iMac G4 no longer?

[Abstract]

Sure, I could buy a Power Mac, but I haven't...know why? they are just too expensive for me right now, since I use a PowerBook as my main machine. If they had an inexpensive headless Mac, I'd buy one, just as a luxury, but as it is, Apple has gotten none of this money from me. In fact, I bought a PC instead (as my low-cost desktop "kicking around" machine).

Make a low-cost (even non-upgradeable) headless Mac, and I will buy. Force me to buy that monitor and Apple can continue to not have my money, because I already have nice monitors.
.

Get a 1.6GHz G5 PM. The new iMac is probably just going to be a PM 1.6 GHz G5 anyway, so you're getting the iMac with no monitor if you get it. You have options you're simply not using.

FROM THE ARTICLE: The iMac G4 product line, which was last refreshed over 6 months ago, is quickly nearing the end of its life cycle. Some Apple resellers have recently sold through their allotment of 20-inch and 17-inch iMac G4s and were told by Apple not to expect a restock, while other merchants have been put on a 3 week waiting list for new orders of 15-inch and 17-inch iMacs.

I can't imagine them making 2 huuuge product releases on the same day like this. What happened to spreading it out a bit? I think half of you are going to be disappointed. THe people waiting for a G5 iMac will be disappointed if they only revamp the PM's, and the people waiting for PM's will be disappointed if they only come out with new iMacs. I don't know which they'd come out with, but what are the chances of Steve coming out with both on the same day? I see disappointment for one of these two groups of people...

And what would he end the Keynote on this year: the new iMac, or the new "fastest personal computer in the world" dual G5 3GHz PowerMacs? How about, "Oh, two more things...."

 

[cb911]

oohhh... sounds good.

expect the PowerBook G5 in the not too distant future...

 

[Sped]

Well the real question now is, will the new iMac be headless.

"You just don't get it, do you Scott?"

When are people on these rumor sites going to understand that Apple is NEVER going to deliver a headless iMac? It ain't gonna happen! The whole concept behind iMac is the ability to unpack the box, plug in power, keyboard, mouse, and your internet source du jour, and start rocking. A separate display would only complicate this, albeit not by much, and what would it really get you? The ability to upgrade your computer, yet continue using your display? Rubbish!

Do you think a headless iMac would get you a top of the line CPU for much less than current PowerMac's? Maybe. However, Apple is never going to cut margins so you tight wads can own a hi-end CPU for the price of a Celeron. Stop dreaming, get a better job, and drop the money on a PowerMac. My guess is you really don't need anything faster than the iMac design as it stands. You just want to brag about having a 9 gHz G6, but you don't have the coin for it.

 

[ChrisH3677]

I want a CORPORATE Mac

Where's the cMac??

We've got eMac for education and home... pMac for power users... iMac for inbetween e & p

I agree with what suzerain says, we need a good cheap workhorse Mac. The iMac and pMac are too expensive to replace corporate or business desktops and the eMac is too bulky for office desks (pity the poor IT guys lugging 100 of them around!)


So...again.. the iMac is the odd-bod. It's time to go... iMac. Bring on the cMac.

 

[Titian]

Yeaah!

new iMacs??!!
I am just waiting for the Dual 2.0 G5 with the 30" screen.
Maybe with a double combo drive?

Yes I'm ready!!

 

[Trimix]

My daughter (2 years old) has been asking for mommy's iMac for some time now. If a new G5 iMac comes out, my apple loan account is going to be hurting.

I know the feeling, mine 3 1/2 plays on the office iMac which I then could gracefully retire. My AMEX is itching

 

[Trimix]

"You just don't get it, do you Scott?"

When are people on these rumor sites going to understand that Apple is NEVER going to deliver a headless iMac? It ain't gonna happen! The whole concept behind iMac is the ability to unpack the box, plug in power, keyboard, mouse, and your internet source du jour, and start rocking. A separate display would only complicate this, albeit not by much, and what would it really get you? The ability to upgrade your computer, yet continue using your display? Rubbish!

Do you think a headless iMac would get you a top of the line CPU for much less than current PowerMac's? Maybe. However, Apple is never going to cut margins so you tight wads can own a hi-end CPU for the price of a Celeron. Stop dreaming, get a better job, and drop the money on a PowerMac. My guess is you really don't need anything faster than the iMac design as it stands. You just want to brag about having a 9 gHz G6, but you don't have the coin for it.

i am with you all the way

 

[Steak]

We really do need a cheap, high level machine. My wife works with her sister. A fashion-design, and retail store company. Very High-end. 2-3 of the people need pro-machines, the rest need decent machines, that can last a few years.
At the moment, they are using mostly old CRT iMacs. They know they are old and slow, but apple offers no alternative. Being family, as well as a mac geek, (while they are totally mac in the office) I cannot recommend a machine for them to buy for the common staff. iMac is too expensive for very little performance or longetivity. Powermacs are more than they need, or would want to deal with. Apple does not make a business machine, and that is probably their greatest block from gaining some market share. A small, maybe headless iMac type machine, for between 800 and $1000, with a G5, I would recommend they order at least 20 tomorrow,, yet at this point, I can provide them no reason to upgrade their computers, even with the tax write off. there are much better machines out there now, but not better enough to buy 20-30 machines. I've had my Sawtooth since 1999,, not quite new tech. Current iMacs are not much better than this machine, yet cost a lot of pennies.
Apple, at least try to build a business machine,, despite fears of cannibalising sales of other lines. If it sells well, good on ya! If it does not, can always ditch it. I think a headless, consumer priced G5 would sell faster than they could make them. why do they not have one?

 

[Mord]

(pity the poor IT guys lugging 100 of them around!)

yes but they are unstealable

In my freinds school they orderd 20 imacs the following week in the night people went in grabed them by the necks put them in there bags and walked off.

the week alfter that the school put in an order for 20 emacs they are being used to this day.

 

[G4-power]

yes but they are unstealable

In my freinds school they orderd 20 imacs the following week in the night people went in grabed them by the necks put them in there bags and walked off.

the week alfter that the school put in an order for 20 emacs they are being used to this day.

They had never heard of Kensington locks? Kinda dumb. I'll buy a Kensington lock for my first laptop, for sure.

 

[Telomar]

"You just don't get it, do you Scott?"

When are people on these rumor sites going to understand that Apple is NEVER going to deliver a headless iMac? It ain't gonna happen! The whole concept behind iMac is the ability to unpack the box, plug in power, keyboard, mouse, and your internet source du jour, and start rocking. A separate display would only complicate this, albeit not by much, and what would it really get you? The ability to upgrade your computer, yet continue using your display? Rubbish!

Do you think a headless iMac would get you a top of the line CPU for much less than current PowerMac's? Maybe. However, Apple is never going to cut margins so you tight wads can own a hi-end CPU for the price of a Celeron. Stop dreaming, get a better job, and drop the money on a PowerMac. My guess is you really don't need anything faster than the iMac design as it stands. You just want to brag about having a 9 gHz G6, but you don't have the coin for it.

Well keep in mind where I work the displays have a longer life than the computers they use. At home for my last 4 macs I've only gone through 2 displays. Simple fact is a decent display outlasts your computer and being forced into replacing it is stupid.

Apple could easily rip off the display, put the iMac contents in a more basic case and offer the low end sub $1000 with the high end around $1300. That wouldn't be difficult in the least and would easily cover markets where a powermac isn't necessary. I really don't need my powermac for writing reports so if that's all I was doing it'd just be idiocy if I went out and spent that sought of money for nothing. If most people want to spend their excess money on something why would they throw it at Apple instead of something more worthwhile. Sounds to me like you just lack common sense.

 

[Little Endian]

A G5 imac is still an imac

I have owned 3 imacs over the Past 4 years and I have come to realize what poor values they are. My first imac was a G3 500Mhz purchased in late 2000 by the time Jan 2002 came around I was lusting for more Power and that G3 imac just was'nt cutting it so I handed down that G3 imac to my brother after less than 18 months of use. So as soon as the G4 15" 800 imac was released I sprang for it. After about another 18 months of use I found the Graphics card crippling as well as it's slow 5400 RPM drive and the 2X superdrive was getting on my nerves plus the 15" LCD was too cramped for my needs once I got into FCP and Pro tools with Mbox was also a laggard on this machine. So in Mid 2003 I sold the 15" G4 800 for about $1200 and got the 17" 1.25Ghz imac which was fine in the beggining but really it's getting long in the tooth after just a year especially with new Games like Halo, Call of Duty and UTK2004 and of course DOOM III would be a joke on this machine. So I sold my last imac on Ebay and got a sweet $1400 for it. Right now my brother and I share the imac G3 and I have no computer. The imac G3 is almost a relic now Panther Creeks on it, ichat AV is unsupported, No games within the Past 2 years work well on it and it's not worth doing any heavy work on.

The imacs will always be non upgradeable and Apple will always find ways to slow them down like how previous imacs always lacked the L3 cache and were almost always behind on FSB, Graphics and drive speeds in comparison to the towers, compound that by the fact there is nothing you can do to upgrade makes it worse. True the imacs will always be behind but Apple could always do more but they don't the last 20" imac revison 6 months ago could have at least sported a 1.33Ghz or even 1.5Ghz G4 with 512Kb L2 and could should have been equipped with a 128MB Geforce FX but they purposely cripple it so they can upkeep that Pro Vs. Consumer line facade.

I swear buy it that Apple has always purposely configured the imac line in a way that most users would be forced to upgrade the whole Machine after just 18-36 months Max of use that way Apple keeps a nice upgrade cycle for themselves and Users can actually wind up paying more than they Would had they just bought a Power Mac Tower that could last them more like 3-5 years with upgrades. I would have been better off had I just Purchased a top of the line G4 dual 533 back in 2001 it would have cost the same in the end even when calculating the money I get back from selling my imacs and I would have had a better machine thruoght that time frame and would Have at least had the option of keeping my monitor and or upgrading the Machine to Dual 1.33GHz rather than having to buy a new machine.

From now on I vow only to buy PowerMacs!! I would rather shell out 4-5 grand for an awesome system that will last and grow rather than stressing over selling an imac every 18 months or so. My next machine will be a Dual G5 and I am certain that at least that will last me 3 years without me so much as twitching a nerve for more speed and if neccessary I could stretch my Purchase till the end of the Decade with upgrades. On the other hand even if they release a 2.0 Ghz G5 imac I know it will only be a Couple of years or so before the Graphics chipset becomes too obsolete and that single Processor will start to seem slow for me and worse of all no upgrade options available whatsoever beyond adding RAM so heres hoping to Dual 3GHZ Power Macs. Sure the imac may be fine but for Serious Audio Work any amount of Digital Video and Gaming the imac will always fall grossly short and the investment killed further when there is nothing you can do to Upgrade beyond selling the Whole system.

 

[Mord]

They had never heard of Kensington locks? Kinda dumb. I'll buy a Kensington lock for my first laptop, for sure.

two words: bolt cutters

 

[G4-power]

From now on I vow only to buy PowerMacs!! I would rather shell out 4-5 grand for an awesome system that will last and grow rather than stressing over selling an imac every 18 months or so. My next machine will be a Dual G5 and I am certain that at least that will last me 3 years without me so much as twitching a nerve for more speed and if neccessary I could stretch my Purchase till the end of the Decade with upgrades. On the other hand even if they release a 2.0 Ghz G5 imac I know it will only be a Couple of years or so before the Graphics chipset becomes too obsolete and that single Processor will start to seem slow for me and worse of all no upgrade options available whatsoever beyond adding RAM so heres hoping to Dual 3GHZ Power Macs. Sure the imac may be fine but for Serious Audio Work any amount of Digital Video and Gaming the imac will always fall grossly short and the investment killed further when there is nothing you can do to Upgrade beyond selling the Whole system.

I know what you're talking about, since my dad's iBook (Dual USB) is a 500 MHz G3, and it's not upgradeable, only 10 GB HD and the old 8 MB Mobility Rage. Well, yes, it's a laptop, but quite much comparable to an iMac. Compared to that a Sawtooth performs really well (specs listed in signature). The Sawtooth has still got 2 free HD bays and one free slot for RAM, I could upgrade the processor to even 1.4 GHz (for an example Sonnet's Encore/ST G4) and the DVD-ROM drive could be changed, I think (correct me if I'm wrong). Taking into account that these were introduced in September 1999, this performs really well. My dad'll probably be getting a rev. B PowerMac G5 when they start to ship into Finland, so this machine will have it's fifth birthday. I'd say that's a good job, at least compared to PC's.

 

[G4-power]

two words: bolt cutters

Oh, yes, I understand....

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

I have owned 3 imacs over the Past 4 years and I have come to realize what poor values they are. My first imac was a G3 500Mhz purchased in late 2000 by the time Jan 2002 came around I was lusting for more Power and that G3 imac just was'nt cutting it so I handed down that G3 imac to my brother after less than 18 months of use. So as soon as the G4 15" 800 imac was released I sprang for it. After about another 18 months of use I found the Graphics card crippling as well as it's slow 5400 RPM drive and the 2X superdrive was getting on my nerves plus the 15" LCD was too cramped for my needs once I got into FCP and Pro tools with Mbox was also a laggard on this machine. So in Mid 2003 I sold the 15" G4 800 for about $1200 and got the 17" 1.25Ghz imac which was fine in the beggining but really it's getting long in the tooth after just a year especially with new Games like Halo, Call of Duty and UTK2004 and of course DOOM III would be a joke on this machine. So I sold my last imac on Ebay and got a sweet $1400 for it. Right now my brother and I share the imac G3 and I have no computer. The imac G3 is almost a relic now Panther Creeks on it, ichat AV is unsupported, No games within the Past 2 years work well on it and it's not worth doing any heavy work on.

The imacs will always be non upgradeable and Apple will always find ways to slow them down like how previous imacs always lacked the L3 cache and were almost always behind on FSB, Graphics and drive speeds in comparison to the towers, compound that by the fact there is nothing you can do to upgrade makes it worse. True the imacs will always be behind but Apple could always do more but they don't the last 20" imac revison 6 months ago could have at least sported a 1.33Ghz or even 1.5Ghz G4 with 512Kb L2 and could should have been equipped with a 128MB Geforce FX but they purposely cripple it so they can upkeep that Pro Vs. Consumer line facade.

I swear buy it that Apple has always purposely configured the imac line in a way that most users would be forced to upgrade the whole Machine after just 18-36 months Max of use that way Apple keeps a nice upgrade cycle for themselves and Users can actually wind up paying more than they Would had they just bought a Power Mac Tower that could last them more like 3-5 years with upgrades. I would have been better off had I just Purchased a top of the line G4 dual 533 back in 2001 it would have cost the same in the end even when calculating the money I get back from selling my imacs and I would have had a better machine thruoght that time frame and would Have at least had the option of keeping my monitor and or upgrading the Machine to Dual 1.33GHz rather than having to buy a new machine.

From now on I vow only to buy PowerMacs!! I would rather shell out 4-5 grand for an awesome system that will last and grow rather than stressing over selling an imac every 18 months or so. My next machine will be a Dual G5 and I am certain that at least that will last me 3 years without me so much as twitching a nerve for more speed and if neccessary I could stretch my Purchase till the end of the Decade with upgrades. On the other hand even if they release a 2.0 Ghz G5 imac I know it will only be a Couple of years or so before the Graphics chipset becomes too obsolete and that single Processor will start to seem slow for me and worse of all no upgrade options available whatsoever beyond adding RAM so heres hoping to Dual 3GHZ Power Macs. Sure the imac may be fine but for Serious Audio Work any amount of Digital Video and Gaming the imac will always fall grossly short and the investment killed further when there is nothing you can do to Upgrade beyond selling the Whole system.

I feel your pain and have also wondered how Apple will cripple G5 Imac. I do have a powermac now and know that this thing is just way more upgradeable,stays in the game longer etc. You have a very good point we will just have to wait and see how they cripple it up

 

[kangaroo]

Stats

What are the actual iMac stats? In fact what are the stats for all Apple machines/components? Which is the best seller, which is the worst? (Please no personal opinion here).

 

[JFreak]

From now on I vow only to buy PowerMacs!! I would rather shell out 4-5 grand for an awesome system that will last and grow rather than stressing over selling an imac every 18 months or so.

wow. it only took you three low-power computers to realize you need a high-power one. congrats

 

[Phinius]

Your jumping the gun

Maybe so but imac cant linger and go sour forever with 1.25 G4

The small production Xserve has a back order of 4-6 weeks. That seems to be entirely due to a lack of enough 970FX processors and its unlikely that IBM has another 9XX PowerPC in production right now, other than the 970 and 970FX. So, in order for the PowerMacs to have a processor upgrade Apple needs to get a much larger supply of 970FX processors than is being supplied currently. Its very unlikely that Apple would up the demand for 970FX processors, and thereby lengthen the delivery time for PowerMacs, by introducing a G5 iMac in the next month or so. Instead, I'd expect Apple to announce a 1.5GHz G4 iMac in the interim, and perhaps a completely new iMac in 2-3 months when faster chips are available in sufficient quanities.

Apple could help justify the prices of iMac computers by upgrading the performance substantially. But, in order to do that there has to be a adequate supply of much higher performing processors.

It sure looks like the 970FX was designed with a small 512MB L2 cache in order to reduce the costs of manufacturing. Why else would IBM only put 512KB of L2 cache, instead of 1MB like Intel did with Prescott? It could very well be that Apple intends to move the PowerMacs to the Power5 derived 9XX PowerPC processors in January, then bring the highest performing and cooler/cheaper 970FX processors to the iMac consumer line. With a likely larger die size from adding SMT and a doubling of L2 for the G5 processor after the 970FX, Apple could have both the consumer and pro line processors topping out at the same frequencies and yet still differentiate them by as much as a 50% boost in speed offered by a bigger cache and SMT on the pro line. Apple could then offer a single processor PowerMac running at the same frequency as a iMac and yet charge substantially more for the PowerMac.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

What a lot of people dont seem to get is the 970 has been in production for a year and was suppose to scale up to 2.4 ghz, why couldnt Apple design a Imac around the 970? Heat issues are nothing more then B.S. make a bigger base and add a fan or two big flipping deal,not hard, not impossible. Apple has had plenty of time to work on it. A G4 1.5 imac will do little to spur sales. its still a old & slow cpu that cant compete with AMD or Intel and everyone knows it. Ill have none of that talk of staying with slow old last place G4 that moto forgot about 2 years ago. we will have a G5 Imac it may be a 970 or it may be a 970fx either way it wont be last place G4 with a crippled bus,crippled ddr, and crippled clock. waste of time and money to build a machine around this stagnation king of all cpu's. Apple knows better.

 

[Trekkie]

More like snobs. There is a set of so-called Power users who don't want to see performance from any Mac except the PM.

Yeah I've noticed that a lot around here. Personally I have a Powerbook 12" and an iMac. I bought the iMac for the flat panel.

I've given an eMac as a present to my inlaws when their computer roasted and flipped them to the Mac side.

 

[Trekkie]

Just a quick check of the CompUsa website, I checked the availibility of the iMac at all (5) of the Dallas area CompUsa's. Not one of them have a single iMac installed. Also I checked the Chicago area, and most CompUsa's there report out of stock or limited quantities. Also the 20" cinema display is hard to find.

I just filled out an order for an iMac 20" and got 1-3 day shipping ona CTO model I built.

Didn't order it of course, but if it goes G5 in June I'll definitely order that setup to replace the imac 800MHz we have. Baby girl needs a computer and rendering in iMovie is a bit slow some days.

 

[Trekkie]

<sarcasm>
I agree. Why do consumers think they should have the right to upgrade their video card or hard drive. They are just lowly consumers. They aren't real professionals like the PowerMac users.
</sarcasm>

I'm not a consumer when it comes to computers by a long shot. But based on watching my family members who use computers for web and email, and one uses it for home movies upgrading a video card is the most foreign idea on the planet to them.

Example one: I bought a PC Game for my new brother in law for christmas. Said game required a 3D card and I didn't realize his machine had one of those 'intel extreme' video card crap things in it. Instead of buying a $50 - $100 3D card he took the game back and found something else instead.

Example two: Sister is trying to get the Windows 'version' of iMovie to work with her new camcorder. Lots of problems hardware related. She asks me how I do it and I tell her iMovie on my iMac. Instead of spending $300 or whatever it was on a new DVD Burner & some more memory, they buy the iMac (I tried to steer her to the eMac for cost savings but she wanted a flat panel)

So some 'consumers' do just that - consume. They don't upgrade, add features. The concept is foreign to them. You don't replace a part of your CD Player, DVD Player, Television, etc. You get a new one.

 

[Trekkie]

I swear buy it that Apple has always purposely configured the imac line in a way that most users would be forced to upgrade the whole Machine after just 18-36 months Max of use that way Apple keeps a nice upgrade cycle for themselves and Users can actually wind up paying more than they Would had they just bought a Power Mac Tower that could last them more like 3-5 years with upgrades.

You've never bought a PC have you? 18 months is a lifetime on a PC. Even if you bulit your own the only way you're going to upgrade it is to replace whole chunks of the system. In the last 18 months there have been *3* new front side buses all requiring completely different memory subsystems.

Only the PowerMac and the upgrade community make those things actually last. There is no processor upgrade kit (of any value) in the INtel world. The processor upgrade kit is a new motherboard, new proc, and new memory.

 

[manu chao]

The small production Xserve has a back order of 4-6 weeks. That seems to be entirely due to a lack of enough 970FX processors and its unlikely that IBM has another 9XX PowerPC in production right now, other than the 970 and 970FX. So, in order for the PowerMacs to have a processor upgrade Apple needs to get a much larger supply of 970FX processors than is being supplied currently. Its very unlikely that Apple would up the demand for 970FX processors, and thereby lengthen the delivery time for PowerMacs, by introducing a G5 iMac in the next month or so. Instead, I'd expect Apple to announce a 1.5GHz G4 iMac in the interim, and perhaps a completely new iMac in 2-3 months when faster chips are available in sufficient quanities.

Apple could help justify the prices of iMac computers by upgrading the performance substantially. But, in order to do that there has to be a adequate supply of much higher performing processors.

It sure looks like the 970FX was designed with a small 512MB L2 cache in order to reduce the costs of manufacturing. Why else would IBM only put 512KB of L2 cache, instead of 1MB like Intel did with Prescott? It could very well be that Apple intends to move the PowerMacs to the Power5 derived 9XX PowerPC processors in January, then bring the highest performing and cooler/cheaper 970FX processors to the iMac consumer line. With a likely larger die size from adding SMT and a doubling of L2 for the G5 processor after the 970FX, Apple could have both the consumer and pro line processors topping out at the same frequencies and yet still differentiate them by as much as a 50% boost in speed offered by a bigger cache and SMT on the pro line. Apple could then offer a single processor PowerMac running at the same frequency as a iMac and yet charge substantially more for the PowerMac.

My theory is that they have enough 970FXs by now, but the assembly capacity is rather small and the backlog of orders so big that they can't put them together fast enough.

Really, why upgrade the eMac to 1.25 Ghz, the Powerbook to 1.5Ghz (before that for a long period the iMac had about the same top speed as the Powerbook) and not upgrade the iMac to 1.5Ghz? There will be G5 iMac soon.