New Price Scheme Points to iMac Intro.

[Flyers486]

With the "new" PowerMac g5s premiering today with a low end price point at 1999$ and the eMacs debuting a bit back at a high price of $999 does it not seem that an iMac update is iminent? The eMac has become the sub-$1000 mac, the powermac the 2000$ and up machine with little differntiaition for the iMac in between. Also, their remains a huge processor gap between the eMac/iMac and PowerMac and no gap between the eMac and iMac. Its time for apple to update the iMac to G5 status and distance it from the low end eMac. With Tiger being previewed at WWDC, perhaps this is the time to roll out the first consumer 64-bit system to match the 64-bit possibilities of Tiger?

Greg

[QCassidy352]

Apple just said that the cooling issues preventing a G5 powerbook also apply to imacs. Also, WWDC is a developer conference - I don't know about a consumer product being released there.

However, the imacs *desperately* need an update. They aren't just a bad deal anymore; they are an utter embarrassment compared to both emacs and powermacs.

[andrewm]

With the "new" PowerMac g5s premiering today with a low end price point at 1999$ and the eMacs debuting a bit back at a high price of $999 does it not seem that an iMac update is iminent? The eMac has become the sub-$1000 mac, the powermac the 2000$ and up machine with little differntiaition for the iMac in between. Also, their remains a huge processor gap between the eMac/iMac and PowerMac and no gap between the eMac and iMac. Its time for apple to update the iMac to G5 status and distance it from the low end eMac. With Tiger being previewed at WWDC, perhaps this is the time to roll out the first consumer 64-bit system to match the 64-bit possibilities of Tiger?

I suppose that a decent strategy, yes, would be to retain the eMac as the low-end machine; the iMac as a single-processor G5 (equivalent in effect to the previous single-processor models, perhaps?); and the pro lines, from now on, being all-dual.

As a retrospective reflection that is slightly off-topic, I sold my Rev. A 450 MHz G4--four years old or so--awhile back for $400 (that may or may not be a decent price, but bear in mind that I had added a $500 processor upgrade in the preceding weeks, as well as a new, $150 Radeon 8500--so I actually lost some money :)). I realise that with the money that I put into that machine, trying to extend its life, I spent close to, if not more than, a thousand dollars over the course of several months. I could have instead simply purchased an eMac that would have been more current, had three or four times the hard drive space, had far more RAM, and working FireWire ports (I forgot to mention that those had burnt out on the G4).

If the low-end eMac now is equivalent to, or better than, the top-of-the-line Rev. A G4--I can only imagine what the low-end eMac will have on my G5 dual 2.0 GHz in a few years. (I suppose that the eMac is not expandable, whereas the G4 is; but even the expansion slots were a bit outdated--PCI, rather than PCI-X; AGP 2x, rather than AGP 8x.)

The times, they are a-changin'…

(Sorry for any OT content.)

[windowsblowsass]

i dug up a post seemingly confirming the imac g5 rumors

uncle zeppy said this on the blocked in china thread




It used to blocked here in Shanghai but now it's working again. I thought first maybe the reason is the Apple store; you can check the prices around the world and then go to local Apple store and complain, and end up getting the laptop from Hong Kong or some other country. Then I realized the store is accessible directly (store.apple.com). The blockage was annoying mostly because even the Chinese website has always worked (www.apple.com.cn) there were some things I needed to see in English.

I think in the future things might be the otherway around, the Chinese Apple site will be blocked from outsiders. According to my source all the Apple computers are made in China and there will be cheaper models targeting the local market. The new iMac G5's are made here but production is very slow (lack of CPU's?). They must be just filling the pipeline.

it was in the apple blocked in china thread notice the last three lines

[Kwyjibo]

they introduced the isight at WWDC last year ... thats a consumer product for ichatAV ... a significant change in a line needs a big event like WWDC , it doesn't have to be a huge feature and it might reach out to younger developers .....