out there is in any way deficient or useless or whatever.

Apple needs to put out updates and/or revolutionary changes. But what they have now - and in particular I mean OS X on any selling Mac - is fantastic.

[jsw]

Actually the biggest reason that Apple computers have such a long life span (besided the slow updates) is Apple continues to support old school hardware on new OSes.

Absolutely.

PCs need to be faster. Macs are just better if they're faster.

[jade]

Absolutely.

PCs need to be faster. Macs are just better if they're faster.

and mac users have no reaon to update their computers which hampers slaes

[thatwendigo]

[i]Blahblahblahblah...Complete misunderstanding of anything and everything said to DHM

Did I ever say anything about single G5s? No? Then stop harping on them.

Address my points and stop trying to twist my words.

[~Shard~]

Absolutely.

PCs need to be faster. Macs are just better if they're faster.

This is a good point. It seems like every time a new version of Windows is released, the minimum system requiremenets is increased as well, the size of code increases enormously, and the OS overall runs slower. A PC which could run Win95 in the day perfectly fine could not handle WinXP. However, you look at OSX, especially Panther, and what do you get? An OS that runs on older hardware just fine, is not bloatware, and it actually makes your system FASTER. Wow, what a novel concept for an OS... ;)

Speed is just one factor. Argue over it all you want - years from now your arguments will be futile, and people will laugh at you for arguing over what a difference a paultry GHz makes. (I'm sure similar arguments were waged over 200 MHz Pentiums vs. 233 MHz Pentiums.) You'll never win when you play the speed game - I'd rather take a well-balanced approach and look at many other factors such as ease of use, stability, software, OS, etc. etc. That's just me though... :cool:

[Dont Hurt Me]

If Speed isnt a factor and Apple has the Best OS on the planet then why are sales declining every qtr for Imac/Emac? why is it they sold millions of Imac crt but emac/Imac lcd only sell in the thousands? why are these 2 models sales combine only about the same as the pro models when consumers outnumber pro's 100-1? why is Apples marketshare almost at 1%? whats one thing every mac hasnt had compared to the otherside? thats right boys & girls. its called Speed. you get little bang for big bucks and this is why even with Apple being holier then thou sales are tumbling down. you cant sell slow computers forever. G4 is anything but fast

[~Shard~]

If Speed isnt a factor and Apple has the Best OS on the planet then why are sales declining every qtr for Imac/Emac?

I dunno - because of people like you? :cool:


Seriously, you are correct on that point - iMac/eMac slaes are declining, and the G4 is not the fastest chip out there now that there is the G5. So what would the appropriate parallel to this be? Pentium 4s vs. Celerons? How about in the AMD world, with these new chips you've been heralding? Those chips still have their place and sell, don't they? (Not saying the iMac doesn't need a G5 - that will be a nice update when it happens :) )

whats one thing every mac hasnt had compared to the otherside? thats right boys & girls. its called Speed. you get little bang for big bucks and this is why even with Apple being holier then thou sales are tumbling down.

Perhaps a more accurate reason why sales are tumbling down is because people put an incorrect, inappropriate and misguided importance and weighting into speed. But alas, this is the way the majority of the population thinks - hmm, 95% I suppose, the equivalent of PC marketshare? Nah, less than that, there are intelligent PC users on these forums as well... ;) But, if I go any further, this is going to open up a whole new can of worms, so I'll just stop for now...

In conclusion, of course more speed is better - that's a simple fact. When the 12 GHz G7 is out, people will be whining about when the 14 GHz speed bumps will come out, and how AMD just released a 12.5 GHz chip. And so it continues. My point is that speed shouldn't be the only factor one focuses all his attention on.

[Dont Hurt Me]

All iam getting at is G4 was not much more then a G3 with altivec added. How many years ago was G3 intoduced?5-6? so we have Apple selling G3s with altivec today at low clocks. Then they charge a fortune for them. this has nearly killed this computer company. a correct analogy would be if Intel was still selling P3s and clocking them at about 1 gig. how many Pc users would even consider this as a option? In our Mac world this is what we have except for last summers G5s. G3s with altivec still in most machines.

[jade]

All iam getting at is G4 was not much more then a G3 with altivec added. How many years ago was G3 intoduced?5-6? so we have Apple selling G3s with altivec today at low clocks. Then they charge a fortune for them. this has nearly killed this computer company. a correct analogy would be if Intel was still selling P3s and clocking them at about 1 gig. how many Pc users would even consider this as a option? In our Mac world this is what we have except for last summers G5s. G3s with altivec still in most machines.

The actual # doesn't matter, an increase in speed is a measure of progress...and well for most of Apple's lineup the progress stopped in 2002.

[MarkCollette]

...why is it they sold millions of Imac crt but emac/Imac lcd only sell in the thousands? why are these 2 models sales combine only about the same as the pro models when consumers outnumber pro's 100-1...

I agree with you that speed is the primary factor, but I think there's one other factor that not many people have mentionned. A big difference between the CRT iMacs and the newer stuff is the transition from CRT to LCD. Consider that the price difference in the store between standalone 17" CRTs and LCDs is several hundred dollars. That's money that could have gone into better video cards, CPUs, or even price cuts.

[oingoboingo]

This is a good point. It seems like every time a new version of Windows is released, the minimum system requiremenets is increased as well, the size of code increases enormously, and the OS overall runs slower. A PC which could run Win95 in the day perfectly fine could not handle WinXP. However, you look at OSX, especially Panther, and what do you get? An OS that runs on older hardware just fine, is not bloatware, and it actually makes your system FASTER. Wow, what a novel concept for an OS... ;)

While partly true, this gets blown out of proportion sometimes on these forums. Going from Windows 95 to Windows XP is a similar jump as from going Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. Windows XP is built around the NT kernel, which is a much more modern and robust core...and that kind of robustness comes at a cost. We all experienced exactly the same thing with the Classic->OS X transition. Machines which ran OS 9 perfectly were suddenly slow when faced with the extra services, security and robustness of OS X. I would have to dispute your claim that OS X makes Mac systems run faster. Certainly, Panther was faster than Jaguar, and Apple is doing an excellent job of continuing to improve OS X. But OS X requires heavier system overheads to achieve the same level of performance. Install OS X on a 64MB G3/233 system (if you can, you might need to use something like XPostFacto), and compare performance to OS 9. It's gonna be slow. Yet the G3/233 was a perfectly acceptable system under OS 9.

There's nothing wrong with that...it's progress. Moden operating systems are more complex, responsible for more tasks, are bundled with more services, and allow you to be more productive than older OSes. It all comes at a hardware cost, and this is true for both Windows XP and Mac OS X.

One other thing...yes, Windows XP does have a lot of gratuitous eye-candy which can slow down a marginal system (sound like another OS we all know and love?). However, with a simple click of a preference, Windows XP can revert to the old Windows 2000 GUI style, which is simpler and runs faster. This is something which is not easily achieved with OS X without resorting to 3rd party hacks. How do I turn of window resize animations? How can I use outline-dragging for resizing windows?

Remember that it's just as easy for a PC owner to max their 5-year old system out with RAM, just like a G3 or G4 owner can. Lots of RAM makes Windows XP and Windows 2000 run well, just like it makes OS X run well. A 5 year old PC (say a Pentium II 400MHz, for argument's sake) will be capable of being expanded to probably to 1.5GB RAM (average PC motherboard having 3 DIMM slots). Chuck in an extra 512MB of cheap RAM, and that PII/400MHz will cope just as well with Windows XP as a 5-year old Mac will cope with OS X, when appropriately loaded up with RAM.

And don't forget that the PC owner has a wide range of cheap AGP graphics cards, motherboard swaps, and CPU upgrades at their disposal, for relatively small amounts of money. The Mac upgrade market is still expensive.

Be careful about making these types of "OS X runs great on my 5 year old Mac, WinXP sucks on my 5 year old PC" comparison...it's flawed.

Please note that I am not disputing that your older Mac will run OS X at an acceptable level...I had a PowerMac 7600 upgraded with a 500MHz G3 CPU card and 384MB RAM...and it ran OS X 10.2 and MS Office v.X at an acceptable pace...not shockingly fast of course, but enough to get serious Excel and Word work done. And that's a base system which was released in 1995/1996. Just don't discount the x86 world of being capable of the same thing.

[thatwendigo]

I dunno - because of people like you? :cool:

W00t! Nice reply there, Shard.

Perhaps a more accurate reason why sales are tumbling down is because people put an incorrect, inappropriate and misguided importance and weighting into speed. But alas, this is the way the majority of the population thinks - hmm, 95% I suppose, the equivalent of PC marketshare? Nah, less than that, there are intelligent PC users on these forums as well... ;) But, if I go any further, this is going to open up a whole new can of worms, so I'll just stop for now...

It's the same mentality that leads people to buy a big block Ford over, say, a car that would do everything they needed it to do, while also being better built, less prone to maintenance problems, and with better long-term economy. Oh, look at the pretty numbers! 250 horsepower means that this car is better than that one, no matter that the other car is rated safer, has a better anti-theft and navigation system, and doesn't drop pistons as often.

Yes, car analogies suck, but I think that one actually works.

[jade]

e.

Be careful about making these types of "OS X runs great on my 5 year old Mac, WinXP sucks on my 5 year old PC" comparison...it's flawed.


But it actually takes a lot more upgrades on your 5-year-old windows box to run xp than it does your 5 year old mac.

Mac: add more ram, maybe upgrade hard drive
PC: add more ram, upgrade hard drive, get new processor, and the x-factor: will all of my legacy hardware work with XP?

A lot more complicated with a PC. Microsoft only guarenteed compatibility with machines buit for ME. On my 5 year old pcs with RAM and processor upgrades, we had problems with our USB card and had to reinstall the network cards and sound cards to work under XP. It is pretty comforting for a mac user to know that if you have the required RAM and hard drive space you will be able to upgrade to this OS with no problem.

Whether or not the speed is acceptable to you is another ballgame. A PC with 800mhz AMD, 384 RAM and Windows XP runs it pretty slowly to me, but a 900Mhx AMD 768 RAM feels the same as it did under win98.

So from my personal experience, the 5-year hardware support of OS X is far superior than legacy hardware support in windows.

And that is why your mac last longer, less work to get the new stuff to work out. Of course most people don't bother to upgrade their OS until they get a new computer...except for apple users.

[jsw]

But it actually takes a lot more upgrades on your 5-year-old windows box to run xp than it does your 5 year old mac.

Mac: add more ram, maybe upgrade hard drive
PC: add more ram, upgrade hard drive, get new processor, and the x-factor: will all of my legacy hardware work with XP?
...
And that is why your mac last longer, less work to get the new stuff to work out. Of course most people don't bother to upgrade their OS until they get a new computer...except for apple users.

Agreed. I jumped my 4.5-year-old G3 PB from OS9 to 10.3.3 in an hour - which was all CD installation time (only a few minutes worth of my personal time in terms of interaction). No upgrades. It runs fine. Fast? No. But it all works. No "where's that driver diskette", etc. On a 6GB disk.

Last month, while on vacation, I upgraded my parent's 4.75-year-old Dell from Windows 98 to Windows 2K (because I had a licensed version of that, and not of XP). It took me forever, and I'm still not sure all their peripherals (printer, scanner, mouse, etc.) work correctly, and I needed to buy them more RAM, and the disk isn't really big enough at 10GB.

[BornAgainMac]

Exactly, Windows is a huge task to upgrade from Win98 to Win2000 on older hardware. It takes hours and then downloading drivers. Plus hours of patch downloading. It is worthwhile to just purchase a new machine if the hardware is over 3 years old. My 4 year Mac only took an hour and I didn't have to purchase a new network card, memory, etc. The non upgradable iMac could handle the O/S upgrade.

[jsw]

You know, ethically, I need to retract something I said before. I'm turning into a Mac fanatic, blind to its flaws. I wrote "jumped my 4.5-year-old G3 PB from OS9 to 10.3.3" and made it sound like it was so easy to do so automatically. Like I just put in a CD and "poof" there was 10.3.3. I apologize for these misleading statements which come across as so anti-Windows. In all truth and fairness, I did need to run Software Update a couple of times, which did add perhaps as many as 12 mouse clicks. I hope no Windows fans were offended by my obvious omission. :)

[thatwendigo]

Exactly, Windows is a huge task to upgrade from Win98 to Win2000 on older hardware. It takes hours and then downloading drivers. Plus hours of patch downloading. It is worthwhile to just purchase a new machine if the hardware is over 3 years old. My 4 year Mac only took an hour and I didn't have to purchase a new network card, memory, etc. The non upgradable iMac could handle the O/S upgrade.

This is one reason that PCs are treated the way they are, and looked at as something that ought to be bought so frequently. It benefits Microsoft and the hardware vendors, both, because you have to at least buy parts in many cases, or a whole new machine. For the vast segment of the market that can't or doesn't build its own, they're also buying up the licensed copies of Windows that are sold to OEMs... It's a giant funnel, and they're holding the jar underneath, catching all the cash that keeps pouring through.

[oingoboingo]

A lot more complicated with a PC. Microsoft only guarenteed compatibility with machines buit for ME. On my 5 year old pcs with RAM and processor upgrades, we had problems with our USB card and had to reinstall the network cards and sound cards to work under XP. It is pretty comforting for a mac user to know that if you have the required RAM and hard drive space you will be able to upgrade to this OS with no problem.


I generally agree with what you're saying. However to keep things balanced, I would have to point out that Apple does not officially support the beige G3/233 and G3/266 machines under OS X 10.3...and these machines were on sale up until the 1st of January 1999, making them less than 5 years old when 10.3 was available.

I know that's nit-picking, but so many x86 vs. Mac discussions get way too one-sided in these forums. Apple is guilty of the some of the same sins of the x86/Microsoft world from time to time.

[Dont Hurt Me]

I generally agree with what you're saying. However to keep things balanced, I would have to point out that Apple does not officially support the beige G3/233 and G3/266 machines under OS X 10.3...and these machines were on sale up until the 1st of January 1999, making them less than 5 years old when 10.3 was available.

I know that's nit-picking, but so many x86 vs. Mac discussions get way too one-sided in these forums. Apple is guilty of the some of the same sins of the x86/Microsoft world from time to time.The reason Pcs were bought frequently is because the technology grew by leaps and bounds while we had G4 that went from 500 mhz 5 years ago the to the 1.33 ghz they are still selling today. in other words why bother if there isnt no progress. in the Pc world cpu's went from 500 to 3 gigs. Pcs had advancement in hardware we didnt.

[thatwendigo]

The reason Pcs were bought frequently is because the technology grew by leaps and bounds while we had G4 that went from 500 mhz 5 years ago the to the 1.33 ghz they are still selling today. in other words why bother if there isnt no progress. in the Pc world cpu's went from 500 to 3 gigs. Pcs had advancement in hardware we didnt.

Part of that advancement was the need for it, though. If you don't need new hardware to run the next version of the OS, then you're not going to be buying as much without having some kind of complex driving you. The other side is, of course, the fact that MS did make some better business decision that Apple in the early days of Windows. Technologically, it's pretty clear to most people around here that the mac is the superior product, but that the x86 world has a greater choice in hardware.

No matter how many times I explain it, you don't understand why Apple doesn't have 9800 XTs. I keep doing it, so that people aren't swayed by your poorly worded and poorly reasoned arguments, and so that there's always a voice opposing the misunderstanding that you're spreading. You, DHM, are the avatar of FUD.

[paulsecic]

Roll your eyes as much as you want, but Apple shouldn't sell machines which, out of the box, can barely run the OS, never mind the Apps. I have an iMac to which I recently added half a gig of Ram, and I'm very happy with it, but, nevertheless, the 256 ram it came with was sufficient for my initial purposes. The 128 ram that the emacs come with is just useless.

I don't need to be sold on Macs, but there are plenty of people out there who do. Selling them an emac which crawls along is not a good advert for Apple and then obliging them to spend more money on ram just adds insult to injury.

How are those eyes doing?
Apple needs a default RAM of 512 in all models. No PC comes with 128MB. XP would gag.

[aswitcher]

Apple needs a default RAM of 512 in all models. No PC comes with 128MB. XP would gag.

I agree. Such a move should allow Apple to supply ram a bit cheaper because they are not buying the smaller sticks (no 128s, and maybe even minimal 256s). This will be doubly true for G5s with their twin ram arrangements. All but the lowest G5 should come stock with a gig

[cubist]

... You, DHM, are the avatar of FUD.

Don't be so hard on him. DHM just wants Apple to have a top-of-the-line consumer machine.

When the G3 iMac first came out, it was performance-competitive with the top-of-the-line PowerMac. Sure, it had little upgradability or expandability. Upgradability and expandability are reasons people buy a tower.

IMHO, the current situation is only a temporary aberration. G5 iMacs are coming out. We just need to be a little more patient. In the meantime, there's little point in making excuses for the current iMacs. It is a point of fact that they are not selling well. It is also a point of fact that many people are happy with them.

[jsw]

Such a move should allow Apple to supply ram a bit cheaper....

Yeah, because they're doing such a good job of giving us the best deal they can on RAM now...

;)

[jsw]

Apple needs a default RAM of 512 in all models. No PC comes with 128MB. XP would gag.

While I agree, I would add that OS X does run on 128MB - poorly, but it runs. XP either won't or chokes more at that level.

[~Shard~]

While I agree, I would add that OS X does run on 128MB - poorly, but it runs. XP either won't or chokes more at that level.

I agree on the XP statement, but no matter what the OS you're using is, the more RAM the better performance you'll see. As a result, there is no reason in "this day and age" for Macs to ship with 128 MB RAM - no matter who you are, what Mac you buy, and what you're going to be using it for, you're most likely going to upgrade it to at least 256 MB if not 512 MB right off the bat. Me, I bought my 1.25 GHz G4 17" iMac from the Apple store, customized it to ship with 1 512MB stick and then added another stick of 512 after I received it - it was a no-brainer for me.

[thatwendigo]

Don't be so hard on him. DHM just wants Apple to have a top-of-the-line consumer machine.

No, DHM wants Apple to make a top-of-the-line gaming machine, and then sell it to him for something that would make buying your own parts and building the box look ridiculous. Have you not been reading his arguments? He wants a G5, Radeon 9800XT, the whole Apple ASIC and motherboard (which are still more advanced than just about anything on the PC's desktop market), and all kinds of other things for a price point of $1200. That's, to put it mildly, insane.

When the G3 iMac first came out, it was performance-competitive with the top-of-the-line PowerMac. Sure, it had little upgradability or expandability. Upgradability and expandability are reasons people buy a tower.

Product lines changes, and so do form factors. The original iMac was made out of laptop parts, using a chip that was cooler that what he have now, that is less bus-dependent for speed (more heat), less memory dependent for speed (also more heat), and less bound to I/O speeds (guess what?). I keep slamming this point home, but you don't see top of the line gaming machines in a half-foot hemisphere... How is that "defending the iMac" as anything other than an engineering feat that isn't really matched on the other side?

IMHO, the current situation is only a temporary aberration. G5 iMacs are coming out. We just need to be a little more patient. In the meantime, there's little point in making excuses for the current iMacs. It is a point of fact that they are not selling well. It is also a point of fact that many people are happy with them.

Excuses? I make explanations. The G5 and its subsystems take nine fans to cool quietly in a tower case that's larger than the G4, yet you people think it's going to be simple to shoehorn it into a form factor that is something like an eight the size. When it comes to being reasonable, I'll side with physics and economics, rather than the demands of someone who doesn't even bother to look up and comprehend information, like the already-labeled avatar of FUD.

[aswitcher]

SNIP

Excuses? I make explanations. The G5 and its subsystems take nine fans to cool quietly in a tower case that's larger than the G4, yet you people think it's going to be simple to shoehorn it into a form factor that is something like an eight the size. When it comes to being reasonable, I'll side with physics and economics, rather than the demands of someone who doesn't even bother to look up and comprehend information, like the already-labeled avatar of FUD.

I agree but I think there is a general expectation that the G5 iMac will have a new likely larger form factor, running a single lower clocked smaller and cooler G5. If that is the case then I still think they can get something out this year that will be a decent jump up from the 1.33 G4...better bus, better ram, better graphics card... but will it cut it as a half decent games machine...I dont know

[thatwendigo]

I agree but I think there is a general expectation that the G5 iMac will have a new likely larger form factor, running a single lower clocked smaller and cooler G5. If that is the case then I still think they can get something out this year that will be a decent jump up from the 1.33 G4...better bus, better ram, better graphics card... but will it cut it as a half decent games machine...I dont know

I'm willing to concede that a larger form factor could probably hold a G5 well enough to create a lower clocked, sincgle-processor machine. However, for what DHM wants, he's better off going ahead and buying that Athlon he keeps ranting about. Single G5s are better than x86 chips at some things, but gaming isn't one of them, for the variety of factors that I and others have gone on about.

I'm sorry, but there is basically no chance that a $1200 mac is going to do what he wants. The parts just don't exist, and even if they did, Apple needs the margins to survive.

[aswitcher]

SNIP
Single G5s are better than x86 chips at some things, but gaming isn't one of them, for the variety of factors that I and others have gone on about.

I'm sorry, but there is basically no chance that a $1200 mac is going to do what he wants. The parts just don't exist, and even if they did, Apple needs the margins to survive.

Well I defer to your understanding of the chip/game issues. My loose understanding is that 1 chip is almost as good as 2 for gaming, so it really comes down to clock speed and graphics card, and ram of course.

For me cost is an issue but I think a higher performance more costly iMac in there new line at least try and close some middle ground to the G5PMs would be a smart move. Sure its going to be expensive, but still smaller and cheaper than forking out for a real G5PM and screen. An iMac set up like the single 1.6s first were, 4 ram slots, good bus, graphics card options etc could work. A semi-pro machine for games, heavy graphics, longevity etc
Even nicer if it was a real cut down 1.6, with user access and with a PCI card or two for the semi-pros with their desires. The mini-G5PM :D

[thatwendigo]

Well I defer to your understanding of the chip/game issues. My loose understanding is that 1 chip is almost as good as 2 for gaming, so it really comes down to clock speed and graphics card, and ram of course.

It has more to do with graphics cards, APIs for the programming of the games (we don't have DirectX, and most PC games only do a pittance job on OpenGL), the inefficient ports that we usually get (through little fault of the programmers, it's hard coming across with games), and the way that the chips have been tuned.

For me cost is an issue but I think a higher performance more costly iMac in there new line at least try and close some middle ground to the G5PMs would be a smart move. Sure its going to be expensive, but still smaller and cheaper than forking out for a real G5PM and screen. An iMac set up like the single 1.6s first were, 4 ram slots, good bus, graphics card options etc could work. A semi-pro machine for games, heavy graphics, longevity etc

The machine already exists, sans monitor, as the lowen PowerMac. You're not going to see a G5 that costs much less than that, and especially not with a built-in LCD like the iMac has. Really, is $1,845 all that much to pay, for the machine that you're talking about? That's what a 1.6 with 1 GB of RAM and a Radeon 9600 costs, if you cut out the modem and downgrade to a combo drive. When the revisions come, I'm fully expecting the bottom end machine to be somewhere between 2.0 and 2.4, and quite possibly a dualie.

Maybe then, with the prices on componenets most likely sliding down some as IBM picks up production of higher-rate parts, we might see an iMac that starts to be what DHM wants. My guess, when we see them, is that the iMacs will spec something like this:

15" LCD
1.6 970FX @ 800FSB with PowerTune active
256MB PC3200
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
80 GB SATA
SuperDrive
AE and Bluetooth ready
$1499

17" LCD
1.8 970FX @ 900FSB with PowerTune active
256MB PC3200
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
120 GB SATA
SuperDrive
AE and Bluetooth ready
$1899

20" LCD
2.0 970FX @ 1000FSB with PowerTune active
512MB PC3200
Radeon 9600
120 GB SATA
SuperDrive
AE and Bluetooth ready
$2299

Even nicer if it was a real cut down 1.6, with user access and with a PCI card or two for the semi-pros with their desires. The mini-G5PM :D

No, I think that would be a terrible dip into Apple's past, where the product line grew too much. If you need expandability, the towers are a very viable option. If you don't need it, then you don't need a tower.

I'm still waiting for someone to show how, compared to the iMacs, a low-end tower is a bad buy for anything other than space reasons.

[jsw]

I'm still waiting for someone to show how, compared to the iMacs, a low-end tower is a bad buy for anything other than space reasons.

Can't be done. Assuming current models and prices, the low-end tower is a better deal. Teamed with a CRT, it's cheaper than the 20" iMac.

[~Shard~]

Can't be done. Assuming current models and prices, the low-end tower is a better deal. Teamed with a CRT, it's cheaper than the 20" iMac.

I agree with that one - pretty much a no-brainer.

So here's something wild and "out there" for you to ponder over. What if the G5 iMac IS released soon, however Apple changes it's platform/product line-up such that eMacs become the new low-end consumer model, the PowerMacs stay as the high-end pro model, but the iMac shifts into a mid-user model, more of a digital hub? They could sport most of what's in a 1.6 G5 PM right now, with of course limited upgradeablility, and end up being more expensive, as a new "mid-range" model - let's say over $2000 for arguement's sake. What about that?

Just some wild, crazy speculation, I doubt it will happen myself - just always like thinking a little bit outside of the box and stirring up the pot... :cool:

[titaniumducky]

I agree with that one - pretty much a no-brainer.

So here's something wild and "out there" for you to ponder over. What if the G5 iMac IS released soon, however Apple changes it's platform/product line-up such that eMacs become the new low-end consumer model, the PowerMacs stay as the high-end pro model, but the iMac shifts into a mid-user model, more of a digital hub? They could sport most of what's in a 1.6 G5 PM right now, with of course limited upgradeablility, and end up being more expensive, as a new "mid-range" model - let's say over $2000 for arguement's sake. What about that?

Just some wild, crazy speculation, I doubt it will happen myself - just always like thinking a little bit outside of the box and stirring up the pot... :cool:

I'm a little confused here:

The eMac is already the low-end, consumer model, the PowerMac is already the high-end, pro model, and the iMac is already the middle-range, prosumer model. How is what you've suggested, wild, crazy speculation in any way? What's new in this suggestion?

[titaniumducky]

I'm a little confused here:

The eMac is already the low-end, consumer model, the PowerMac is already the high-end, pro model, and the iMac is already the middle-range, prosumer model. How is what you've suggested, wild, crazy speculation in any way? What's new in this suggestion?

I just noticed that I'm a MacRumors regular now! Yeah!!!

[aswitcher]

snip

Maybe then, with the prices on componenets most likely sliding down some as IBM picks up production of higher-rate parts, we might see an iMac that starts to be what DHM wants. My guess, when we see them, is that the iMacs will spec something like this:

15" LCD
1.6 970FX @ 800FSB with PowerTune active
256MB PC3200
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
80 GB SATA
SuperDrive
AE and Bluetooth ready
$1499



I actually think they may drop the 15" and make the 17" widescreen their base...


17" LCD
1.8 970FX @ 900FSB with PowerTune active
256MB PC3200
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
120 GB SATA
SuperDrive
AE and Bluetooth ready
$1899

20" LCD
2.0 970FX @ 1000FSB with PowerTune active
512MB PC3200
Radeon 9600
120 GB SATA
SuperDrive
AE and Bluetooth ready
$2299



I think 512 RAM as standard...Apple have to bite the bullet on this someday.

I think Bluetooth will be standard, and buyers can choose to have the optional Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Those clock speeds are nice.

[Naimfan]

I actually think they may drop the 15" and make the 17" widescreen their base...
I think 512 RAM as standard...Apple have to bite the bullet on this someday.

I think Bluetooth will be standard, and buyers can choose to have the optional Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Those clock speeds are nice.

Those are still TOO EXPENSIVE! As others have pointed out, Apple needs an affordable entry level machine to entice people to switch--but only if Apple is serious about getting people to switch. And a $1900 machine is double what it needs to be.

I'm obviously not privy to engineering costs, parts costs, etc., but I would suggest that Apple needs a competitive machine for $899. THAT would be low enough that a lot of people would think about taking the plunge and getting an Apple. At ~$1900, Apple would limit their market dramatically.

Best,

Bob

[thatwendigo]

Can't be done. Assuming current models and prices, the low-end tower is a better deal. Teamed with a CRT, it's cheaper than the 20" iMac.

That's exactly my point, and what I've been trying to get through to the whiners who keep saying that there's no cheap single-processor machine. ;)

So here's something wild and "out there" for you to ponder over. What if the G5 iMac IS released soon, however Apple changes it's platform/product line-up such that eMacs become the new low-end consumer model, the PowerMacs stay as the high-end pro model, but the iMac shifts into a mid-user model, more of a digital hub? They could sport most of what's in a 1.6 G5 PM right now, with of course limited upgradeablility, and end up being more expensive, as a new "mid-range" model - let's say over $2000 for arguement's sake. What about that?

Actually, I think I said something to this effect some time ago, back when people were first really yammering about the G5 iMac and how it had to, had to, had to come before PowerBooks did. I think it would be a good move, myself, except that I agree with the people who say that the iMac ought to have a little more parity with the pro line. If Apple were to move it into a middle-market, then I'd like to actually see one or two of the suggestions others have made, and perhaps a resurgence of certain older, CRT iMac characteristics.

Were I to actually want one as badly as these people, this would be my dream... Start with a single 2.0 970FX, set to aggressive PowerTune balancing to manage heat as well as possible, put it on the revised ASIC (which is said to be lower wattage and more efficient), and cut the RAM down to two slots that run up to PC3200 (still allows for 2GB, if you really, really want it). Like the older CRT iMacs, include a graphics port that will accept a card that runs at current high-standards (AGP 8X or PCI Extreme seem nice choices) with the connectors to the built-in LCD right there inside the case. Since it's a media station, allow a single PCI-X or PCI Extreme slot for audio add-ons, or whatever, and offer a BTO for some kind of Dolby Digital solution. Have a full range of concealed ports - 2 FW800, 1 FW400, 3 USB-2, VGA Out. Leave SPDIF and S-Video for the card bays, if at all.

Offer it in three sizes: 17", 20", and 23".

Price: $1900-2000 and up, but actually worth it.

I love the current form factor, I think it's brilliant, but you'd have to do something extremely different to manage all that. That's okay, though, because this is Ives, Jobs, and Apple we're talking about. Think Different is the motto, after all. :D

[thatwendigo]

Those are still TOO EXPENSIVE! As others have pointed out, Apple needs an affordable entry level machine to entice people to switch--but only if Apple is serious about getting people to switch. And a $1900 machine is double what it needs to be.

I'm obviously not privy to engineering costs, parts costs, etc., but I would suggest that Apple needs a competitive machine for $899. THAT would be low enough that a lot of people would think about taking the plunge and getting an Apple. At ~$1900, Apple would limit their market dramatically.

Apple isn't in the market for people who want an $899 computer. They offer one, as it is, for educational reasons. I happen to use one, and it's just fine for everything that I need to do every day, like email, web surfing, listening to music, playing a couple of games, and doing a little Photoshopping here and there.

Here's a hint, though... The components in a G5 that we can spec out at retail on the PC side aren't that cheap. A 250GB SATA drive costs about $1 a GB, or a little less, and the Radeon 9800 Pro (PC version, which doesn't have the custom ADC and mac drivers) is about the same price. That's $500 right there, on the top of the line, and a drop to about $300 for the lower end.

Now, I can't give you real figures for the motherboards, ASIC, processors, and so on, but I can extrapolate a little bit. Looking at motherboards for dual Xeons and dual Opterons, there's only one that I can easily find that even really gets close. It's the Tyan Thunder K8W, with dual Opterons and four slots for RAM running to each processor, one AGP 8x, 4 PCI-X, 1 PCI, SPDIF out, Gigabit ethernerr onboad, and standard audio ports. They support SATA RAID (something the G5s don't do on their own), and have firewire 400, but don't have USB 2. The cost? A cool $440 just for the board, and another $600 for the processors (each a 2.0ghz Opteron), which are lower in the scale and not nearly as expensive as the cutting edge ones.

So, that leaves us at around $1550, just for parts. Admittedly, that's retail prices, but I think we can see where this is going... Apple not only has to recoup R&D on the machine itself, they have to recoup on at least some of the parts (ASIC, at the very least, and likely the processors) and the OS. That's not going to be cheap.

[oingoboingo]

So, that leaves us at around $1550, just for parts. Admittedly, that's retail prices, but I think we can see where this is going... Apple not only has to recoup R&D on the machine itself, they have to recoup on at least some of the parts (ASIC, at the very least, and likely the processors) and the OS. That's not going to be cheap.

It's good to put that kind of thing in perspective, because it deflates the kind of arguments where people go "I C4n bu1lD teh 3733+ PC 4 only $350 j00 G5 sux0r5" and we see pages and pages of people fishing out the cheapest PC parts they can find, and then comparing that to a dual 2GHz G5. However, if we're talking about entry level and prosumer systems, it is a little unfair to compare the cost of building a dual Opteron system with a Radeon 9800XT and a 250GB SATA drive...to the cost of the entry level 1.6GHz G5 PowerMac tower.

What I keep thinking throughout this discussion is "what about the Shuttle small form factor PC market?". There is a real explosion in the range and popularity of those 'shoe box' shaped small form factor PCs, and manufacturers are managing to get Athlon 64 chips and high-spec Radeons in there...at good prices too. If companies like Shuttle can stick a hot CPU and GPU into a small little case and cool it with things like heat pipes, then surely Apple will have no problem with something like a 90nm 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz PowerPC 970 in an approximately iMac sized box.

In fact, I think Apple may have more than a little to worry about with those small form factor PCs eating their 'stylish prosumer home machine' lunch. Beige, black, brushed aluminium, iBook white, mini HiFi system...you can pick shoebox PCs up in all kinds of colours and finishes. Team it up with a nice flat panel LCD, and a wireless keyboard and mouse of your choice and I think you've got a nice little 'sexay' looking system...with Athlon 64 muscle if you want it.

Well as we all know, competition is good, so maybe Apple is preparing to deliver a killer blow and everyone on these forums will be too gobsmacked to do anything except re-load the Apple Store page and drool at the new iMacs and eMacs...<cough>

[thatwendigo]

It's good to put that kind of thing in perspective, because it deflates the kind of arguments where people go "I C4n bu1lD teh 3733+ PC 4 only $350 j00 G5 sux0r5" and we see pages and pages of people fishing out the cheapest PC parts they can find, and then comparing that to a dual 2GHz G5. However, if we're talking about entry level and prosumer systems, it is a little unfair to compare the cost of building a dual Opteron system with a Radeon 9800XT and a 250GB SATA drive...to the cost of the entry level 1.6GHz G5 PowerMac tower.

I used the Opteron because it's the only dual-chip 64-bit system you can buy on the PC market, and the Tyan is one of the only boards at Newegg that I came across that also supported similar port, RAM, and I/O formats. Also, a dual Opteron system that's a year old (processor-wise), seems a fair comparison to me, since their price has depreciated as the new ones are released. Also, I rather deliberately chose, and specified, that the card I was comparing is a Radeon 9800 Pro, and used the model that Apple would be buying (128 RAM). If you read carefully, I conceded that a lower card and a smaller drive would cut about $200 from the overall price.

What I keep thinking throughout this discussion is "what about the Shuttle small form factor PC market?". There is a real explosion in the range and popularity of those 'shoe box' shaped small form factor PCs, and manufacturers are managing to get Athlon 64 chips and high-spec Radeons in there...at good prices too. If companies like Shuttle can stick a hot CPU and GPU into a small little case and cool it with things like heat pipes, then surely Apple will have no problem with something like a 90nm 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz PowerPC 970 in an approximately iMac sized box.

I think it'll have to be a bit bigger, for reasons of heat dynamics and the sinks that the G5 will need. You're right that the Shuttle holds a pretty impressive array of components for its size, and I do expect Apple could do something amazing if they really put their minds to it. I just don't think that's necessarily what people really want, because complexity equates to expense, and that's doubly true for Apple.

Well as we all know, competition is good, so maybe Apple is preparing to deliver a killer blow and everyone on these forums will be too gobsmacked to do anything except re-load the Apple Store page and drool at the new iMacs and eMacs...<cough>

We can hope. :D

[Opteron]

thatwendigo, makes some excelent points. as well as the post who was talking about the slim line PC's. You can also buy an 15" ACI notebook, that comes with an Athlon 64 3200 (2GHz,1MB L2 Chache, 400MHz FSB,) R9600M, 60GBHDD 7200RPM HDD, 1GB DDR400, DVD+-RW, etc, for much less than a comparable 15" PB.

I know where I'd be spending my money.
I'm however waiting until BTX is released in a month or so. No doubt apple is as well, DDRII, PCI-Express.

[Naimfan]

Apple isn't in the market for people who want an $899 computer.


No, they're not, and they desperately need to be. They do NOT need to be in the super-cheap market, but they do need to be able to hook people into the Mac at the sub- 1$K market--IF they are serious about switching people and ever growing their market share in computers. Look, even the CFO of Apple said they need to be in the "sweet spot," which he defined as sub $1K. Apple does not have a competitive machine in that price range. And I own and use an eMac--it is a fine machine. But it is not a viable large market machine--not when you can buy a Compaq or other complete package (competent CPU, LCD) for ~$520 at CompUSA. Yeah, granted, it's not a Mac and doesn't run OSX. But it's there, and available, and it will be faster than no computer at all....

Best,

Bob

[jade]

Apple isn't in the market for people who want an $899 computer. They offer one, as it is, for educational reasons. I happen to use one, and it's just fine for everything that I need to do every day, like email, web surfing, listening to music, playing a couple of games, and doing a little Photoshopping here and there.


Unfortunately for Apple's current pricing the VAST majority of computers sold are in the $800-1200. So I agree with Naimfan, Apple needs to be there....where the consumer computers are sold. Apple doesn't need to take over $500 computer market, but Apple is missing the sweet spot by a long shot.

[thatwendigo]

No, they're not, and they desperately need to be. They do NOT need to be in the super-cheap market, but they do need to be able to hook people into the Mac at the sub- 1$K market--IF they are serious about switching people and ever growing their market share in computers. Look, even the CFO of Apple said they need to be in the "sweet spot," which he defined as sub $1K. Apple does not have a competitive machine in that price range. And I own and use an eMac--it is a fine machine. But it is not a viable large market machine--not when you can buy a Compaq or other complete package (competent CPU, LCD) for ~$520 at CompUSA. Yeah, granted, it's not a Mac and doesn't run OSX. But it's there, and available, and it will be faster than no computer at all....

Just as with the games market, it may be that this can't be done without serious redefinitions of the marketing, technological arrangements, or huge compromises in what I think of as the standard of quality in Apple. Cheap computers are cheap for a reason, and that's because they're disposable, substandard, and pretty damn crappy. If you want to see a mac that uses shared RAM and integrated graphics, a dumbed-down processor, a tiny drive, and a whole lot of other components that would turn people away from the OS because of how they weren't any better than the PCs around them... Well, that's the path to take.

The sweet spot is marketed at people who buy at Wal Mart, or who don't know what they're doing with a computer. Macs are already new-uwer friendly, and far better than the PC world is at it, but they're nor for the cheap. TANSTAAFL.

[Naimfan]

Just as with the games market, it may be that this can't be done without serious redefinitions of the marketing, technological arrangements, or huge compromises in what I think of as the standard of quality in Apple. Cheap computers are cheap for a reason, and that's because they're disposable, substandard, and pretty damn crappy. If you want to see a mac that uses shared RAM and integrated graphics, a dumbed-down processor, a tiny drive, and a whole lot of other components that would turn people away from the OS because of how they weren't any better than the PCs around them... Well, that's the path to take.

The sweet spot is marketed at people who buy at Wal Mart, or who don't know what they're doing with a computer. Macs are already new-uwer friendly, and far better than the PC world is at it, but they're nor for the cheap. TANSTAAFL.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, and noted in my original post that I'm certainly not privy to Apples costs. However, IF Apple really does want more people to buy Macs, and to switch, they must provide what the buying public wants. The public votes with their wallet--and they are voting for cheaper, as in sub $1K, computers. When the CFO of Apple says they need to be there, what on earth is the justification for a "consumer" machine retailing for ~$1900? There is none, esp if it is the "entry level." Also remember Anderson said "We will get there...."

Would Apple have to possibly sacrifice some quality to get there? Maybe, but that is a corporate judgment as whether they are better off remaining a tiny niche player or growing larger. My bet is that a ton of people would jump on a sub $1K Mac--Apple could do the original iMac phenomenon all over again. And I'm also confident that the folks at Cupertino are trying to figure out how to do it...

Best,

Bob

PS--I didn't get your tagline "TANSTAAFL" What does it stand for?

[oingoboingo]

Just as with the games market, it may be that this can't be done without serious redefinitions of the marketing, technological arrangements, or huge compromises in what I think of as the standard of quality in Apple. Cheap computers are cheap for a reason, and that's because they're disposable, substandard, and pretty damn crappy. If you want to see a mac that uses shared RAM and integrated graphics, a dumbed-down processor, a tiny drive, and a whole lot of other components that would turn people away from the OS because of how they weren't any better than the PCs around them... Well, that's the path to take.


To drag the eMac back into this discussion, I think that even a price reduction on the current eMac (and maybe increase the standard RAM to 256MB) without too many further modifications could really extend Apple's reach further. In Australia, the base eMac (combo drive, 128MB RAM) costs AUD $1349. If Apple could drop that to AUD $999, then that would be a big psychological barrier broken down. The magic '999' figure is then competitive with the cheap deals Dell constantly advertises here in Sydney (pick up a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday and see what I mean...full colour inserts, full-page ads in the computing section, full-page ads in other sections too...all gloating over their $999 entry level pricing).

As many have pointed out in this thread, the 1GHz eMac is still a capable machine...and with sufficient RAM, makes a solid home web/e-mail/iLife system. But (and there's always a but), not at it's current price point. At AUD $999 (about 25% off current price), maybe the eMac can be used as the same kind of weapon the iPod is being used as...a low cost, low margin, high volume entry path into Apple's world. Hell...imagine a discounted iPod/eMac bundle. If you could walk out of an Apple store here in Australia with an eMac and a 15GB iPod for AUD $1500 together (ie: approximately an AUD $350 discount), that would have to sorely tempt many home buyers away from the cheapy $999 Dell deals shoved in everyone's faces.

BTW, speaking of iPods and the Sydney Morning Herald, there was the usual 'iPod battery life beatup' story last Saturday (no mention that the battery problem was able to be solved by 3rd parties though...), and they mentioned that Apple Centre Taylor Square (dealer in Sydney's inner city) was selling 30 iPods a day last week...and one day in the recent past, they sold 45 iPods in a 2 hour stretch! This might not seem very impressive to the US readers on this forum, but believe me, Apple has nowhere near the presence in Australia as they do in the US. The G5 ad got shown a handful of times last year, and apart from that the only Apple advertising you see in any form of media are for iPods...and before the iPod, you wouldn't know Apple even existed. They don't have the huge, Apple owned Apple Stores like they do in the US...just a much smaller collection of independent dealers, with highly varying levels of service and expertise (in my experience), which basically means picking a dealer is a bit of a crap-shoot.

I'm thinking that a cheaper eMac or iMac and some kind of bundle with the iPod could get a lot more Macs out the door than are currently selling. Ok, too much rambling now. Bye.

[thatwendigo]

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, and noted in my original post that I'm certainly not privy to Apples costs. However, IF Apple really does want more people to buy Macs, and to switch, they must provide what the buying public wants. The public votes with their wallet--and they are voting for cheaper, as in sub $1K, computers. When the CFO of Apple says they need to be there, what on earth is the justification for a "consumer" machine retailing for ~$1900? There is none, esp if it is the "entry level." Also remember Anderson said "We will get there...."

Well, yes, but look who they elected as president. We can't trust them to vote for anything sensible. :rolleyes:

Would Apple have to possibly sacrifice some quality to get there? Maybe, but that is a corporate judgment as whether they are better off remaining a tiny niche player or growing larger. My bet is that a ton of people would jump on a sub $1K Mac--Apple could do the original iMac phenomenon all over again. And I'm also confident that the folks at Cupertino are trying to figure out how to do it...

I have no doubt that Apple is working on a way to build cheaper macs, and that they'd like to have something that would be competitive in that space. The problem is, of course, that the market is already flooded down there. Everyone and their bastard fifth-cousin in the computer manufacturing industry has a low-end machine down there. It's a losing game, and it's one reason why all those companies aren't turning profits, even if they sell more units than Apple.

PS--I didn't get your tagline "TANSTAAFL" What does it stand for?

It's from Robert Heinlein's book The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, or that's where I was first exposed to it. It means, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."

[thatwendigo]

To drag the eMac back into this discussion....

I'm thinking that a cheaper eMac or iMac and some kind of bundle with the iPod could get a lot more Macs out the door than are currently selling. Ok, too much rambling now. Bye.

Well, for starters, the US eMac is $799 for the base model. You know those computers that need to be under $1k? They are, and for what most everyone who isn't a child uses a computer for, the eMac is perfectly fine. I do just about everything but serious gaming on this thing, and it's not even a member of the current generation. I did opt to expand the RAM to 512, and that's worked out well for me, and I really don't get much in the way of slowdowns on anything day-to-day.

We've hit a wall, folks. Short off some amazing breakthrough, computers are as fast as people actually need them to be, right now. A 700mhz G4 does what Grandma wants it to, pretty quickly, and doesn't eat up the power or put out the heat of an x86 chip. This machine has one fan. One. It doesn't even run all the time, especially not when I let the display go to sleep.

I just uptimed. It's been 12 days since I last rebooted, and that was for an installer. Before that, it was however long it had been since a security update, since I religiously apply those. With my Superdrive, my external speakers, and my iPod, this things serves as the hub of my entertainment life. I'd love to have a faster machine, but it really wasn't a bad buy.

[oingoboingo]

Well, for starters, the US eMac is $799 for the base model. You know those computers that need to be under $1k? They are, and for what most everyone who isn't a child uses a computer for, the eMac is perfectly fine. I do just about everything but serious gaming on this thing, and it's not even a member of the current generation. I did opt to expand the RAM to 512, and that's worked out well for me, and I really don't get much in the way of slowdowns on anything day-to-day.

I knew the eMac would be under US $1000. I don't know what the 'magic number' for computer pricing in the US is though...maybe it's $599, but the eMac is $799? I don't know...can someone in the US comment? In Australia, AUD $1000 is about as low as you see brand-name systems go for, and you can get quite a decent system for that money. All I was theorising was that even without any major system updates, an AUD $999 eMac (plus even a little advertising) could really light a fire under Apple's sales here. Any Australians care to comment?


We've hit a wall, folks. Short off some amazing breakthrough, computers are as fast as people actually need them to be, right now. A 700mhz G4 does what Grandma wants it to, pretty quickly, and doesn't eat up the power or put out the heat of an x86 chip. This machine has one fan. One. It doesn't even run all the time, especially not when I let the display go to sleep.

For many tasks, yes (I'm deliberately steering clear of gaming in this instance, but I still think it's important). But for the whole 'digital hub' aspect of Apple's apparent pitch, wouldn't you say that things like video editing are big CPU and disk hogs? It's something that people at home didn't really think about using their machines for a few years ago. Now Apple bundles one of the best entry-level video editing apps available, for free. Where there are spare CPU cycles, there will be new apps available to eat them up.

Geez I should really close my macrumors Safari window and do some work :)

[thatwendigo]

I knew the eMac would be under US $1000. I don't know what the 'magic number' for computer pricing in the US is though...maybe it's $599, but the eMac is $799? I don't know...can someone in the US comment? In Australia, AUD $1000 is about as low as you see brand-name systems go for, and you can get quite a decent system for that money. All I was theorising was that even without any major system updates, an AUD $999 eMac (plus even a little advertising) could really light a fire under Apple's sales here. Any Australians care to comment?

I'm in the US, but I can't really comment. I avoid that market segment like the plague that it is.

For many tasks, yes (I'm deliberately steering clear of gaming in this instance, but I still think it's important). But for the whole 'digital hub' aspect of Apple's apparent pitch, wouldn't you say that things like video editing are big CPU and disk hogs? It's something that people at home didn't really think about using their machines for a few years ago. Now Apple bundles one of the best entry-level video editing apps available, for free. Where there are spare CPU cycles, there will be new apps available to eat them up.

One word: XGrid.

I've got the tech beta running on my network. Essentially, I have a cluster that, when proper programming shows up, can share out tasks across the machines and reassemble the packets. When you need extra cylces, your machine can look for idle time on a virtually neighboring box and chew it up (if the settings are right). This will probably be of more benefit to print shops, video editors, and so on, who can leave their machines on for coworkers to benefit from while they're not active, but it's still a cool idea.

[jade]

I'm in the US, but I can't really comment. I avoid that market segment like the plague that it is.



One word: XGrid.

I've got the tech beta running on my network. Essentially, I have a cluster that, when proper programming shows up, can share out tasks across the machines and reassemble the packets. When you need extra cylces, your machine can look for idle time on a virtually neighboring box and chew it up (if the settings are right). This will probably be of more benefit to print shops, video editors, and so on, who can leave their machines on for coworkers to benefit from while they're not active, but it's still a cool idea.

Yeah but that macs another assumption...you have 2 macs to use it with. What if you only have one ...or you have a PC???

[aswitcher]

I knew the eMac would be under US $1000. I don't know what the 'magic number' for computer pricing in the US is though...maybe it's $599, but the eMac is $799? I don't know...can someone in the US comment? In Australia, AUD $1000 is about as low as you see brand-name systems go for, and you can get quite a decent system for that money. All I was theorising was that even without any major system updates, an AUD $999 eMac (plus even a little advertising) could really light a fire under Apple's sales here. Any Australians care to comment?


:)

Well an eMac for <$1000 would be amazing in Australia.

Currently the low end model is $1349.

It needs a RAM upgrade for $77 to 256 RAM to be even remotely usable.

So thats $1426...

The US is $799 which is what about $1075 or something + RAM...

So yes, a sub $1000 would be amazing but unlikely....

[aswitcher]

Those are still TOO EXPENSIVE! As others have pointed out, Apple needs an affordable entry level machine to entice people to switch--but only if Apple is serious about getting people to switch. And a $1900 machine is double what it needs to be.

I'm obviously not privy to engineering costs, parts costs, etc., but I would suggest that Apple needs a competitive machine for $899. THAT would be low enough that a lot of people would think about taking the plunge and getting an Apple. At ~$1900, Apple would limit their market dramatically.

Best,

Bob

I am not talking about taking on PC users at the low end. I am talking about machines at the pro-consumer...an area that the G4iMac has slipped away from because of its processor and associated hardware.

eMacs are around $900 with decent ram for switchers who want something servicable and cheap. That markets covered, although a few upgrades and tweaks are due.

[nargot]

Well an eMac for <$1000 would be amazing in Australia.

Currently the low end model is $1349.

It needs a RAM upgrade for $77 to 256 RAM to be even remotely usable.

So thats $1426...

The US is $799 which is what about $1075 or something + RAM...

So yes, a sub $1000 would be amazing but unlikely....

It is quite likely for education users (which the emac is aimed at). As it is 1,268 now, and could possibly drop that little bit more to $999 to compete with the dell boxes that are pushed to institutions nowdays.

[aswitcher]

SNIP

As many have pointed out in this thread, the 1GHz eMac is still a capable machine...and with sufficient RAM, makes a solid home web/e-mail/iLife system. But (and there's always a but), not at it's current price point. At AUD $999 (about 25% off current price), maybe the eMac can be used as the same kind of weapon the iPod is being used as...a low cost, low margin, high volume entry path into Apple's world. Hell...imagine a discounted iPod/eMac bundle. If you could walk out of an Apple store here in Australia with an eMac and a 15GB iPod for AUD $1500 together (ie: approximately an AUD $350 discount), that would have to sorely tempt many home buyers away from the cheapy $999 Dell deals shoved in everyone's faces.

SNIP

I'm thinking that a cheaper eMac or iMac and some kind of bundle with the iPod could get a lot more Macs out the door than are currently selling. Ok, too much rambling now. Bye.


If they could do this then I pray they would make sure that the base machine of the new rev had at least 256RAM, else people are immediately going to whinge about performance...

I think it would be a winner at that price point, I just don't know how feasible that is. :rolleyes:

[aswitcher]

It is quite likely for education users (which the emac is aimed at). As it is 1,268 now, and could possibly drop that little bit more to $999 to compete with the dell boxes that are pushed to institutions nowdays.

Yep...some sort of package.

Another option is OEM copies of the new Microsoft Office when it comes out, to keep the price down and make Switchers move more comfortably across...

Maybe the next eMac rev at $1499 with the new MS office, 256 RAM (512 if they can), the swivel stand...would handle most Consumer level stuff easily...

Link in a deal with the iPod or anyone who purchases an iPod Mini - a great student/school package if they bundled that for under $1999

[nargot]

Yep...some sort of package.

Another option is OEM copies of the new Microsoft Office when it comes out, to keep the price down and make Switchers move more comfortably across...

Maybe the next eMac rev at $1499 with the new MS office, 256 RAM (512 if they can), the swivel stand...would handle most Consumer level stuff easily...

Link in a deal with the iPod or anyone who purchases an iPod Mini - a great student/school package if they bundled that for under $1999

For sure, its going to be a big let down if they don't do something smart like that. Apple really need to make a move in australia as they are being pushed out of institutions again (granted some institutions are getting more macs, but in brisbane its more of the opposite). If they can release a g5 emac setup as above, i'll buy one to replace my dated imac.

[oingoboingo]

If they could do this then I pray they would make sure that the base machine of the new rev had at least 256RAM, else people are immediately going to whinge about performance...

I think it would be a winner at that price point, I just don't know how feasible that is. :rolleyes:

Yes, the standard RAM is an joke, and desperately needs to be increased. Even if that $77 for the extra 128MB is passed straight on to customers, the default 128MB configuration should be dropped...it's not even enough to meet the minimum iLife '04 requirements, and does nothing except leave a bad taste in the mouth of any new eMac purchaser.

I also agree that in 'real life', an AU $999 price point is probably not something that Apple can achieve (well I'm sure they *can* achieve it, but they don't *want* to achieve it). Maybe we'll see some kind of substantial discount on the old 1GHz eMac when its replacement comes along...even pricing the old eMac at $999 until stocks run out or for a month-long sale could do a lot to introduce new users to Mac OS X. However, I have even less faith in Apple Australia to pull something like this off than I do in Apple USA. Perhaps Apple wants a 1% market share this year to make it easier to do financial calculations...after all you only need to divide total PC sales by an even 100 to come up with your figures! GO STEVE GO!!!

[aswitcher]

Yes, the standard RAM is an joke, and desperately needs to be increased. Even if that $77 for the extra 128MB is passed straight on to customers, the default 128MB configuration should be dropped...it's not even enough to meet the minimum iLife '04 requirements, and does nothing except leave a bad taste in the mouth of any new eMac purchaser.

Its a wonder they can bundle iLife with a machine not really capable of running it properly. It screws up the whole, iLife is Office for the rest of your life thing...


I also agree that in 'real life', an AU $999 price point is probably not something that Apple can achieve (well I'm sure they *can* achieve it, but they don't *want* to achieve it). Maybe we'll see some kind of substantial discount on the old 1GHz eMac when its replacement comes along...

That would be a start, but I agree Apple Australia are far from aggresive at marketing. One wonders what they really do apart from stick up iPod posters. US deals on ram and now the 23" screens, and nothing for the already overpriced Aussie market...

[nargot]

...That would be a start, but I agree Apple Australia are far from aggresive at marketing. One wonders what they really do apart from stick up iPod posters. US deals on ram and now the 23" screens, and nothing for the already overpriced Aussie market...

Well nextbyte's service sucks, i went in today and was treated like a moron for a perfectly simple question that they should have been able to help me with (twice now this has happened). And i'm going to have to start a thread about this problem so someone can try and fix it for me... now that aside... The problem with just selling ipods is that if service is bad, people are not going to deal with them. Apple need to get competitive with both prices and customer service (which apple centres used to be good for) especially in metropolitan areas

[aswitcher]

Well nextbyte's service sucks, i went in today and was treated like a moron for a perfectly simple question that they should have been able to help me with (twice now this has happened). And i'm going to have to start a thread about this problem so someone can try and fix it for me... now that aside... The problem with just selling ipods is that if service is bad, people are not going to deal with them. Apple need to get competitive with both prices and customer service (which apple centres used to be good for) especially in metropolitan areas

If a Sydney sider www.macmall.com.au is good for prices and not bad on advice.

I've been looking to switch for 6 months now and not a single person has said or posted a nice thing about Apple Australia...
My own calculations on exchange rate suggest to me they are making an additional healthy profit on what I understand are already high margins for the computer world...20-35%+ Like a $1000+ AUD above US for Pro machines...

Hopefully June will bring some rationalisation to the Australian market :(

[oingoboingo]

Well nextbyte's service sucks, i went in today and was treated like a moron for a perfectly simple question that they should have been able to help me with (twice now this has happened). And i'm going to have to start a thread about this problem so someone can try and fix it for me... now that aside... The problem with just selling ipods is that if service is bad, people are not going to deal with them. Apple need to get competitive with both prices and customer service (which apple centres used to be good for) especially in metropolitan areas

Which NextByte store are you talking about? I was recently looking for a mini DVI to TV out adapter for my 1GHz 12" PowerBook, and after a fairly amusing encounter at AppleCentre Broadway (they didn't actually know that the 1GHz 12" PowerBook had a mini DVI port...yep...talk about knowing your products well) I tried NextByte in the CBD.

I stood there with a friend for 15 minutes waiting for someone who could help me out. I think there were 6 staff members in the shop...one of them was getting an order from the storeroom out the back for a customer, but the other 5 staff were on the phone...for 15 minutes straight. It was like a call centre! All I needed was to ask and pay for my $35 TV out adapter. During that time, a number of other people in the store wandered in, looked around, stood about for a few minutes (presumably waiting for someone to help them), and then walked out.

At least when someone became available, they knew exactly what I was talking about, got the part from their storeroom, and ran it through the register in about 30 seconds. But between AppleCentre staff not even knowing the basics of the products they sell, and having all store-front staff on phones for 15 minute stretches, it's a wonder Apple sells anything at all through their AppleCentre stores. But it's not much better dealing with Apple Australia directly.

I bought my G5 through Apple Australia's web site. When it arrived (about a month past the due shipping date), it crashed non-stop. A few phone calls to Apple, and they determined it was dead on arrival (DOA). Would Apple Australia pick it up? No...I had to take the afternoon off from work and take it to an AppleCentre myself (and then it took another 2 weeks for a replacement G5 to be provided). How does Dell manage to provide *on-site* next business day service on everything they sell? I had an Inspiron 4100 before my PowerBook, and its IBM Travelstar hard drive died about 18 months after purchase (Dell's 3 year extended warranty was only around $300, so I bought it. What is AppleCare for a PowerBook? Around $500?!?!). I called Dell, and the next morning a technician arrived at my office with a new hard drive, swapped it out in about 5 minutes, and then let me keep the old one to attempt data recovery...including a padded box to send back to Dell. Oh yeah...I got a free upgrade from the 4500rpm 40GB version to the 5400rpm 40GB drive too!

At least we know that we're not being singled out for 'special treatment' in Australia...Apple's warranty sucks worldwide.

[nargot]

Which NextByte store are you talking about? .

Brisbane.

So it looks like the same your side of the country too. As you mentioned Dell's warranty was better and its amazing someone actually buys stuff from these apple centres. So how does apple australia stay afloat?

[aswitcher]

SNIP

At least when someone became available, they knew exactly what I was talking about, got the part from their storeroom, and ran it through the register in about 30 seconds. But between AppleCentre staff not even knowing the basics of the products they sell, and having all store-front staff on phones for 15 minute stretches, it's a wonder Apple sells anything at all through their AppleCentre stores. But it's not much better dealing with Apple Australia directly.

Yeah, Netxbyte Sydney have been like that to me a few times...


I bought my G5 through Apple Australia's web site. When it arrived (about a month past the due shipping date), it crashed non-stop. A few phone calls to Apple, and they determined it was dead on arrival (DOA). Would Apple Australia pick it up? No...I had to take the afternoon off from work and take it to an AppleCentre myself (and then it took another 2 weeks for a replacement G5 to be provided). SNIP

At least we know that we're not being singled out for 'special treatment' in Australia...Apple's warranty sucks worldwide.

Thats pretty bad. NO thats really bad. For the delays, hassles etc Apple should have at least given you some sweatener like a $250 gift voucher, or an offer of same in software or something...

[aswitcher]

Brisbane.

So it looks like the same your side of the country too. As you mentioned Dell's warranty was better and its amazing someone actually buys stuff from these apple centres. So how does apple australia stay afloat?

They charge 25-35% or more above US retail.

They rarely seem to match or do foreign specials like the ram and 23" screen offer on now...

They hold a monopoly on importation into Australia so that there is no competition to bring in products at a significantly cheaper (not 5% guys) prices

They have no store front to put a public face on them for customers to shame them face to face for things like poor service etc

:mad:

[PismoGuy]

I just bought an emac for the wife and after less than a day we decided to return it. Slower than a slow dog in Slowsville, it seemed to me to be deliberately handicapped by the lack of ram. Bring on the new models!

Slow?!?
I have an 800Mhz eMac with stock RAM of 256MB. It ran nicely; smooth and snappy, but now that I added another 512MB its beautiful. It even manages to run unreal tournament 2003 at 20-50 fps on most maps at normal settings and its video card is slower and the AGP slot is half the speed of the new ones. You had a Nice ... Nice eMac all you needed was a lot of ram. But if it doesn't satisfy you I guess it is your business.

speculation on new iMacs and eMacs:

I assume and dearly hope that the iMac will be bumped to a G5, maybe an underclocked 1.6Ghz chip running @ 1.4 as the base line (depending on the speed of upcoming towers)

eMac ..... hummmm.... lets see now; I believe the eMac will still be a G4, with its top model running hopefully @ 1.42 maybe 1.5 if possible. I think the current design will be kept for one more revision and then redone for the G5 chip.

I would like to see apple give costumers the option of choosing a video card for the iMac. It is a wonderful computer that is fairly quick, has a beautiful display, and a great shape, I would buy one myself for my dorm but a better vid card is a must(and more vid memory). Especially on the 17" and 20" iMacs. does anyone see this happening?

[~Shard~]

I would like to see apple give costumers the option of choosing a video card for the iMac. It is a wonderful computer that is fairly quick, has a beautiful display, and a great shape, I would buy one myself for my dorm but a better vid card is a must(and more vid memory). Especially on the 17" and 20" iMacs. does anyone see this happening?

Unless Apple breaks with its model, I unfortunately don't see this happening, although I think it would be a nice feature. Apple has designed and marketed the iMac as an "all-in-one" machine so that they don't have to incur extra costs (theoretically) by customizing the guts - one simply machine, all-in-one, mass produce, done. However, sicne you can technically upgrade the HD, RAM, etc., this kind of disproves this theory...

At any rate, I'd love to see it too, but it seems like the iMac is the "all-in-one" solution, with the PM towers being the upgradeable machines...

[jsw]

Unless Apple breaks with its model, I unfortunately don't see this happening, although I think it would be a nice feature. Apple has designed and marketed the iMac as an "all-in-one" machine so that they don't have to incur extra costs (theoretically) by customizing the guts - one simply machine, all-in-one, mass produce, done. However, sicne you can technically upgrade the HD, RAM, etc., this kind of disproves this theory...

At any rate, I'd love to see it too, but it seems like the iMac is the "all-in-one" solution, with the PM towers being the upgradeable machines...

I think you're right that it's unlikely given the current iMac form factor, but I also agree that it would provide a lot of potential buyers an added reason to get the iMac without fearing that it'd be out of date soon after purchase.

[floyd_gadget]

Brisbane.

So how does apple australia stay afloat?

I'm begining to wonder the same thing. All i can think of is that they market/service the education arena better than the rest of their customer base.

The April Australian Macworld editorial points out the problems with Apple Australia's current pricing, he included pricing for a 15" powerbook (superdrive)like in the table below:

Country......RRP...............$US...............$AUD
USA........2599 USD ...........-..................3500
AUST......4799 AUD ........3563..................-...
UK..........1999 GBP.........3628................4880
Swed......27995 KR..........3717................5007

What he pointed out was that at the current pricing it would be cheaper to buy a plane ticket to Hawaii, purchase a Powerbook from the local reseller, stay a couple of nights and then return to Australia.
I haven't done the maths on this but taking into account duty free im thinking it'd be correct. Whats also weird is that in the UK, which I'd presume is a bigger market than Australia, they pay a higher premium than we do.

So personally i'm happy to pay a premium for an Apple over a PC for obvious reasons. But when a company is completely ignoring the fact that the Australian dollar is strong at the moment and hoping their customers do the same I start to get annoyed and feel like people are getting ripped off. Luckily for myself the education discount conteracts this.

[aswitcher]

I'm begining to wonder the same thing. All i can think of is that they market/service the education arena better than the rest of their customer base.

The April Australian Macworld editorial points out the problems with Apple Australia's current pricing, he included pricing for a 15" powerbook (superdrive)like in the table below:

Country......RRP...............$US...............$AUD
USA........2599 USD ...........-..................3500
AUST......4799 AUD ........3563..................-...
UK..........1999 GBP.........3628................4880
Swed......27995 KR..........3717................5007

SNIP
But when a company is completely ignoring the fact that the Australian dollar is strong at the moment and hoping their customers do the same I start to get annoyed and feel like people are getting ripped off.

This is a big issue for me, Apple Australia's extortionist pricing...I wont switch if what I am after comes out and does not at all reflect the exchange rate...its just too rude paying $1200+ more when at most it should be like $500 to cover GST, shipping - given they get them wholesale for a lot less...

[CmdrLaForge]

This is a big issue for me, Apple Australia's extortionist pricing...I wont switch if what I am after comes out and does not at all reflect the exchange rate...its just too rude paying $1200+ more when at most it should be like $500 to cover GST, shipping - given they get them wholesale for a lot less...

The same is true for europe. Just see it like that. Apple is a US company and US costumers comes first, and second, and third.

Just be happy that the allow you to buy their great stuff at all.

[nargot]

The same is true for europe. Just see it like that. Apple is a US company and US costumers comes first, and second, and third.

Just be happy that the allow you to buy their great stuff at all.

I am happy to buy it, i just bought a new machine. However, the pricing structure problems hampered my choice... which is both good and bad. Good because i spent less money, bad because i could have used extra features (and the trip to hawaii sounds like fun :D )

True apple is a USA company, that doesn't mean that the prices should be so over-inflated tho.

[aswitcher]

The same is true for europe. Just see it like that. Apple is a US company and US costumers comes first, and second, and third.

Just be happy that the allow you to buy their great stuff at all.

If I went to Honolulu tonight I could get a fare on Qantas for $709+ taxes, and come back saving $400+. Not to mention the frequent flyer points this would give me, + opportunity to buy some duty free etc, and a chance to see a little of Hawaii if I stay a few nights...oh and get a mini ipod...

If only the G5PBs were out...

[nargot]

If I went to Honolulu... If only the G5PBs were out...

Waikiki... and another new laptop... oh how i need the holiday ;)

[fenlyn]

Ever since this rumor came to pass, I've been tracking the inventories of iMacs. There was a $250 off promo for Employee Purchase Plan participants for the 20-inch that last until last Saturday in what I call an inventory clearing promo. I've also been looking at Macmall's stock numbers. They have roughly 200 left of each iMac model. As for the G5's, they just in the past couple of days received about 500 of the DP 1.8s. It's obvious those haven't been EOL'd. They have about 2000 DP 1.8s in stock and about 1600 DP 2.0s in stock.

If they were to announce new G5's this coming week, these resellers would lose some unbelievable amounts of money in the price difference after the price drops compared to how much they had to pay for each item.

We're definitely going to see some iMacs (and MAYBE an updated eMac) in the next week or so. There can be no doubt after looking at these numbers.

Edit: For that matter, iBook and Powerbook stocks appear to be very small as well. Maybe those were EOL'd too?

Brad

[aswitcher]

Ever since this rumor came to pass, I've been tracking the inventories of iMacs. There was a $250 off promo for Employee Purchase Plan participants for the 20-inch that last until last Saturday in what I call an inventory clearing promo. I've also been looking at Macmall's stock numbers. They have roughly 200 left of each iMac model. SNIP

We're definitely going to see some iMacs (and MAYBE an updated eMac) in the next week or so. There can be no doubt after looking at these numbers.

Edit: For that matter, iBook and Powerbook stocks appear to be very small as well. Maybe those were EOL'd too?

Brad

Well maybe they will release new iMacs with the same form factor, better bits to tide us over for 3 months when the for factor change comes...

And yes new PBs are on the cards, but it will only be a minor G4 upgrade unless Steve gets to do his show introducing them.

[rdowns]

Ever since this rumor came to pass, I've been tracking the inventories of iMacs. There was a $250 off promo for Employee Purchase Plan participants for the 20-inch that last until last Saturday in what I call an inventory clearing promo. I've also been looking at Macmall's stock numbers. They have roughly 200 left of each iMac model. As for the G5's, they just in the past couple of days received about 500 of the DP 1.8s. It's obvious those haven't been EOL'd. They have about 2000 DP 1.8s in stock and about 1600 DP 2.0s in stock.

If they were to announce new G5's this coming week, these resellers would lose some unbelievable amounts of money in the price difference after the price drops compared to how much they had to pay for each item.

We're definitely going to see some iMacs (and MAYBE an updated eMac) in the next week or so. There can be no doubt after looking at these numbers.

Edit: For that matter, iBook and Powerbook stocks appear to be very small as well. Maybe those were EOL'd too?

Brad


WHen I worked for an Apple reseller, when products were EOL'd, you filed for price protection and received a credit but the inventory was yours. Hard to imagine they don't still do this.

[oingoboingo]

The same is true for europe. Just see it like that. Apple is a US company and US costumers comes first, and second, and third.

Just be happy that the allow you to buy their great stuff at all.

Yes, I have a small shrine next to my G5 dedicated to Steve Jobs and spend a few quiet moments in prayer each day before booting up, thanking him for providing me with an opportunity to purchase his amazing products!

I hope you're joking, but so many people post comments like that seriously...and then can't understand why Apple has barely more than 1% of the computing market.

[CmdrLaForge]

Yes, I have a small shrine next to my G5 dedicated to Steve Jobs and spend a few quiet moments in prayer each day before booting up, thanking him for providing me with an opportunity to purchase his amazing products!

I hope you're joking, but so many people post comments like that seriously...and then can't understand why Apple has barely more than 1% of the computing market.

:D I AM KIDDING :D I AM KIDDING

[Zaty]

And yes new PBs are on the cards, but it will only be a minor G4 upgrade unless Steve gets to do his show introducing them.

It's been 200 days since the last the last release! PB are definitely comming later this months, my guess is April 20.

As for the iMac, they might be announced on the same day as the PBs.

[aswitcher]

It's been 200 days since the last the last release! PB are definitely comming later this months, my guess is April 20.

As for the iMac, they might be announced on the same day as the PBs.

An extra 75 days is hardly going to break Apple if they do hold out to the WWDC. But if its just a G4 bump, then I think they'll let it go early BUT may still announce the G5PB at the WWDC shipping then or within a few months...

[paulsecic]

According to Appleinsider (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=394), the eMac and iMac have been "end of lifed" (EOL'd).

End of life status on products occurs when products are discontinued or about to be upgraded.
I don't believe it!