Rendering of \

Thats a cool rendering, but the screen size seems a little bit off, as many people seem to agree (I think he got the size from the PowerBook G4). The landscape setting of the screen does not seem to fit the iMac line, either. The iMac, up till this time, has been a square screen. Why would they change it to a landscape mode like that? It only suits watching DVD's, and many people that have a computer already have a DVD player for their TV. So why would they need it? It only cuts off the bottom of documents in appleworks and word, so why change to a landscape?

 

Close, but no cigar

I actually think that the wide aspect ratio is a good thing and that Apple could well move toward that with the new iMac.

I'm a little less convinced that a 17" screen is viable at the price break they're talking about. I'm thinking no bigger than 15" (which provides almost the same viewable area as a 17" crt anyway) and possibly a 14.1".

Also, a top-loading optical drive (á-la the Cube) would allow the design team to significantly reduce the machine's footprint. I think it has the potential to be only minimally deeper than a Studio Display.

 

very slick design

I like that design a lot, and I'd be thrilled to see something similar to it show up next month.

Either that, or a design from the New Species Apple Lab (www.applele.com)...

 

Thin is good (and in, hehe), but remember, thin is expensive. the iMac is sopposed to be the cheap apple desktop, but what your saying "minimally deeper than the studio display" sounds astronomically expensive to me. But that is just me. Apple could probably find a cheap way to do this, just look at how the prices on the Studio display. They dropped $400! so if apple can do anything (besides make awesome computers), is make expensive computers cheap.

 

Thin is in

Well, from a manufacturing standpoint, I don't see a difference (where expense is concered) between producing an iMac using a top-loading optical drive and one using a front-loader. In this instance making the machine thinner is a freebee!

The big area of concern when we're talking about expense is the display. How low can Apple go on this?

 

I remember everyone saying that Apple was loosing their tales on the original iMac...

But since demand was high enough and production was high, they were able to produce amazing profits.

Maybe they will be doing the same thing here?

 

conflict?

is it just me being really dumb (quite possible), or in the near future could the imac conflict with laptops. i think if imacs are meant to be getting so much thinner (which is a v.good thing) wont the imac be too similar to a laptop? and if that happens there will be no room in the market for the imac.......... i suppose weight is an issue but apart from that i cant think of much else that sets the imac apart from a laptop.

hello, michael

 

No way will that go

...remember the target audience for the iMac -- education/kids/families. That design looks wickedly too tippy for anything along those lines. Think "durable and bouncable," whatever it looks like.

That is cool, though.

 

iMac will go LCD by July...

A reliable source of mine in Apple's distribution scheme who predicted for me before the rumor sites reliably about the PowerBook G4 debut says the next upcoming Mac World will be the announcement of at least three things:

1. OS X graduation: An improved version of OS X (10.1 - Puma?). Apple currently has hundreds of programmers on the OS X project. They want it ready by Mac World.. because they are also going to start shipping in July with the OS set to default in OS X, not OS 9.x. They expect to have most of the major bugs including lack of DVD support worked out by then. (That's the only logical reason that they would default it over to OS X, of course)


2. iMac: The new iMac will be displayed featuring a flat panel display, radically redesigned but not too much like the conceptuals people have been putting out.


3. Laptops: Both iBook G3s and PowerBooks G4s will be shipping at 600 Mhz and will both have DVD read/CDR drives.

 

iMac

What if they mad a G3 Cube. Advertised it with a 15 inch lcd, knowing that the buyer would supplement the base cost with a third party crt.

 

Xistor, are you absolutely SURE that the iBook will boost to 600MHZ? Because I almost bought one two days ago, the only thing that kept from it was an indicison on the digital camera i was going to buy. If waiting a month for a new iBook ment that much of an increase I would be crazy to buy one now. How sound is your contact? don't think that I am doubting your friend, but I need to be sure. if you could help me out, that would be great! thanks.

 

new imacs

The bottom of the line ibook comes in at $1300. I'll admit that size has its price, but if you think your going to get an ibook's low end feature set with a 14" screen (or bigger) for prices starting at $900 (and they'll need to have one at that price), you're not being realistic. The 15" screen is $600 alone. I'd bet on a 12 or 13" screen with the ibook's specs.

 

iBook upgrade

PowerUser86:

Pretty sure.. My contact was right about the 1000 progammers Apple has working on the 10.X upgrade project I have confirmed from another Apple source. As for the iBook, we know the 600 Mhz chip is available and Apple has been conducting tests. It would be worth the wait for Mac World New York (mid July) for anyone who wants another 20% speed increase and an upgraded version of OS X (presumably 10.1) on disk (no hours of downloading updates). Put it this way, my contact has never been wrong yet. If he was wrong about this, I'd be surprised.

His predictions I would find more reliable than the current rumors about Apple putting out a FireWire SuperDrive external or a wireless tablet iMac! Although the FireWire external SuperDrive would actually make sense and would be feasable to produce.

 

Thanks Xistor!! I think I will wait for Macworld! Thank you so much for saving me that dissapointment. Do you think that they will have 10.1 ready by mid-July? They're having trouble getting 10.0.5 out the door, so are they working on 10.1 and 10.0.5 at the same time? and about the firewire Superdrive, I would be the first one in line for getting my hands on one. One of my big projects is getting all of my home videos from Hi8 tapes to DVD disks. I would really like to be able to buy maybe a $700-$800 external drive to get this done instead of an expensive new top-of-the-line G4 tower.

 

Wait Xistor, did your contact say anything about an iBook bus speed increase? Cuz' right now it really sucks at a measely 66MHZ.

 

Well, OS 10.1 will be done by Mac World if Apple keeps on schedule. 10.0.4 will be released before then as a pure bug fix and speed improvement. 10.1 has DVD playback and major updates to Java. Java, interestingly, is what is holding back the current 10.0.4 update according to some sites. Perhaps they are addressing the Java bugs that keep things like Hushmail.com and a few other sites from functioning properly.

I don't want to be discouraging, but buying an iMac with an external DVD drive that costs $800 would maybe not be so practical. DV editing (I have done a lot of it, my last project editing 80 minutes down to 12 minutes with effects, transitions and background music etc) requires a lot of processor power. If you don't have a G4, you will spend a lot of time waiting for processing to finish.. On an iMac DV SE, to dump 12 minutes of DV to quicktime took an average of 50 minutes to accomplish. Some codec settings took hours. The G4 with built-in DVD burner is really the only way to go if you are serious, not just because the G4 is needed to cut rendering times down in a big way, but because it's more expandable, and you will not likely see support from Apple for 3rd party DVD burners in their iDVD free software any time soon if ever.. Just a few things to think about. If you can find the money for the 733 with the Super Drive and it doesn't require refinancing your house, then it would be more practical.. I would seriously check that the external drive you are looking to purchase allows burning of DVD-video disks.. Some may only allow burning DVDs in data mode, and some may have very cheesy, BAD software for recording video in a video-DVD player compatible format that may make you want to pull your hair out.

OK, so the 744 Power Mac is probably out of most peoples' reach price wise. That means you have to get an external DVD drive (compatible with Mac and with software that does what you want to do --if any such beast exists).. You should still try to get a minimal G4 system at 500Mhz or faster. You will be happy with the speed of that. The G3 at even 600 Mhz won't be as snappy for DV as a 500Mhz G4 simply because it doesn't have the Altivec engine which boosts these kinds of computationally heavy graphics processing jobs anywhere from 25% to 300% depending on operations. Can you use a G3 to do DV editing? Yes, I've used as slow as a 400 Mhz to do it, but it isn't exactly fun when it comes to the effects processing and conversion stuff which can crawl the computer for hours at a time depending on what you are doing.

If DVD is really just to expensive for now or the only cheap DVD drive setups are inadequate, then fear not. If archiving your home videos is your primary reason for DV, then I suggest this cheaper alternative:

iMac 600 Mhz with CDRW.
Sony Analog to DV converter (or equivalent)
Toast 5 Titanium software.

You can archive them quite successfully in great quality on CDs using Quicktime video and the Sorenson codec as your output option from iMovie. If you have to play them on a DVD player and can't stand only viewing them on a computer, then you can save them using Toast 5 from Roxio to record a CD in CDV format (CD Video) (I believe this is mpg 1 video and audio) which does play both on most computers and most consumer video DVD players.

Hope that helps ya out.

Xistor
http://www.mxormedia.com/OSX/OSX.htm (my OSX bug site)

 

iBook..

PowerUser86:

No, I don't think a bus speed upgrade is in the work for the iBook, remember, it's the lower end lap top. To increase bus-speed requires faster RAM, a different set of chips for bus arbitration (UMA-2 standard?) and a faster harddrive. It would increase the cost of the laptop and Apple would have to pass that on to the consumers. There will have to be a lowering of cost in those areas before it's feasible. Remember Apple did increase a few things on the new iBook already over the last model and kept prices low: stereo sound now instead of mono, a microphone added, a second USB port, an additional new type of multi-video port, and a larger, higher resolution screen. Those things though, were not things of significant added cost (especially the improved screen since Apple bought into that LCD panel plant 2 years back and has been able to lower the costs of screens suited to meet Apple's needs.) I think the only way at this point to get a faster book is to get a Power Book.. or overclock your iBook (not recommended without installing a cpu fan).

 

iMac = G3 Cube

G3 Cube, I'd rather see that instead of an iMac. Hmmmm.