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Education iMac: For Institutions Only
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You are right. However, Apple continued to use the G4 in lots of products while still selling other G5 based products.illegalprelude said:
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I can almost swear the initial press release announced this as an "institutional purchase only" product. I was actually surprised when students or teachers claimed they could order it as well. Maybe they just noticed their mistake and pulled it from personal purchase channels.
diablojota said:
iMac - speed bump (Yonah goes up to 2.33 GHz)
Mac Mini - price drop (tad bit over priced compared to the educational iMac)
That's exactly what some are speculating. Which means Apple pulls products like this if they are too unpopular (not enough education sales to justify the product) or if they are too popular (enough education sales to cut into their non-education sales).Hector said:
I doubt that's the reason, because the same is true of every other education deal. Apple chooses how tough to be about verifying student status, knowing that some people always try to beat the system.OldSkoolNJ said:
hyperpasta said:
Yes. Absolutly. I still hear the argument that Macs are expensive. For example my brother needed a new computer. Even the lowest price Apple computer would cost something like $700. His budget was $250. He was able to buy a generic 2Ghz Celeron mini tower. The $250 system was fast enough for normal email and web browsing. He didn't say that the Mac Mini was "over priced" just that it was "expansive" there is a difference.
Apple simply ignores the low end and this is what most people buy.
They do really need a $399 entry level machine.
Maybe the $899 iMac is a holdover for people who need to buy now. August 7 could have something that is much nicer than that...next gen eMac?
Didn't they do something like this with the eMac when it first came out? It took them a while to release that eventually to the public. My guess is what happened is that they relized that there was a lot of demand for these amongst students and teachers and got worried that they wouldn't have enough to supply the schools. Lets face it, in terms of educational markets landing a school is a big deal. Losing a few individual sales is not. The institutional deals are where the money is in education. Conisdering that its now July and summer vacation there may be a number of schools in the process of upgrades.
Either way, I really do feel it is time for Apple to drop their prices not raise them like they have with their entire product line. Most of the world is not made of money, in particular small businesses. Apple really needs to start thinking about that market. the eMac worked really well for small businesses. $800 for an all-in-one. Now you can get a headless mini for $800 add in a monitor and a keyboard and mouse and you're creeping up on $1,000. It's really hard for an IT person to convince the boss to buy a new $1,000 computer when they see eMachines at Walmart for under $500. Sure Apple's are better than an eMachine, but does someone who will be word processing and browsing the internet really need a core duo, isight, etc. etc. etc.
Either way, I really do feel it is time for Apple to drop their prices not raise them like they have with their entire product line. Most of the world is not made of money, in particular small businesses. Apple really needs to start thinking about that market. the eMac worked really well for small businesses. $800 for an all-in-one. Now you can get a headless mini for $800 add in a monitor and a keyboard and mouse and you're creeping up on $1,000. It's really hard for an IT person to convince the boss to buy a new $1,000 computer when they see eMachines at Walmart for under $500. Sure Apple's are better than an eMachine, but does someone who will be word processing and browsing the internet really need a core duo, isight, etc. etc. etc.
that'd be nice!Superdrive said:Maybe the $899 iMac is a holdover for people who need to buy now. August 7 could have something that is much nicer than that...next gen eMac?
hmm. Dell used to sell top of the line computers. Used to be the quality computer to get. Now they're, um, catching on fire in very select instances and generally kind of cheap feeling. Maybe Apple computers could stand to lose a little bit off the price, but i'm not wanting Apple to turn into Dell just like Dell turned into Dell. Yes, Dell sells the most computers, but i don't want any of them.
baleensavage said:
That was my first thought too. Maybe they got enough response from non-schools that they are worried the supply wouldn't hold up to get the schools stocked before the new school year.
Just like the eMac originally being this way, I think once school is in full swing and Apple is caught up, we'll see these offered to teachers and higher edu students.
Leoff said:
This isn't as hard to pull off as it looks.
Let's take the $399 Mac mini as an example. Starting with the current $599 model, we need to take it down $200. First, the Mac mini is now five months old. We know its overpriced, since the MacBook Pro has had TWO processor speed boosts during the time that the Mac mini has been availible. In addition, Yonah chips will be price-dropped dramatically when Merom is released. Other components have probably become cheaper too. Let's say that the cheaper components add up to a $150 price drop. Reasonable.
Now if we chop the HD to 4200 RPM and 40GB, remove Bluetooth, and use slower RAM, we could easily shave off another $50.
Laugh at this configuration all you like, but I'm much more likely to buy a $399 computer to use as a streaming media box on top of my TV than a $599 one.
It also works great for the average family. Us on MR tend to expect more from our computers. This $399 Mac mini configuration would be perfectly capable of holding large-sized iTunes and iPhoto libraries, maybe some light video editing here and there, making music with GarageBand, publishing a blog with iWeb, video conferencing, browsing the internet, etc.
And with the next revision, it could easily be improved upon.
Wow, my mom got really lucky. This Saturday, my family went to the Apple Store on 5th Avenue, and my dad and I were finally able to convince my mom (a special ed. teacher) to switch to a Mac. So my dad ordered the education iMac for my mom on Sunday, and it'll ship tommorrow.
If it wasn't for the edu. iMac, my dad probably wouldv'e ordered a Mac mini, bu tthe iMac was such a better deal (my mom doesn't use bluetooth or burn DVDs).
If it wasn't for the edu. iMac, my dad probably wouldv'e ordered a Mac mini, bu tthe iMac was such a better deal (my mom doesn't use bluetooth or burn DVDs).
bigmc6000 said:
I agree with you in a lot of ways.....being a business major, I understand the need for margin on a product....HOWEVER, Apple should first be interested in gaining MARKET SHARE. With this little $899 baby, Apple had a chance to really market a one-size-fits-all solution for many families. For instance, I work at Best Buy in computer sales and I see NO NEED for anything past Intel Integrated Graphics on the computers we sell to 75-80 percent of the people that come in a purchase a computer. The educational iMac would have been PERFECT for the masses, a computer that's more than capable for what most people want to do with it, with the capability for a little bit of gaming as well. Anyone who needs more can get the one with the graphics card.
I agree with the fact that margin has to be made, but there comes a time when you have to gain market share. Once you've done that and the volume of business you are doing is much greater than before (and your competitors are in the dust, much like I would like Dell and Windows to be), you can increase your margin and please the shareholders....
My two cents, Apple messed up on this one, hopefully we see that iMac configuration or a similar model on the market soon...
bcharna said:
How about a Core Solo? I thought they were about as fast as an early G5. Plus the Intel graphics are actually faster for 2D stuff (playing video, for instance) than an accelerator card with 64MB of VRAM.
Macrumors said:
Obviously because allowing students and teachers to purchase the machine would just anger regular consumers and increase the calls for the machine to be available as a regular item to everyone.
And that would lower sales of other, higher cost, iMacs. Duh.
I don't know why the Celeron keeps coming up. I and others think it's quite likely Apple could drop the price on the current Core Solo $599 unit to $499 based on the reduction of costs of the CPU, chipset and other components, now that they are 6 months old... In fact they might even be able to use a faster Core Solo processor at the same time. If the prices haven't dropped yet they will soon, real soon. Merom is just around the corner...bcharna said:
iMikeT said:
Yes, it was even available retail at places like CompUSA.
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I think a much more reasonable price point would behyperpasta said:
Mac Minis at $499
iMacs at $999
MacBooks at $999
MacBook Pros at $1499
Mac Pros at $1499