Trekkie said:
Any specifications provided by that site are pure speculation and have no weight behind them, and I'd discount them more than a little by the sheer idiocy of supporting the Alex Salkever article. Every "point" in that little screed is either so self-evident that Apple would have done it by now if it made any sense, or so ignorant of market conditions that it obviously was intended to rabble-rouse rather than express anything meaningful.
- Single G5 Processor 1.6GHz, 1.8GHz, 2.0GHz
- 256MB RAM (minimum)
- 32MB VRAM (minimum)
- 60GB HDD (minimum)
- SuperDrive standard on the top two models, optional on base model
- One open PCI slot
- One FireWire 800 port, two FireWire 400 ports (one on front); three USB 2.0 ports (one on front)
- Optical digital audio input, optical digital audio output, analog audio input, analog audio output, front headphone minijack and speaker
- Optional AirPort Extreme, optional internal Bluetooth.
This I could actually believe, though I still think that it's a crappy way to do what Apple really ought to do with the single G5 in the consumer space. The iMac should be kept as an all-in-one solution with as small a footprint as possible, while a new line of consumer towers is debuted with matching basic specifications - processor clock, RAM, disk size, graphics options - to the pro machines. Make the consumer machines single processor, and there's your headless G5 for people who are too cheap for a dualie pro tower.
However the specs are interesting (except wondering on the vid card with 32MB min? That sounds way wrong to support this next statement:
On the top of the case is a strip of aluminum (identical to the case) from the back to a centered Apple logo in a contrasting material. Removing them reveals a mounting point for an articulating display arm and a cable management groove. The accessory arm is VESA compliant and will work with any other VESA compliant third party monitor, but of course will look best with Apples own monitors.
Actually, all that you need for standard UI and 2D rendering is enough memory to hold the textures in the frame buffer. I forget who did the calculation, but a Macrumors reader has previously figured out that OS X - as of Panther - on a 20" screen takes up some 16MB worth of video card space. That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for flashy effects, and it's also a far cry below the general level of the market at the moment, where 64 and 128MB comes in any machine that isn't using onboard Intel Extreme, SiS, or other built-in chipsets.
However, this next point is something I intend to destroy
yet again:
A highly sought after accessory will be a touch screen tablet that can dock with the accessory arm. Call it iPad. Detached, it is powered by an on-board battery and allows remote control of iTunes or iTV and access to your AV media files while within range. It will function as a thin client and will link through AirPort Extreme. One iMac can support multiple iPads allowing simultaneous access, but only one iPad can access each account at a time. The iPad need not dock with the iMac to recharge. A companion charging stand will support the iPad like an easel and will allow Bluetooth connection to a mouse and keyboard. Alternatively, iPad will (finally) make use of Apples Inkwell handwriting recognition.
Assume that Apple made a display no larger than 15" inches for this - as that's the current market limit, where you pay $800-1000 for a screen that doesn't display video while mobile - and take their quoted resolution for the iMac. Working from a basis of 1024 by 768 pixels, with 24 bits per pixel (RGB color is 8 bits per color), you get a rate of 18,874,368 bits per frame, 60 frames per second, which means a data rate of 135MB/s for merely displaying the screen at standard refresh rates. Halve that to something that would be almost intolerable on an LCD and more prone to network chop and you come up with 67.5MB/ss, or 540.5Mbit/s. Compare that to the speed of Airport Extreme - 54Mbit/s - and you have a need of dectupling the bandwidth
just to draw the screen without any network traffic at all. Even if H.264 could be applied to the stream, that would only quarter the demand to a svelte and unreachable 135.125Mbit/s. In addition, as anyone who has encoded a DVD or burnt a CD can tell you, the process of pushing media into a codec format is CPU intensive and would be constantly draining your machine as it crunched the necessary numbers. Last I heard, video encoding wasn't instant.
Before anyone pipes up with cries of 'Wireless FireWire," I'll cut
that train off at the pass and remind everyone that 802.15.3, which the FireWire protocols are being built on, is a mere 55Mbit/s and not even released yet.
Good god that would rock. iMac not only a TiVo unit, home theater option, but something you can SHARE among family members in the house. Get two of these iPad devices and run two seperate accounts on one machine.
That would rock, would it not?
Actually, no, it wouldn't. You'd get an iMac that costs a ridiculous amount of money and which wouldn't be any more functional than the current crop, aside from the improved processor. Oh, and some minor possible benefit from mounting options. Hooray.
