Macworld SanFrancisco 2002

[MacAztec]

What do you expect apple to release this year at the SanFrancisco convention? I think there will be a new LCD iMac with a more expandable and beefed up interior. I really would like to see a return of the G4 Cube. In my opinion, that was the neatest computer ever made. Maybe a Apollo G4, G5?

[Falleron]

iMac with tv tuners

[MacAztec]

Apple is not going to make an iMac that you watch TV on. Apple is first in making COMPUTERS, then, if that goes well they will make some sort of PDA. Apple never really focused on TV, they focused on digital.

[rekras]

all people who think apple is going to reintroduce the cube are idiots

[Falleron]

Apple will not make a PDA!! Computer + TV's are converging! Therefore, it would make sense to incorporate tv cards.

[MacAztec]

So, I am an idiot for believing that the cube will return one day? Why do you think the cube stopped being made? It was ahead of its time. Now, apple has nice displays, faster computers, and better operating systerms. I think you are the idiot...

[MacAztec]

Originally posted by Falleron
Apple will not make a PDA!! Computer + TV's are converging! Therefore, it would make sense to incorporate tv cards.

Geeze, computers and TV are not being integrated. That maybe on AOL, but not on a mac. People may download movies and watch them, but nobody wants to spend $1000 on a computer that watches TV. Why not just get a 100 dollar TV with a bigger screen?

[Falleron]

The cube was ahead of its time! However, putting a tv card in a computer is not expensive and will add an extra dimension to the computer. I am not saying I particularly want one, but I think apple might go down this route. We shall see in january!

[blackpeter]

Never really thought of it, but I'd pay an extra $100 or so to easily split my DirecTV feed into my Mac. Obviously I'd only be able to change channels through the sat-tuner, but it'd be fun to have a little T.V. window on my desktop for Sunday work-mornings with the NFL package.

...oh yeah, and it'd also be an EXTEMELY LOGICAL addition in an iMac that (let's say) burns DVD's. I know I have a ton of old home videos that I'd love to consolidate on to one DVD. Maybe even 'record' a few of my favorite shows directly on to my Mac.

[oldMac]

Makes perfect sense for a dorm room. Makes even more sense when shipped with a remote that also controls iTunes.

[MacAztec]

You know, that is not a bad idead now that i think of it.

[menoinjun]

I would really like to see an iMac with video inputs other than just firewire. I know this might seem like backpedaling, but most people simply can't afford a digital video camera. Maybe sound and video RCA inputs like the older Powermacs on the new LCD iMac would be great. You could plug a VCR or a Hi8 camcorder into those and import your movies. Sony just came out with a desktop that has those, and I think it's a great idea.

By the way, there will be no superdrive on imacs until:

a...they have G4s. The G3 cannot handle DVD encoding.

b...there is a slot loading superdrive available, and that probably wont happen for another year or so.

You may as well give up on that idea now so that you aren't dissappointed come MWSF. I don't forsee a high end iMac having a G4 and superdrive also because the price would make it compete with the low end G4, which has a much better chance of getting the superdrive. Think about it...an iMac/G4/Superdrive/LCD would probably have to run close to $2000. Apple's price point on it's slowest tower is $1699. One could get that and a good CRT for a total of $2000. No way would computers so similar be sold at the same time. Look for 700-900mhz imacs with LCDs and 1ghz-1.4 ghz apollo G4's in the desktop lines. The MHZs of the lines can't overlap, so unless the the Apollo chip is faster than previously thought, look for a max of 900mhz on the iMacs. I also think a price drop is in the works for their LCDs. Maybe even drop the 15 for only the iMacs, and add a 19 inch LCD at the 17" price point.

-Pete

[dantec]

Somehow my local Macstore "made" a cube load in TV singals and display them in OS X. But now they no more have cubes and they are not displaying TV anymore (it was MTV).


If Apple was ever concentrated only on computers... WHAT WAS THE MACTV FOR? (looked like a black boxed all in one kinda thing)

[Falleron]

QuickTime via the net maybe??

[jefhatfield]

i agree that a tv is a very intriguing idea for a mac

steve jobs uses sony as a role model like he has often said

it looks like he has modeled the apple store after a sony theme store (i have seen both and they are very similar) and he has gone the ultra thin, metallic laptop route which sony first invented

sony now has some impressive "do it all" type supercomputers for the home which act as a digital center for work and entertainment in the higher end of their vaio series, so i wouldn't be suprised if apple came out with a computer which had tv capabilities

the tv idea and the dvd on computer does not sit well with me personally and at the studio where i have my business, i have never found myself comfortable enough at "my work desk" to sit at the computer and watch a whole movie all the way through on dvd

i mean, come on, it's my work desk and i rather like being a fatass american and watching my movies while i am on the couch all bundled up...i think i am fat though because i am a typical sedintary techie and as a group, we are not the chippendales ;-) but i used to have a good body...really...but that is ancient history

...HOWEVER I HAVE THREE QUESTIONS:

what do you people do with a dvd on your desktop?

do you find it comfy enough to sit through a whole movie?

and if there were a tv built into a mac, would you be comfortable enough to watch some shows?



[Edited by jefhatfield on 12-09-2001 at 11:02 AM]

[Falleron]

Its not an ideal situation to be watching tv on a computer. However, if the computer is not in an office I dont see why you couldn't have a comfy chair to watch DVD's or tv on. I do this already. The only problem is that you need a decent sized screen (iMac 15" CRT is too small if you want to sit a distance away + still be able to see it!)

[oldMac]

The iMac TV has an audience. Students.

College and high school students with limited space in their room. This is probably the only audience that ever got substantial use out of their DVD.

Personally, my future children will never have a TV in their room before they go off to college, but quite a few americans are comfortable with that, so...

My little sister took her original 233 iMac to college and then added speakers, a larger hard drive and SoundJam (and probably Napster) to make it double as a stereo.

Throw in a remote control and a TV card and it makes a very nice dorm room sized TV. Put in a combo drive and now you're talking. Add the ability to upgrade to a larger screen,and now you're *really* talking.

[jefhatfield]

it's been many years since i finished college or lived in a dorm so i didn't think of that aspect

see everybody learns here on macrumors

btw, your sister has a cool setup in her room!

when i was younger, i could have stood on my head and watched an entire movie without throwing my back out...i guess i just need that couch nowadays

[kaneda]

That is a great idea to intergrate Computer and TV together. I little browser on your computer that you can watch tv. Maybe you can even hookup your cable tv to your computer. And I don't have to turn behind me to watch tv while I am working on my computer!

[AmbitiousLemon]

wow i knew you people were old but damn. talk about generation gaps. you guys really have no clue what young people are doing with their computers nowadays do you?

first off dvd players. you really dont know why computers have dvd player??!?! wow. well since you all seem to be buisiness types hows this for you: buy a dvd player (or have one standard on your mac) for like $40. have video out card (or have it standard on your mac) and now you have a dvd player for your tv. compare that to paying a few hundred bucks for you vcr style dvd player and that makes sense. but this isnt even a fraction of the reason we have dvd players in computers. besides the obvious increase in storage capacity versus a cd, there are a few other reasons.

kids arent just downloading mp3s (thats so last century). we are downloading movies and tv shows. if you guys knew about the thousands of dvd ripping and tv show ripping rings you might understand what im saying. i have fraggle rock on my computer. i have all the simpsons episodes. i have all the jackass episodes. i have the tick, malcolm in the middle, the sopranos, etc etc etc. the computer is the center of the college students entertainment (if they could integrate beer consumption with computers kids would never leave their dorm rooms).

why do you think we have 100+gig hard drives? do you really think its just for video editing? not that many video editers kiddos. when you have a few hundred movies and a few dozen tv series in addition to your 10 gigs of mp3s you start getting a little cramped for space.

do you know what g4s are known for in the college community? g4s are very good at ripping tv shows and dvds.

will people use a tv tuner in an imac? hell yes. that would make ripping those tv shows so much easier. you know how fast the wait at the airport goes when you can sit down and watch any movie or any tv show you want? the other day i was in the airport and there were some kids who were very restless and their parents were going nuts. i turned on my computer started the little mermaid and the kids settled down and watched.

not everyone is sitting at a desk at work playing with excel. not everyone is a video editor. lots of people have macs at home, in their dorm rooms, even in the kitchen (dont ask). most older people dont use the full capability of their machines, but those of us who have grown up with these machines have fully integrated them in our lives and we definitely use our computers to the furthest extent of their capability, and most of us are asking for much more.

will the new imacs hav a tv tuner card? probably not, but that certainly doesnt mean it wouldnt be useful. would i be comfortable watching tv on my computer? well usually i just hook it up to the tv but i have lots of fond memories of college sitting in a dorm room with a few dozen people all sitting around watching a movie on a computer monitor .

[hinkhous]

Talk about the best of both worlds...

I just watched Memento on DVD, on a computer, on my sofa. I put my TiBook on the coffee table, plugged in my stereo speakers via a minijack adapter, and sprawled with my wife for a few hours of dramatic mystery in reverse. If you haven't seen Memento, I suggest you do.

If you don't have the mobile pristine DVD playback capability that is the TiBook, I'm sorry for you. I've mirrored the DVD signal to the TV, but the screen resolution is so much worse that I much prefer to watch on the LCD. Everything is so crisp on the Ti--digital makes all the difference.

If Apple is ready to release an LCD iMac with a DVD drive, then the rest of the world will know how good DVD can look on something other than a CRT. If they could offer that for under $1000 they would have a huge winner on their hands!!

Here's hoping!

[Falleron]

Apple has in the past released an iMac with a DVD drive. They then decided to go with the CDRW drive.

[moby1]

...to be in college and have a T1 line at your disposal!

I may be old but I'm...zzzzzzzzzz

[spikey]

Is it completely out of the question to think that if the G5 is cheap enough to produce then couldnt it be put in an imac before a tower?
After all the G3 was put in the imac before the towers wasnt it? (yes then and now are 2 very different market situations for apple but its the only example i could think of)

[Falleron]

I cant see it happening because Apple has to stay commited to using large amounts of G3 chips from IBM! Otherwise they risk loosing support from IBM. That would be very bad considering the rumours surrounding Apple + Motorola

[AmbitiousLemon]

Originally posted by Falleron
I cant see it happening because Apple has to stay commited to using large amounts of G3 chips from IBM! Otherwise they risk loosing support from IBM. That would be very bad considering the rumours surrounding Apple + Motorola

very true. the sad thing about this is that itunes, quicktime, and macosx are all much faster with a g4. i rip a cd on my g3 and im lucky to get 2x speed. i rip on a g4 and i get 12x. quicktime in osx basically cant run at all on a g3, so jittery its completely useless. and although 10.1 has sped things up for us simple things like window resizing are much better on a g4 than on a g3 (even though its unacceptably slow on both). despite all this id prefer to maintain the ibm-apple relationship. i just keep hoping ibm will buy out moto's semiconductor department as soon as moto gets to that point. maybe then we will have ibm quality and g4 speeds in one chip.

[Falleron]

I think that forthcoming chips from IBM will have "altvec" like functions! I read that somewhere, so I think this should make a big difference, but when this happens I dont know! Is this function included in the new range of IBM G3's running up to 1Ghz? (I dont thinks so, but could hopefully be wrong)

[Scab Cake]

Hey Ambitious Lemon!!

It looks like you and I are in the same boat. I just got my G4/867 this semester and I use it for EVERYTHING. From physics labs to watching the Tick to listening to music to just letting my computer sit there and look pretty. I do EVERYTHING with my computer. And it seems that there are so many more people then last year that are using their computers like you're talking about. It's funny how there are so many people on this board who never realized how multi-purpose the computer is nowadays. And now that VPC 5 came out for OS X, I can get rid of my Win2k box and do my assembly programming and other work-related junk on that! It's a great time to be a student with a computer and a T1 line. :) Now, if only ASU didn't block those hotline/limewire/file sharing ports from 7 A.M. to 12 A.M. every day.........

[AmbitiousLemon]

Originally posted by Scab Cake
Hey Ambitious Lemon!!

It looks like you and I are in the same boat. I just got my G4/867 this semester and I use it for EVERYTHING. From physics labs to watching the Tick to listening to music to just letting my computer sit there and look pretty. I do EVERYTHING with my computer. And it seems that there are so many more people then last year that are using their computers like you're talking about. It's funny how there are so many people on this board who never realized how multi-purpose the computer is nowadays. And now that VPC 5 came out for OS X, I can get rid of my Win2k box and do my assembly programming and other work-related junk on that! It's a great time to be a student with a computer and a T1 line. :) Now, if only ASU didn't block those hotline/limewire/file sharing ports from 7 A.M. to 12 A.M. every day.........

ah the tick, i just finished getting all of the tick episodes, do you have tick love santa? go watch it now if you do. i noticed a change here at berkeley two years ago. most kids older than the freshman class of two years ago just dont seem to use their computers. im always wowing the postdocs and grad students with what i can do and i think im slowly teaching them. they all have these tipowerbooks or dual g4s that they just dont use. and the connection here is faster than ive seen anywhere (ive gotten over 1mb/sec!). id like more integration with stereos. woudlnt it be nice to have your 50cd jukebox stereo hooked up to your computer so you get get tags for all the cds, rip the cds. and make a playlist with your cds and your mp3s all combines and also throw in all of your music videos and hook it up to the tv as well.

Originally posted by Falleron
I think that forthcoming chips from IBM will have "altvec" like functions! I read that somewhere, so I think this should
make a big difference, but when this happens I dont know! Is this function included in the new range of IBM G3's running up to 1Ghz? (I dont thinks so, but could hopefully be wrong)


that would be sweet, and make a lot of sense. since so many of apple's new apps seemt o be taking advantage of altivec (even the os) seems like something like this has got to happen. sure hope it happens soon. i think we would have heard something if it was happening in january, but if they do it before 2003 i will definitely consider buying a g3 (i like ibm better so even though the g5 will be faster i might go g3 just to avoid moto).

[CrazzyEddie]

You guys are forgetting things like the ATI TV connector for USB! That can turn any USB-enabled computer into a TV!! Sure the quality may be a little shakey over USB, but its still TV. And if you want to record it, it does that too, you can turn your computer into a freakin movie database if you have HBO or something like that. And as far as taking all of your CDs and putting them onto your Mac, that couldnt be simpler now that we have iTunes! And even on my G3 it rips at around 2.5x - 3x, not blazing, but fast enough if you are watching TV at the same time! You can also use other USB connectors to import video from cameras, DVD players, VCRs, etc... And they all cost less than $100, sounds like a steal to me. And as far as hooking the iMac up to the TV, its easy as pie. You know that mini-vga connector on the back of it? Well, if your smart, you will figure out that connector is the same as on the iBook. And apple sells a connector for the iBook that has RCA hook ups... anyone catching on here? You could get one of those, and run them over to the TV and have a 32-inch screen. And with that GeForce2 MX, it shouldnt have too much of a problem with frame rates and refresh rates.