Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Limited iMac Availability Suggests Possible Refresh
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
dwl017
macrumors 6502a
Its been almost two years since the last Mini update and you find August 09 hard to believe🙄 according to recently released numbers the company is not pressed to earn your money with any new products.
They seem to be recession prof and sitting on billions so whats the rush? While Steve is home resting I suggest that all the Apple suits and designers take a six month vacation and enjoy the billions of dollars made off of you suckers! everyone here claims that even the oldest lower end Mac is still better then a Windows box right?
So I ask you again, whats the rush?
bassanoclapper
macrumors 6502
Yamcha
macrumors 68000
Meh I don't care for Snow Leopard, I just want an iMac purely because it looks nice and have wanted one since i was a kid, thats why im waiting. Otherwise it wouldn't even be a second thought because the PC is faster & cheaper.. I do prefer OSX over Windows, but I can always install OSX on PC which i've done on my current PC before.. worked faster then my Macbook.. But again cuz ive wanted one since I was a kid and cuz I passed up the opportunity last year too and bought a PC instead..
Eric S.
macrumors 68040
MattInOz
macrumors 68030
I work in companies of the 30 people range. the machines get handed down a couple time to lower demand staff. At the end of the three year life they are still in good enough to sell or gift to staff for use as home computers. Much older and they are hard to give away.
The only real upgrade of any value is RAM, as it's all networked the HD is never full even with large itunes libraries. We tend to keep an eye on RAM prices, a DDR2 machine would likely get full RAM at day one, but we might hold off if the price jumped for some reason, it's amazing how often memory fabs burn down. Machines would be full RAM sometime in the 3 years.
We a service based company each computer is a decent precent of the asset base, also a large risk to productivity if it goes down. The rolling upgrade of all parts of the machine keep the value stable and the risk low.
At the other end of the scale look at an airline they do the same with there planes for pretty much all the same reasons, running a plane till it breaks down at a random time is not good practice for them either. Yet for them having 100's of computers at risk of breaking down at random times in the call centre or check-ins isn't going to hurt them.
Sure 30,000 people you can run the risk of running machines to fail, as the risk is really low if they are off main line productivity. Have a look at what they do with machines in the main line of productivity, I'd bet there is rolling upgrade happening there.
umgoblue2008
macrumors regular
The wait for the first refresh of the iMac was 8 months (August '07 to May '08). Well, from May of '08 to February '09, its been... 8 months. Hopefully there will be some news soon.
xbjllb
macrumors 65816
Why not, having an online boiler room of 10,000 shills did wonders for Obama, didn't it?
As for your first remark:
- Quad core is a given, but even with C2D the iMac is awesome; but since you've never played with one, you have no idea as usual, Aiden;
- the current GFX is very good, and any improvement over the 8800 GS is gonna be marginal for the new iMac;
- Blu-Ray is a stillborn standard and useless unless you wanna make huge backups (pretty well covered by current DL DVDs, by the way). And no, I don't think of watching DRM-ridden BR movies on my iMac, even if the 24" screen is among the best of the market;
- 2nd optical drive? On a MacPro, maybe. But people barely use one, my biased Enderle agent...your suggestion is truly a joke;
- 2nd and maybe 3rd drives? Again, a nice joke for a wonderfully-integrated machine such as the iMac; I have one external on FW800 which is more than enough...not to mention that my internal 500Gb one hasn't even reached its half yet;
- 24Gb RAM? Very nice, but who needs that today in a consumer-oriented machine? Mine has 4Gb and performs fantastically...8Gb would be more than enough for an iMac. Another delusive suggestion that confirms your utter lack of knowledge in terms of market segmentation; Apple is wise not to follow advice like yours, indeed;
- PCIe slots, the fabled "necessity"; what else is there that is not already available on an iMac? Or perhaps you talk of those old Orange Micro PC-emulation cards for Macs? They ran on NuBus, I am sorry; 🙄
- And again, the myth of the expensive iMac...their price point is close to perfect as regards their quality and features. To deny that is to come back in time at least 10 years with such uninformed presumptions about Mac prices.
As for your last question, the link is here:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2009/01/21results.html
I really hope you enjoy your PC clone while its manufacturer still exists...at any time, you are welcome to join the club of the best computers, anyway...🙄
in relation to the comment earlier about every being 10 -15 I agree why is every one on this forum either 16 cores in three months in my mac book or they want a G5 back or else be realistic and quad core is still part of the premium market and mac does do quad core in fact it is 8 i will be happy for what i get and if there is more i will be pleasantly surprised
AidenShaw
macrumors P6
I have a number of Core 2 dual, quad and octo systems. You don't need to do much work to see the difference between a dual and a quad. (Hint - run something modest in a virtual machine)
So, I should buy both Blu-ray and DVD copies of my movies - one for the big screen and one for the computer?
That's becoming the big issue. Blu-ray is becoming popular for buying movies. Why shouldn't Apple users be able to watch their movies on their Apples?
That must be why dual optical is such a popular feature with PC mini-towers.
BRLawyer;7033978; said:
So, you admit that you need two drives....
If your Imac were truly wonderful, you wouldn't need an ugly external drive hanging off of it.
So, you admit that you'd like more memory than the Imac supports.
24 GiB is the normal max for Core i7 systems. (Although some mobos say 12 GiB because the 4 GiB DDR3 DIMMs aren't yet qualified.)
The fact is that you can buy better performing systems for less - for example quad-core systems that use desktop parts. The all-in-one nature of the Imac adds expense if you don't need to replace a good monitor.
By "quality" are you referring to an expensive designer case? Since the parts inside an Apple are the same parts that are inside other computers, I don't see where functionally there can be much difference in quality.
That page does not contain the word "Imac".... Sorry, fail.
ditzy
macrumors 68000
I agree that the iMac could now do with being updated. Better processors, nVidia cards as standard, possibly blu ray, up to 8GB of RAM.
But many of your suggestions could not happen without fundamentally changing what the iMac is. It's not a mini tower in essence it's a non portable notebook.
Saying there is no room for improvement is ridicules. But some of your suggested improvements, such as 24GB of RAM are really impossible in an imac.
SactoGuy18
macrumors 603
I still think a BD-ROM/BD-RE enabled Superdrive is possible on the new iMacs. Because rumored hardware for the new iMac supports HDCP, including the Mini DisplayPort connector, it means it will a very easy to incorporate full BD-ROM/BD-RE support.
BenRoethig
macrumors 68030
Unfortunately this platform has become so distorted from the rest of reality that they would be here.
telepati
macrumors 6502a
Im still waiting iMac update... Im hoping Apple will be release new iMac on March... This is Apple last year Keynote dates;
Macworld San Francisco
January 16, 2008
Apple March 6 Events
March 6, 2008
WWDC 2008 Keynote
June 9, 2008
Apple Special Events
September 9, 2008
Apple Special Events
October 14, 2008
and Im waiting this year new iMac will be release 3 or 10 March....
Macworld San Francisco
January 16, 2008
Apple March 6 Events
March 6, 2008
WWDC 2008 Keynote
June 9, 2008
Apple Special Events
September 9, 2008
Apple Special Events
October 14, 2008
and Im waiting this year new iMac will be release 3 or 10 March....
upgrades and slots
"Some CRTs are now being replaced by LCDs but that is a step up in technology,"
Last week my work PC, vintage April 2003, was upgraded to a nice core 2 vpro, with an LCD screen update at the same time. Sticker on the machine says Vista, but it's XP service pack 3. Which made me think, I still have not seen a machine with Vista on it. I have seen Windows 7 beta, as it was running in the IT guy's office. Apparently we are skipping directly to that, assuming it works.
"PCIe slots, the fabled "necessity"; what else is there that is not already available on an iMac? " In less than a year, USB 3. And there is no way to add it to the current iMacs. So they go into the dumpster, pretty screen and all, within a year of the release of USB 3. And since as discussed above, the current lifetime of a desktop is over 5 years, (my current home machine is a Quicksilver 2002) that is a lot of use value lost to Steve's desire for a clean outline.
Note that Expresscard slots on a desktop would be completely acceptable, and would easily fit on an iMac. Or a slightly larger mini, or a Cube II (mini large enough with discrete video and 3.5" hard drive, which makes it a headless iMac.)
"Some CRTs are now being replaced by LCDs but that is a step up in technology,"
Last week my work PC, vintage April 2003, was upgraded to a nice core 2 vpro, with an LCD screen update at the same time. Sticker on the machine says Vista, but it's XP service pack 3. Which made me think, I still have not seen a machine with Vista on it. I have seen Windows 7 beta, as it was running in the IT guy's office. Apparently we are skipping directly to that, assuming it works.
"PCIe slots, the fabled "necessity"; what else is there that is not already available on an iMac? " In less than a year, USB 3. And there is no way to add it to the current iMacs. So they go into the dumpster, pretty screen and all, within a year of the release of USB 3. And since as discussed above, the current lifetime of a desktop is over 5 years, (my current home machine is a Quicksilver 2002) that is a lot of use value lost to Steve's desire for a clean outline.
Note that Expresscard slots on a desktop would be completely acceptable, and would easily fit on an iMac. Or a slightly larger mini, or a Cube II (mini large enough with discrete video and 3.5" hard drive, which makes it a headless iMac.)
Eric S.
macrumors 68040
I seriously doubt that displays are replaced on a 3-year basis, or on any timeline, in any part of my company. Displays last for many years, failures are rare and easily replaced, and enforced replacement would be a large and completely unnecessary expense.
To relate this back to the iMac, that is part of the reason that I won't buy one - I don't want to be forced to replace my display when I buy a new system, and I don't want my choice of display to be dictated by the computer system I buy.
AidenShaw
macrumors P6
No disagreement, but in context I was replying to this fanboi's claim:
The Imac is clearly the best Apple All-In-One.
The best PC period - hardly. "Best" depends on what the user needs - and mini-towers can deliver more at a lower cost.
Yes, that's the fundamental curse of the Imac. 😉
Yamcha
macrumors 68000
lol no when i was 14 😛 your just angry cuz PC is better 😛, Im a designer, I started when I was about 14, and well most designers use Macs.. Im 21 now, that was a long time ago.. I did some freelancing and made $1000+ was planning on get an iMac but didn't because the PC was cheaper and faster.. so got that instead, and am using the same one now.. Thats why thought might as well get an iMac this time, that is if it releases sometime soon..