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$499 Headless iMac?
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Can you blame them? I mean really...
Consider the following: You plan a surprise birthday party for your wife, girlfriend, husband, boyfriend, rock, tree, goat...whatever holds your affections, and your friend, who you have trusted to arrange the event with you, INTENTIONALLY leaks the surprise. I'm not talking about slipping up in casual conversation, I'm talking about premeditated leaking of information. Imagine how pissed off you'd be. I mean seriously, you'd outright question the validity of your friendship, perhaps terminate it.
Now, extrapolate. Can you really blame Apple for taking action on public displays of misinformation fueled by speculation of the highest order? I want to be clear, I've been a Mac user literally since 1984. I am supremely interested in new hardware of all things Apple and cherish each January's keynote. But wondering aloud is an unmistakenly tenuous area in commerce, and the line between financial/periodical journalism and user-driven rumor sites is admittedly difficult to discern. I do not doubt that Jobs goes to sleep each night loving the fanaticism of his beloved 02.5% market share Mac users, but when one of the things we love him for [secrecy that leads to astonishing product development] becomes exploited, I for one completely understand any action taken.
Sorry for the rant. I think it's just unfortunate when fun-loving chat about technology gets ugly and infested with financial speculation.
JM
Consider the following: You plan a surprise birthday party for your wife, girlfriend, husband, boyfriend, rock, tree, goat...whatever holds your affections, and your friend, who you have trusted to arrange the event with you, INTENTIONALLY leaks the surprise. I'm not talking about slipping up in casual conversation, I'm talking about premeditated leaking of information. Imagine how pissed off you'd be. I mean seriously, you'd outright question the validity of your friendship, perhaps terminate it.
Now, extrapolate. Can you really blame Apple for taking action on public displays of misinformation fueled by speculation of the highest order? I want to be clear, I've been a Mac user literally since 1984. I am supremely interested in new hardware of all things Apple and cherish each January's keynote. But wondering aloud is an unmistakenly tenuous area in commerce, and the line between financial/periodical journalism and user-driven rumor sites is admittedly difficult to discern. I do not doubt that Jobs goes to sleep each night loving the fanaticism of his beloved 02.5% market share Mac users, but when one of the things we love him for [secrecy that leads to astonishing product development] becomes exploited, I for one completely understand any action taken.
Sorry for the rant. I think it's just unfortunate when fun-loving chat about technology gets ugly and infested with financial speculation.
JM
Platform said:
yep, i'm hoping for earlier rather than later tiger release, the headless iMac and decent iWork with good compatibility and feature match with Office (but much better, of course!).
The headless iMac and iWork (whatever the names turn out to be) should be enough to switch my Dad whose PC has just ground to a halt for the 100th time!!
donnie3000
I read through the Yahoo story and it is VERY AMBIGUOUS about when this suit was filed and what it is for. Is it for the cheapMac? Is it for Asteroid? Or is it for both? We know for sure that Apple sued a bunch of sites (TS included) regarding the Asteroid thing. But that was before the cheapMac rumor broke out. Has Apple filed another legal action (or amended the previous one) to stop the cheapMac rumor??? As of this morning (Wed. Jan. 5th), TS and AI still have the cheapMac rumor up.Zaty said:
I'd argue that this is simply the case of sloppy reporting. eWeek isn't exactly the NYTimes or the AP. eWeek seems barely a notch above the rumor sites they're quoting. My guess is that eWeek is blending a bunch of different, discrete news bits and giving it their own spin.
Thinksecret is generally pretty smart about when they drop major bombs. They usually wait until the last minute before the unveiling so that Apple doesn't have time to react legally. Personally, I don't see why Apple would hold offf on the cheapMac announcement. MWSF is the perfect venue to announce such a product, especially if they're tying it together with the iPod. Technically speaking, the cheapMac is just a repackaged iBook; they shouldn't have any problems in terms of the CPU yield or the production of it.
tex210 said:
I second this idea, until it has a name, lets stick with the only true name we know of! I am looking forward to buying my first Q88!
Found this on another site.
Would this Sub $500 Mac be the thawing out of the Cube?
>CUPERTINO, CaliforniaJuly 3, 2001Apple® today announced that it
will >suspend production of the Power Mac G4 Cube indefinitely. The
company said >there is a small chance it will reintroduce an upgraded
model of the unique >computer in the future, but that there are no
plans to do so at this time.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/jul/03cube.html
if anyone does not remember look here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube
Would this Sub $500 Mac be the thawing out of the Cube?
>CUPERTINO, CaliforniaJuly 3, 2001Apple® today announced that it
will >suspend production of the Power Mac G4 Cube indefinitely. The
company said >there is a small chance it will reintroduce an upgraded
model of the unique >computer in the future, but that there are no
plans to do so at this time.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/jul/03cube.html
if anyone does not remember look here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Mac_G4_Cube
wdlove said:
I always thought that the new headless mac would be like a new cube but didn't the Cube cost something like $2000 for the base models?
With the fact that Apple left it open to the chance that the Cube could come back makes you think. It would make more since to name it the Cube2 or something than an iMac since the iMac is all about all in one.
Wouldn't that be interesting? A cube2? Or maybe a cubeLC? Picture apple doing the cube all over again, but targeting it to switchers and such. I'm picturing the aluminum enclosure of the PM, 1.6 G5, accompanied by speed bumps for the imacs and powermacs. All the sexy of the cube, none of the overblown price. Maybe 699 for topend, with more ram and bigger HD. People would still buy it at that price if it had a G5. Now that would be sweet. I'm a little tired of white plastic anyways.
iFaulder said:
For the same reason there was never a Macintosh III (i.e., no wish to remind folks of Apple the III), there likely won't be a Cube2. Apple typically doesn't try to resurrect names of products that were sales flops. This would be especially wise here because the Cube was, indeed, perceived as overpriced and overly "arty" by the pre-iPod days when the Gates-cowed masses were wary of anything with an Apple logo on it. To say nothing of the "it's-cracked/it-just-looks-that-way" thingie...
iFaulder said:
Yes, that was one of the downfalls of the Cube - it's price point in relation to the iMac and PowerMac. The top vent and slot-loading drive didn't help either...
And I agree with the other poster, Apple will not resurrect the name of a failed product, so I doubt this system will have anything resembling "cube" in its name.
bwintx said:For the same reason there was never a Macintosh III (i.e., no wish to remind folks of Apple the III), there likely won't be a Cube2. Apple typically doesn't try to resurrect names of products that were sales flops. This would be especially wise here because the Cube was, indeed, perceived as overpriced and overly "arty" by the pre-iPod days when the Gates-cowed masses were wary of anything with an Apple logo on it. To say nothing of the "it's-cracked/it-just-looks-that-way" thingie...
Indeed. It will no doubt follow the simplicity and elegance lines of the iPod.
JM
Liquidog said:
That would be great, but no way they sell an aluminum cube with G5 for $699 (or $999 or even $1299.) It would completely undercut the low-end PowerMac.
(as well as pretty much every computer they sell.)
Apple did file suit against TS over headless iMac and iWork stories
After reading it for the third time, I now see what you mean, one could interpret the text in a different way than I did before. So you're right in saying the story is ambiguous.
EDIT: Just after finishing my post I came across this report from Mac Minute:
Link:http://www.macminute.com/2005/01/05/thinksecret/
So I interpreted the story correctly, Apple did sue TS! This also pretty much confirms the story! Bring on the headless iMac!
dongmin said:
After reading it for the third time, I now see what you mean, one could interpret the text in a different way than I did before. So you're right in saying the story is ambiguous.
EDIT: Just after finishing my post I came across this report from Mac Minute:
MacMinute said:
Link:http://www.macminute.com/2005/01/05/thinksecret/
So I interpreted the story correctly, Apple did sue TS! This also pretty much confirms the story! Bring on the headless iMac!
Zaty said:
Interesting! Looks like the ThinkSecret story on the cheapMac is still up, wonder how long that's gonna last....
Apple trying to take down rumours sites?
This is off topic but after the latest developments, I thought I would post this here nevertheless. Since Apple has filed suit against everyone who apparently broke news about future Apple products, could this mean that respected owners of rumours sites such as TS might be forced to stop running their sites?
This is off topic but after the latest developments, I thought I would post this here nevertheless. Since Apple has filed suit against everyone who apparently broke news about future Apple products, could this mean that respected owners of rumours sites such as TS might be forced to stop running their sites?
I don't see any reason why the Cube couldn't be brought back. It was just a design before its time. At the time that ended production of the Cube they left the door open for its return. There have been so many predictions, that there has to be one that will be very close to the final $499 Mac.
A contrary opinion
The commodity PC market is a tough one. Apple has become profitable again (since the NeXt takeover) by selling expensive premium products.
Could this be, in fact, a last-ditch desparate attempt to build market share by entering the cut-throat sub-500 computer market? After all, that "switch" campaign didn't do a lot to build market share, and neither did the "halo effect."
It may be their only choice, but it may not help the company "grow into" their current valuation at 90+ time trailing earnings. I think their stock may be in for a tumble.
The commodity PC market is a tough one. Apple has become profitable again (since the NeXt takeover) by selling expensive premium products.
Could this be, in fact, a last-ditch desparate attempt to build market share by entering the cut-throat sub-500 computer market? After all, that "switch" campaign didn't do a lot to build market share, and neither did the "halo effect."
It may be their only choice, but it may not help the company "grow into" their current valuation at 90+ time trailing earnings. I think their stock may be in for a tumble.
GFLPraxis said:
Exactly, and they actually made 2004 slower than v.X and it still doesn't benefit from DP or G5 optimizations. I don't mean to get off topic, but my point was that Windoze users expect snappy performance in their main apps, and Office is what many PC users spend all day using, so this new Mac will need to be able to run Office and other programs very fast or they won't attract new users.
If only they had released the Cube at $499 (about all it was really worth) instead of $1799, it would have been a monster hit!wdlove said:
