taco said:
geez... a lot of complaining here, ALWAYS, yet we all come back. chill out and consider the following:
1) you're buying an apple, not a pc... there will never be a price competitive macintosh; that would be like asking for a bmw that has a price competitive with a ford...
Umm, already has happened. BMW owns Mini, Mini sells the Mini Cooper and Cooper Type S (FWD) and both are priced as a slightly premium priced car against Ford, Honda, and GM competition but not ridiculously so, and the sales have come by virtue of Mini using the Apple mentality of "Thinking different" and providing more bang/style for the $. BMW is also working on their forthcoming 1 & 2 series coupe and hatch (RWD). In the U.S. we're likely to get the 2 series coupe which will pattern itself off of the much heralded BMW 2002 of years lore. It'll likely price in in non-M format around the Cobalt SS/SS Supercharged (replaces Cavalier) and other higher-line models from Ford and DC. It'll offer the usual BMW handling prowess and capabilities, the cachet, and do so by offering a blend of "Get what you pay for" premium vs "We charge more 'cause we can" mentality.
The answer is simple. Cut the cord. Apple *HAS* done this before as well. When the original AIO Macintosh had stand-offish sales in the mid 1980's, Apple created a computer called "LC" that was the strongest selling Mac in Apple history prior to the original iMac. It also spawned into the Apple Mac II series. Guess what? No monitor on either of them. It was a very simplistic, compact, and rudimentary computer with limited expandability in a desktop form factor. It was a logical lineup, it worked, and it suited the clamoring needs enough that Apple's computer sales blossomed and they became the largest percentage of marketshare in the consumer desktop market.
Apple simplified the lineup to cut costs at a time when many of their offerings weren't well executed, i.e. the abysmal Performa lineup which was poorly engineered and devised and provided very little bang for the $. Apple has returned to profitability people. There's no reason they can't expand the lineup. In fact... THEY ALREADY HAVE. When the iMac was already perceived to not hit the EDU market, they made the eMac to fill the void. Now that the last gen iMac was less than stellar in overall sales, I feel it's time to consolidate R&D costs into a modular architecture that can sustain all markets and their demands. Being stubborn to the customer, who is typically always right to their needs as the saying goes, isn't going to help them. That's just common sense.
I can guarantee that if Apple produced a lower cost non-fetish desktop like an LC or even a larger-sized and lower cost Cube, I'd be within 2-4 months of buying one. If not... I'll wait 'til I can afford a non AIO Mac. That can take another 8 months or longer if I buy the overkill G5 at the overkill G5 pricepoints and provided Apple doesn't cut costs between now and then. It's Apple's loss, not mine, I can hold out. If they were to make a mildly less upgradeable desktop/cube off of the iMac architecture that doesn't have to displace the AIO machines for people that like AIO's... it could cost them little to nothing in terms of R&D and just require an enclosure to put the iMac's motherboard, drives, and a video out connector into.
I don't want a computer that's the size of a Puff's box if it's going to cost me $1,899 to get it when the guts that make the majority of the computing experience worthwhile are comparable to what I should see for $999. THAT IS WHY THE CUBE FAILED.
2) not a significant upgrade from the "current" imac line? are you joking? first, going from the g4 to the g5 alone is enough of an upgrade. then clock speed; current imac king is 1.25 and bottom of the new lineup is 1.6- that's almost a 30% processor speed increase while the 1.8 would be just under 50%!!! what did you expect? ...
Agreed. Yet for the pricetags and for what it's going to supercede... what does Apple do? Force everyone that can't afford one of these into... well, okay the eMac is going away right? Or is it? Or is the eMac being replaced by something else that's suitable to the consumer market. Do not forget... the eMac sold to the education market until demand said that the consumers wanted it to. Killing the eMac will be suicide unless Apple has another Ace up their sleeves. My guess is... if the eMac is now a low-end AIO LCD iMac with no optical drive and modem... that Apple could well be announcing *SOMETHING ELSE* on the same day. I doubt the iBook is the answer to all people... as I know I don't like laptops and won't be buying one. I don't like AIO's either and won't buy one either.
3) video card. i just don't get this one. the mac is not a gaming platform- how is this not obvious?
Yeah... but if you're buying the BMW of computers, you expect it to be "The Ultimate" in every way right at that pricepoint? I just don't see it with this machine beyond the firepower of the G5; it's not exciting/revolutionary/thinking different. I'm going to go on a limb that the video specs are outdated/wrong. So the consumer machines will creep a little into the pro line, which leaves a surplus of 1.6 Ghz G5's that'd work reeeeeeeeeeeeal nice in a low cost single processor desktop with no monitor attached...
It wouldn't be bleeding edge (closer than the rumors though I feel), and I agree it shouldn't be. All too many want to be given the world for a song, or have a mind-alterring GPU in a machine that ships at a medium range in Apple's lineup. If you look at true gamer's PC's on the Windows side, Alienware's lowest offerings still break past $1,000 and aren't anywhere near bleeding edge. They are a "TRUE" gamers PC. Your little eMachines for $599-799 aren't anything close. Nor is a $799-999 Dell. Yes you can BTO it with a great video card, but you'll hamstring it on processor which you need for gaming too. The GPU doesn't do everything for the games, let's not forget that, the processor still comes into play. Apple has this covered. It's called... "Powermac G5". Many of Alienware's gaming PC's are right in this same pricepoint for Framerate junkies.
then again, i could be wrong.
In some ways... yes, nobody's perfect though.
🙂 I will openly admit, there's a lot of questions still looming, and maybe Apple has more up their sleeves than the Rumormill is generating. A $999-1,299 machine *WILL NOT* suit the consumer as the lowest cost option anymore and that basically concedes both the barebones $399-599 PC market, but also the slightly higher $599-999 market almost. I don't feel Apple can afford to cannibalize both markets. They need to at least hit one. Apple has pushed eMac pricepoints down to a level that they need to retain with *SOMETHING*. If it doesn't have an optical drive in-box, it isn't going to sell to consumers... so you can't just push the education model to the masses again this time.
Yet there is a lot of clamor for lower cost machines with no monitor attached. I know, I know... but Apple isn't guaranteed to sell you the monitor! Wahhhh!! Are they guaranteed if I buy a G5 that they're going to get my money on an LCD? I'll give you a clue... word starts with n, ends with o, and has 2 letters...
Could they? Maybe... if they offer the best price/performance ratio. What made BMW's 3 Series so successful was that noone could remotely match the experience for the $. As the 3 has moved upmarket, BMW has lost a lot of that sales to it's competition and is realizing it needs to find a way back in. Hell the M3 came out originally with a 4 cylinder and is now rumored to head to a V8 in the next generation?!? So, BMW creates the 2 series, plays off the old 2002, and likely will have an M2 version that brings itself back into compete with cars like the Subaru Impreza WRX/WRX STi and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo and the VW R3 (Golf GTI). The base 1/2 will compete with cars like the Chevy Cobalt SS, and other higher line versions of our American models. Yeah... it's not a Chevy Aveo or Kia Rio, but even the U.S. companies can't compete with that. That's why the Aveo is made by Daewoo of Korea.
Apple is farming their manufacturing outside of the U.S. just like most of the U.S. auto companies have. Apple needs to evolve the computer platform lineup again to meet demands. I've seen "TONS" of people pleading for non-AIO; the clamors were milder back pre-Cube and many thought our prayers were answered when Apple went in the completely wrong direction and despite accolades and a marvel of ingenuity... it BOMBED. They've grown resoundingly louder since that failure though just as eMac and iMac sales have stagnated. The truth lies somewhere in between all of this, and the fact is... Apple in it's SEC filing acknowledged that the iMac and eMac were both
failing.
Laptops, including Apple's own, were cannibalizing iMac sales. The eMac just doesn't have enough grunt and people are passing up a lack of choice in terms of monitor sizing, CPU, config. for PC's that offer these options.
Apple doesn't need a $399 computer, unless it can produce it and still make margins. Yet a $699-899 base cost desktop would slot right into a part of the market Dell sells well in, with/without monitor. Apple doesn't want to build CRT's anymore, fine. Don't. People will either buy one if they want one, or buy an LCD of whatever size they want, or use what they have 'til they can afford that 20-23-30" Cinema display they've had their eyes on. When they can afford it. That's the beauty of choice, and that's where Apple would make more sales.
