Apple Looking to Launch Lower-Cost iMac in 2014

[patohi]

Think people are still missing something here.

The iPad... you know! death of the pc... This makes owning a desktop less important...

And like I said earlier that budget for a computer families had now includes tablets and iPads...

So there is less money to spend on desktops or laptops!...

Apple has done this to themselves and need to lower prices...

 

[XboxMySocks]

I wonder what their definition of "cheaper" is. The 5C was supposed to be "cheaper" and still cost over $500 unsubsidized.

Oh give it a rest.

The 5C was NOT supposed to be cheaper. It was supposed to be a replacement of the 5.

 

[fat jez]

Oh give it a rest.

The 5C was NOT supposed to be cheaper. It was supposed to be a replacement of the 5.

It was supposed to be cheaper (it is). It's not supposed to be cheap. Different argument

 

[/dev/toaster]

I know what the Brazilian currency is called. The point is the value of the U.S. dollar is very weak and the value of the Brazilian currency quite strong. This imbalance will always have affect of making products priced in U.S. dollars seem relatively cheap. But this is really just an illusion, since we all earn and spend our own currencies, not those of other nations. A person can take advantage of a strong currency in their own country by traveling to countries where the currency is weak.

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Not really. I have already listed four reasons why optical drives are still useful. Your suggestion that "very few people" actually need them is just the imposition of your needs on everyone else.

You are holding on to obsolete technology for obsolete reasons. Because of an old video game ? No CD cracks have existed for ages. Hell, it really helps speed things up because you don't have to go digging up a dinosaur.

Technology goes obsolete. You can't prevent that regardless of the edge cases you present. Currently, you have the option of an external drive. Those won't even be around forever. If you insist on refusing to adapt a no optical drive world, you will be out in the cold.

This reminds me of a friend who went berserk when they stopped activating analog cell phones. His argument was, his phone still works they should support it! He refused to upgrade and he called every carrier he could find, no one would do it.

People clinging to obsolete technology holds back innovation. Just like those complaining about Apple deprecating the 30 pin connector. Friends would complain that they have so many devices that need it!

 

[Poisonivy326]

I don't really know how anyone can really make the argument that DVD's and blu-rays are "obsolete." If they were Amazon wouldn't have such a huge collection of blu-ray releases for sale. People wouldn't be eagerly looking forward to the releases of seasons of Game of Thrones on blu-ray, etc. etc. Blu-ray players wouldn't be a staple of most households.

The issue is that Apple doesn't WANT people watching media via optical drive on their computers. It wants people to download media via itunes. Also, a 21.5" imac and 27" imac ARE exactly the kind of computers people would watch a series of GoT if imacs supported blu-ray.

I have a cMBP and I think the optical drive could be removed without me missing it. But on a desktop? That's purely a business move to increase the chance that people will rely on Apple's app store and itunes.

 

[fat jez]

You are holding on to obsolete technology for obsolete reasons. Because of an old video game ? No CD cracks have existed for ages. Hell, it really helps speed things up because you don't have to go digging up a dinosaur.

So how do you install the game to begin with before applying the no CD crack?

My broadband is lousy. I bought Company of Heroes 2 on DVD recently, expecting to install it from the DVD, which is basically nothing more than an activation key and steam installer. I then had to download 9GB of data before I could play it. Contrast that with Rome Total War 2 which also came on DVD and activated on steam but made use of the DVDs to install the game, meaning I could get up and playing almost immediately.

Both games can be played without the need for a disc in the drive, one made my experience much more satisfying and didn't try my patience.

 

[Woyzeck]

You are holding on to obsolete technology for obsolete reasons. Because of an old video game ? No CD cracks have existed for ages. Hell, it really helps speed things up because you don't have to go digging up a dinosaur.

Optical media is far from obsolete. For example there's not downloadable content that matches BluRay's picture quality. Some software is still only distributed on physical media (for example some operating systems).

 

[topmounter]

The entire point being, the optical drive is not obsolete. No matter what Apple does or anyone says, it's still a needed device for a lot of people. For those people, buying a new iMac also means buying an external drive that previously was included.

Before anyone says this is just like Apple deleting the floppy drive, it isn't. When Apple dropped the floppy, they replaced it with an optical drive. Eliminating all removable media is a bigger step and makes a larger assumption about what people need.

I have a stack of Firewire drives sitting here... just because I own them, continue to use them and third-party manufacturers continue to sell them doesn't mean that I should expect Apple to support them in perpetuity. As with the external Superdrive, they do offer a TB/FW adapter for those that still need it.

 

[blackhand1001]

The point of this discussion is Apple saving costs by manufacturing their own CPU's.

How would Apple using Intel Haswell CPU's help Apple save costs, especially since the A7 is as fast as a low-end Haswell?

Apple will have to use their own CPUs to save costs for a cheap laptop.

Now you are just being stupid. The a7 is not even within 5 times of the power of the slowest haswell chip.

The a7 is neck and neck with Bay trail. It wins some and loses some. When it loses the intel usually trounces it though. Things like face detection and applying photo effects are much faster on Bay trail. X86 handles complex instruction sets much better.

The a7 wins narrowly in sunspider but gets outperformed heavily in Mozilla Kraken, Google Octane.

To expect it to come anywhere close to haswell which outperforms bay trail by several orders of magnitude is just ignorant.

 

[IJ Reilly]

You are holding on to obsolete technology for obsolete reasons. Because of an old video game ? No CD cracks have existed for ages. Hell, it really helps speed things up because you don't have to go digging up a dinosaur.

Technology goes obsolete. You can't prevent that regardless of the edge cases you present. Currently, you have the option of an external drive. Those won't even be around forever. If you insist on refusing to adapt a no optical drive world, you will be out in the cold.

This reminds me of a friend who went berserk when they stopped activating analog cell phones. His argument was, his phone still works they should support it! He refused to upgrade and he called every carrier he could find, no one would do it.

People clinging to obsolete technology holds back innovation. Just like those complaining about Apple deprecating the 30 pin connector. Friends would complain that they have so many devices that need it!

Oh dear, I am obsolete. I must deal with this right away or my tech cred will be totally wiped out. Mustn't have that.

I have provided four reasons why not having an optical drive would be a pain in the neck, and could easily come up several more. Your only argument in response, the only one anybody has made in response, is that I should not have these needs. This strikes me as a ridiculous argument with just enough arrogance added to make it annoying. The fact remains, I do have these needs, and I suspect many many others do as well. Nothing you've said argues anything else to the contrary or provides any solutions to these problems. Sorry, but hacks and cracks don't count.

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I have a stack of Firewire drives sitting here... just because I own them, continue to use them and third-party manufacturers continue to sell them doesn't mean that I should expect Apple to support them in perpetuity. As with the external Superdrive, they do offer a TB/FW adapter for those that still need it.

Apple is still "supporting" optical media, they have simply decided not to include the drives on iMac computers. In fact they still sell an external optical drive, which should tell you that even Apple doesn't consider this technology to be obsolete. I am not saying that this technology is permanent and will never go away, but that it hasn't become obsolete at this very moment simply because Apple has made a design and business decision for their own reasons. That argument just won't wash.

 

[WardC]

DJs and Audio people still use CDs all the time, and the format is still widely used in the audio community for demos, distribution, and recording. PROOF:

Optical drives are still an important and indispensable tool for many people who need the ability to read and write CDs...it's not just a data recorder but an audio production and reproduction tool. The CDR is still a widely used format and will not go away anytime soon....the 74-80 minute CD format is still widely used for production audio albums that are released by major recording labels, and this format is still the primary physical media distribution for audio content. We don't go to the store and buy our albums on Flash Drives do we? And if you wanted to distribute demos to people in person, the easiest way is to hand them a CD recording that you made yourself....many DJs use the self-burned CDR to distribute demos and the ability to record CDR is still a very important feature to have in a professional grade computer.

 

[D.T.]

Apple is still "supporting" optical media, they have simply decided not to include the drives on iMac computers. In fact they still sell an external optical drive, which should tell you that even Apple doesn't consider this technology to be obsolete. I am not saying that this technology is permanent and will never go away, but that it hasn't become obsolete at this very moment simply because Apple has made a design and business decision for their own reasons. That argument just won't wash.

I think that's a good perspective. At the very worst case, Apple has relegated optical to an "optional" peripheral. They sell an Apple branded external drive, the OS supports it, 3rd parties offer solutions ... from this point, you're just not going to get a drive in a machine as a standard component.

I honestly don't think Apple is taking a hard line like some people [not you] are suggesting, I'd say their stance on optical is "most people" don't use them, but even if the minority is 25%, 5% or 0.001%, that doesn't make those user's Use Cases any less relevant.

 

[tongxinshe]

That's the trend. Take gut after gut out of the former "all in one" but keep the price about the same. Eventually, we'll be buying a glorified thunderbolt hub called an iMac and having to attach everything to it to make a computer. It will be spun as the "thinnest and lightest" iMac ever but we'll need to bring everything to the hub to actually get a working computer.

Then, someone will point out that it's just a thunderbolt hub.

And 500 guys will call him a Samsung troll... and praise this as the "headless Mac we've always wanted", the brilliance of Apple and on and on. We all know how it goes.

Hey, you are not supposed to leak this top Samsung secret, not even you changed the company name.

 

[itguy06]

Try doing that on a retina MBP my 2011 MBP has had a memory upgrade (twice, from 4GB->8GB->16GB as my needs have changed) and I've upgraded the hard disk from the standard 750GB 5400RPM drive to a 240GB Samsung SSD. I also use my DVD drive to install MS Office 2011 and Photoshop Elements 10, as well as ripping CDs

The way things are going with Apple I won't have the option to do any of those in the future without either selling my machine or buying an external optical. Oh and did I mention I have an ethernet cable plugged in too?

The Retinas have well known limitations. It's one of the reasons the regular MBP's are still being made.

Again, it took me almost a year to realize I killed the DVD Drive in my MBP when it was dropped. And I didn't pay the insane price for a slot load - $50 USB HP drive got me working the 2 times I've needed it. I don't remember plugging it into my new iMac.

For those that need it, it's available and still 100% supported in OS X.

 

[mozumder]

Now you are just being stupid. The a7 is not even within 5 times of the power of the slowest haswell chip.

The a7 is neck and neck with Bay trail. It wins some and loses some. When it loses the intel usually trounces it though. Things like face detection and applying photo effects are much faster on Bay trail. X86 handles complex instruction sets much better.

The a7 wins narrowly in sunspider but gets outperformed heavily in Mozilla Kraken, Google Octane.

To expect it to come anywhere close to haswell which outperforms bay trail by several orders of magnitude is just ignorant.

Yah you don't know anything. Don't ever state your opinions ever again.

 

[moxin]

Oh well! i always want Apple to do a mini tower with dedicated graphics cards with all desktop parts

 

[diazj3]

You are right. They have not kept iPhone and iPad margins while dramatically increasing sales volume. Just look at the static iPhone sales over the last five years.

Wrong.

This story is about desktop computers. My comments regarding margins mostly refer to computers, where Apple doesn't have a dominant market share, in a mature industry.

About the iPad and iPhone: that's a different story, but with similar conclusions. There, Apple holds a dominant market position. But remember, Apple just adjusted their sales forecasts of the iPhone 5C and cut their production due to lower demand than expected, proving that a marginally "cheaper" plastic iphone was an exercise in futility. Apple knows the top tier consumer smartphone market has already been skimmed, so they need a way to reach new/lower segments before Samsung/Android gets to them. Turns out the 5C didn't deliver. Keep in mind the market for smartphones has grown much faster than iPhone sales, hence Samsung's and other manufacturers success, while the iPhone remains as the premium product.

As Tim Cook once said - "all mobile phones are destined to be smartphones in the near future..." meaning even the poorest consumers around the world will have smartphones, just as they now have cheap (even disposable) plastic prepaid motorolas and nokias. Do you seriously see Apple catering to those consumers with their current brand strategy? And remember, for Apple it's not only about the hardware sales, but specially about the software and the media consumed through it.

Anyway, my point (again) is that, if Apple wants to appeal the desktop/laptop (and eventually tablet & smartphone) mass market, these cheaper versions with marginally higher prices are not going to cut it. Imagine they released a plastic MacMini or iMac for $100 less... the iPhone 5C is just a case in point. And in time, the same thing will be said of the iPhone and iPad - it's no as evident now, but it will happen unless Apple takes a different approach to its brand positioning and price strategy.

Perhaps Apple staying as a premium brand, with its products consumed by high-end consumers, may not be a bad thing after all for us current consumers, specially if the contrary would mean taking a hit in quality. Stockholders may want Apple to take over the world, but I don't want it to become the new Microsoft. Just think about it.

Cheers!

 

[IJ Reilly]

Perhaps Apple staying as a premium brand, with its products consumed by high-end consumers, may not be a bad thing after all for us current consumers, specially if the contrary would mean taking a hit in quality. Stockholders may want Apple to take over the world, but I don't want it to become the new Microsoft. Just think about it.

No danger of Apple becoming the new Microsoft. Google already beat them to it.

I don't understand why anyone would rush to the judgement that the 5c is a failure. Not only do we not know that, the only numbers that really matter are the aggregate sales. If the 5s and 5c together sell more units than the 5s would have alone, then it's at least a marginally successful product.

Apple has never really shown the inclination to go whole-hog into the midrange of consumer products. The 5c is really just a nibble at the sub-premium market. I see it as flank protection for their premium product.

 

[iMacFarlane]

Ok, so how would you want to rip an audio CD without a drive ? Watch a Blu Ray ? Install Windows or Office ?

Apple redefined the AOI from All-In-One to Almost-In-One.

The iMac once was a consumer PC (this was the time when you had to spend under USD 1.000 for it). People were happy to buy it because it looked fresh and it was a real alternative to the beige PC boxes of that time. Slightly more expensive, but definitely nicer.
Today's iMac costs a fortune and there are only few families that are willed to pay that for a personal computer. Instead their budget goes into an iPad and maybe a cheap PC (again, there was once a product for them - the Mac Mini).

Why would they want to buy an iMac at twice the price of a PC that even can't play DVDs ? Because it's thinner ?

Exactly. I was on the cusp of buying a new iMac last summer, waiting and waiting for a refresh, and Bam! We get a thin computer, 5400 RPM hard drives, no DVD drive, integrated graphics, and a $100 increase in price. Oh, and no way to install more RAM. What?! A coworker of mine shared his build for a new PC he just put together. It absolutely destroys the iMac, at $1100, 1080p display included.
He was actually offended when I detailed the specs of the base iMac to him. It's really sad, and I'm out. I'll use my MBP for Xcode, but the next rig is going to definitely not be another iPad on a stick.

 

[TallManNY]

Wrong.

This story is about desktop computers. My comments regarding margins mostly refer to computers, where Apple doesn't have a dominant market share, in a mature industry.

About the iPad and iPhone: that's a different story, but with similar conclusions. There, Apple holds a dominant market position. But remember, Apple just adjusted their sales forecasts of the iPhone 5C and cut their production due to lower demand than expected, proving that a marginally "cheaper" plastic iphone was an exercise in futility. Apple knows the top tier consumer smartphone market has already been skimmed, so they need a way to reach new/lower segments before Samsung/Android gets to them. Turns out the 5C didn't deliver. Keep in mind the market for smartphones has grown much faster than iPhone sales, hence Samsung's and other manufacturers success, while the iPhone remains as the premium product.

As Tim Cook once said - "all mobile phones are destined to be smartphones in the near future..." meaning even the poorest consumers around the world will have smartphones, just as they now have cheap (even disposable) plastic prepaid motorolas and nokias. Do you seriously see Apple catering to those consumers with their current brand strategy? And remember, for Apple it's not only about the hardware sales, but specially about the software and the media consumed through it.

Anyway, my point (again) is that, if Apple wants to appeal the desktop/laptop (and eventually tablet & smartphone) mass market, these cheaper versions with marginally higher prices are not going to cut it. Imagine they released a plastic MacMini or iMac for $100 less... the iPhone 5C is just a case in point. And in time, the same thing will be said of the iPhone and iPad - it's no as evident now, but it will happen unless Apple takes a different approach to its brand positioning and price strategy.

Perhaps Apple staying as a premium brand, with its products consumed by high-end consumers, may not be a bad thing after all for us current consumers, specially if the contrary would mean taking a hit in quality. Stockholders may want Apple to take over the world, but I don't want it to become the new Microsoft. Just think about it.

Cheers!

We do not know that Apple cut production due to lower than expected demand. We have a rumor that production has been lowered, but that might be exactly what Apple expected. Keep in mind that sales seem to be about the same percentage as the 4S sold last year and this is on (as far as we know as of now) record volume (based on our one data point that Apple sold 9 million phones over the launch weekend).

You go on to make a number of other assumptions. Like Apple must reach new and lower segments before Android gets to them. False assumption if those Android folks won't spend enough to be worthwhile customers to pursue.

I do not believe that Apple wants to appeal to the mass market at the expense of high margins and large profits.

Question for you. Do you think the 5c is going to sell more or less phones in the coming 12 months than the 4S sold during the comparable period? I'm guessing the 5c beats the 4S by 50%. I'm also guessing the 5s outsells what the 5 did during the 5's first 12 month period. If you agree with these predictions, why do you think that Apple is somehow failing? Maybe I'm misinterpreting you and you aren't saying that Apple missed the boat here.

I don't think the 5c was a mass market play. Some folks thought that was what was coming, but it clearly wasn't priced at that level. I don't think Apple is positioning itself to serve the computing needs of folks who make $800 per month. But that is okay from a business perspective. To paraphrase the Willie Sutton line about why he robbed banks (because that is where the money is), "You sell to the rich because that is where the money is." On a global scale, Apple may only be targeting the upper 10%. But that is still 900 million folks. And if they each buy a smartphone every two to three years, that is a lot of phones. Certainly that suggests plenty of room to grow for the manufacturer who sells something like 60% of all phones priced over $500.

 

[Woyzeck]

I don't think the 5c was a mass market play. Some folks thought that was what was coming, but it clearly wasn't priced at that level. I don't think Apple is positioning itself to serve the computing needs of folks who make $800 per month. But that is okay from a business perspective. To paraphrase the Willie Sutton line about why he robbed banks (because that is where the money is), "You sell to the rich because that is where the money is." On a global scale, Apple may only be targeting the upper 10%. But that is still 900 million folks. And if they each buy a smartphone every two to three years, that is a lot of phones. Certainly that suggests plenty of room to grow for the manufacturer who sells something like 60% of all phones priced over $500.

From its design and features it's a lower-spec phone and thus must be marketed below the iPhone 5S. Call it upper-middle-class, but it competes with the Nexus and Galaxy III range.

The top-tier market is totally saturated and there's not much to grow there with the current iPhone. Everyone who's in this target group and who's up to Apple already has one.

And if Apple can't grow then they have a problem.

 

[eladnova]

Really? Buy the kit for $30 from iFixit and you're good to go. It's more than a few screws but not crazy and definitely do-able.

Want hard? Try opening op an iLamp iMac. Now that was a PITA and it was all screws...

Fair enough I can access the internals with a few screwdrivers etc but you can't necessarily upgrade them. I've got 2 other computers here that over the years have upgrades to the CPU, PSU, GPU and even MoBo.

I'd be happier with the thicker iMac and the ability to do what I want to the product I own.

 

[asiga]

So basically a Mac mini with a discrete graphics card?

Yes. And with larger SSD drives. And higher clocked CPUs. And more RAM than the Mini. In other words, pay just for the stuff you really wish to have. That's the best way of reducing costs. But, of course, that would hurt Apple margins, as the built-in display is the excuse for the iMac price increase.

 

[opinio]

I really don't like Apple's approach to producing low cost models such as this iMac and the 5c. It ruins the brand name.

 

[asiga]

Are you actually asking for a different specification on the Mac Mini? Or a budget Mac Pro?

Not sure I follow...

The iMac without a display won't happen anyway, because being an AIO system is the point of the iMac. It's what distinguishes it from almost all of the PC desktop market, except very few competitors.

And why on Earth do you conclude that AIO systems fit between the low-end entry products and the high-end professional ones? Why not swap the Mini and the iMac, so that the iMac is the low-end (slower CPU, less RAM, less graphics, less disk and so on), and the Mini gets the specs the iMac has now?

It's easy to answer that question: They'll sell much more units if they swap the Mini and the iMac specs, but they'll get very reduced margins. And Apple wants margins. So, the iMac and the Mini are designed opposite to the natural demand, just for the sake of margins. It's that easy.