New iMac In September

[Doctor Q]

My bold hardware prediction: The iMac will retain its hemisphere shape, but to make more desk space available for bigger monitors they have you put the base on the underside of your desk or tabletop, instead of on top. It attaches with suction cups and has a pad on the front so your knees don't bang into it constantly.

 

[Krizoitz]

Okay, there are too many replies to go through, so I just want to say this: September is too late to release one of Apple's leading consumer computers!!!! 99% of students going to college have already bought there desktop computers! Why is Apple not previewing the computer and taking orders ahead of time? Only the die-hard Apple students will wait to make their main educational computer purchase based on Apple's announcement!

Please read the thread before you post stuff like this. First, most students who aren't die-hard apple people will be directed by sales-people to the eMacs which make fantastic computers for the average student. Or they will do what most students are doing these days and go with a laptop. I knew one other person at my school with an iMac but I knew lots of people with Apple laptops. They may use a little sales to this delay but if they were interested enough in Apples they do have options.

 

[~Shard~]

There's still hope/Luck

I think the Apple Engineers will be needing a lot of the latter in order to satisfy the former...

 

[kuyu]

I'm sure we'll see this new Imac in late July (2-3 weeks). Pre-orders will follow, and shipments will probably begin in the 2nd week of September. I will have my $2500 saved up in late August, so this works out perfectly.

Note to Apple employee reading this thread to gauge 'the buzz': Please give me a reason to buy a prosumer desktop mac. A powermac is too much. An emac/current imac is too little. Fill the void. thx, Kuyu

 

[~Shard~]

Please read the thread before you post stuff like this. First, most students who aren't die-hard apple people will be directed by sales-people to the eMacs which make fantastic computers for the average student. Or they will do what most students are doing these days and go with a laptop. I knew one other person at my school with an iMac but I knew lots of people with Apple laptops. They may use a little sales to this delay but if they were interested enough in Apples they do have options.

I think the loss of sales may be greater than you anticipate, due to the whole timing around "back-to-school", but I do agree with you that more and more college students seem to have laptops than desktops nowadays. This delay is definitely going to hurt Apple though regardless.

 

[~Shard~]

My bold hardware prediction: The iMac will retain its hemisphere shape, but to make more desk space available for bigger monitors they have you put the base on the underside of your desk or tabletop, instead of on top. It attaches with suction cups and has a pad on the front so your knees don't bang into it constantly.

Well, I'll give you full marks for creativity!

 

[Multimedia]

Paris Apple Expo Announcement August 31

My thoughts exactly. This must have been a huge screwup, because it is *way* out of character.

Apparently they ran out of stock while waiting for the iMac G5... ok. Fine, but what really confuses me is that the "New One" wasn't ready enough to at least show off at WWDC and get huge press????? WTF?

I think this will wind up being announced at the keynote of Paris Apple Expo. It takes place August 31 to September 4.

Last year that's where Steve introduced the new PowerBook Line. Seems like that would be the right time and place to introduce a new G5 iMac.

 

[~Shard~]

I'm sure we'll see this new Imac in late July (2-3 weeks). Pre-orders will follow, and shipments will probably begin in the 2nd week of September. I will have my $2500 saved up in late August, so this works out perfectly.

Note to Apple employee reading this thread to gauge 'the buzz': Please give me a reason to buy a prosumer desktop mac. A powermac is too much. An emac/current imac is too little. Fill the void. thx, Kuyu

Apple will probably do something like this to "lessen the blow" of the delay in the eyes of the consumer, but I'm not sure if it will improve things overall or not. Plus, this is what Apple always does anyway, so it would be no surprise - reveal a new product, but announce that it will not be shipping for 2 more months.

So is my 17" 1.25 GHz G4 iMac going to be worth more as a collector's item now since Apple is out of stock?

 

[Krizoitz]

"Of course it is, with the improved architeture and raw speed of a G5 compared to a G4? You bet it will. Next question..."

That is your rebuttal? "Of course it is..."

Look, many of you seem to be unaware of this somewhat unpleasant fact: the G4 flat panel iMac is/was a failure for the most part. It won great critical reviews but it never, ever reached the kind of sales that Apple had with the G3 iMac. Steve loved it and it sold well enough to stay on the market, but it didn't come close to being the success Apple had hoped.

There are some big problems with this argument.
First, the iMac G3's where on the market for over a year longer than the iMac G4's have been. That alone gives them quite a bit more sales time.
Second, the iMac was the ENTIRE consumer desktop line. The iMac G4s split that with the eMac for the past 2 years.

What was the strategy with the FP iMac G4? Put in a new, flashy processor (which the G4 was at the time) and slap it in a beautiful enclosure (which the FP iMac certainly is). It didn't work that time and it won't work this time.

A redesigned iMac with a G5 will bolster sales for a couple of quarters as Apple nuts (myself included) go buy them. It will not get them any marketshare or move huge numbers of units like the original iMac did. So I say again Apple has two choices IF (and its a big if) they are even TRYING to still make the iMac a mass-market computer:

1. Cut the price a lot
2. Create a truly functional design with radical concepts that will make the iMac more useful than an average PC

I also still stick by this: The user that the iMac is aimed at (average, home) has plenty of processor with the G4 and a G5 isn't going to make a lick of difference. If you think otherwise, one must assume that you've never actually tried selling computers to home users. They don't lather up over a G5 sticker like we do.

No the strategy was use ground breaking industrial design to provide a mid-range computer. The user the iMac is aimed at isn't the average home user. Thats what the eMac is for, I should know I've advised enough people to get eMacs. The iMac is aimed at people like ME. People who have outgrown basic computer usage and even the intro multimedia stuff and are interested in doing more powerful work. Stuff like basic photoshop, web design, programming, digital media (beyond iMovie/iPhoto). A single G5 proccessor would dramatically help with that kind of stuff, and is exactly what mid-range users want. We are the users Apple targets with the iMac, those who can't quite justify the expense of a PowerMac but have outgrown the eMac.

The iMac isn't supposed to be the mass market machine, that is now the eMac. The iMac USED to be the mass market machine but not anymore. The eMac is the lower priced G4 machine you are talking about.

 

[MacFan25]

I'm coming in a little late on this thread, but...

I was surprised to see Apple put that up on their site. At first I was thinking that maybe it was accidently put up, as they have accidents with their website. But, obiviously now, it wasn't an accident, and I'm beginning to wonder what the new design will look like.

I'm sure that it will be a pretty awesome design. I'm just hoping that it will be as mind-blowing as the flat-panel iMac design was for me. I remember back in my PC using days, when I saw that ad with the guy looking in the window at the iMac. The iMac moved with him, and I thought that it was the greatest design for a computer that I had ever seen. Needless to say, several months later I purchased an iMac, and since, I have been very happy with my mac.

With Jonathan Ive's genius, I'm sure that whatever it looks like, it will be something different looking, and sport a very simple, elegant design. I'm just not sure how Apple will be able to top the design of the current iMac, but I'm sure there will be a way...

 

[rog]

This is just about the stupidest thing Apple can do. Why not just ramp up production again on the old ones and not tell anyone they blew it? Now, why would anyone considering and iMac or eMac give Apple their many thousands of $ before September. Everyone will expect a G5 in it now, which will make a $3000 powerbook with a slow G4 an absurd consideration. I think the whole line suffers from this, as is their stock. And now it came out that Apple had 1.7% market share this past quarter. 1.7%! That is the worst since, oh I don't know, EVER????

 

[MacFan25]

I think this will wind up being announced at the keynote of Paris Apple Expo. It takes place August 31 to September 4.

Last year that's where Steve introduced the new PowerBook Line. Seems like that would be the right time and place to introduce a new G5 iMac.

That seems like a good prediction. MacDailyNews posted an interesting article the other day of how they believe that in Jobs's keynote the other day, he was hinting at an announcement for new iMacs in Paris. It sounds like a stretch, but I think it's possible that he was hinting at it.

 

[~Shard~]

There are some big problems with this argument.
First, the iMac G3's where on the market for over a year longer than the iMac G4's have been. That alone gives them quite a bit more sales time.
Second, the iMac was the ENTIRE consumer desktop line. The iMac G4s split that with the eMac for the past 2 years.

...

The iMac isn't supposed to be the mass market machine, that is now the eMac. The iMac USED to be the mass market machine but not anymore. The eMac is the lower priced G4 machine you are talking about.

Very good points. I think a lot of people forgot that the G3 iMac was essentially on it's own as a consumer-level machine, but with the G4 iMac, the eMac was introduced - comparing these 2 iterations of iMacs is not fair on the previous poster's criteria.

I would like to see Apple make the next iMac a truly mid-range machine. That's what it really should be (as you say, for people who have "outgrown" eMacs), yet in its current form, I don't think it's very evident, nor does the machine have quite what it needs to be a true mid-range machine. Hopefully Apple will clearly define the eMac as the low-range, consumer level machine, the PowerMac the high-end, Pro user machine, and the new iMac as a truly mid-range "prosumer" (or whatever term you would like to use) solution.

 

[Lepton]

Headless $499 Mac and $299 15" screen

My guess is a headless Mac for $499. Add 15" and 17" screens to the display line for $299 and $399.

Now you have a decent $800 Macintosh at the low end, and can scale things up from there in many combinations. Also replaces eMac, sending the CRT to the showers.

 

[~Shard~]

I'm coming in a little late on this thread, but...

I was surprised to see Apple put that up on their site. At first I was thinking that maybe it was accidently put up, as they have accidents with their website.

I wasn't surprised - I mean, what was Apple really supposed to do? They can't take orders for iMacs that they don't have any more of. If they're out of stock, and their stock will not be replenished, it's pretty simple what needs to be done. Some people have said this move is uncharacteristic of Apple, yet I don't see how they had any choice in the matter. They screwed up on their JIT inventory model, there are no more iMacs, the new iMacs will not be ready until September, so what can ya do?

 

[~Shard~]

This is just about the stupidest thing Apple can do. Why not just ramp up production again on the old ones and not tell anyone they blew it?

There are many factors and associated costs related to manufacturing and inventory which would make commencing production again essentially prohibitive and therefore not an option - do you understand JIT? Would you rather them not tell anyone and accept orders for new iMacs which they simply don't have? Can you imagine ther outrage if Apple kept this under the covers and didn't tell anyone? I disagree that this is the stupidest thing Apple could have done - try the smart, right thing to do.

Now, why would anyone considering and iMac or eMac give Apple their many thousands of $ before September.

This is a non-issue - if you would have read Apple's statement completely you would have seen that Apple is no longer accepting order for the iMacs. As a result, no one could give Apple their money even if they wanted to. Or would it have bene better for Apple to accept these orders, not ship them out (since their stock is essentially depleted) and then annoy consumers when new iMacs are announced in 2 months? This is essentially what you are suggesting above, since you're complaining about how Apple has handled this sitaution.

As for the eMacs, what do they have to do with anything? They are the true consumer-level machine and have nothing to do with the current situation regarding the iMacs.

 

[~Shard~]

My guess is a headless Mac for $499. Add 15" and 17" screens to the display line for $299 and $399.

Now you have a decent $800 Macintosh at the low end, and can scale things up from there in many combinations. Also replaces eMac, sending the CRT to the showers.

I would rather see the eMac remain as the cost-effective consumer-level machine, with the iMac becoming the mid-range machine - I think it makes more sense this way as there is too large o a gap right now between the iMac and the PowerMac - Apple needs to balance things out a little better....

 

[~Shard~]

That seems like a good prediction. MacDailyNews posted an interesting article the other day of how they believe that in Jobs's keynote the other day, he was hinting at an announcement for new iMacs in Paris. It sounds like a stretch, but I think it's possible that he was hinting at it.

It makes sense to me too, however if you follow Apple's statement right on ther Apple Store to the letter it says that the new iMac line "will be announced and available in September" - this would indicate no early announcements. I'm still hoping to see it it sooner than later though, even if it isn't shipping until September.

 

[dernhelm]

That seems like a good prediction. MacDailyNews posted an interesting article the other day of how they believe that in Jobs's keynote the other day, he was hinting at an announcement for new iMacs in Paris.

I saw that thread! My favorite quote from it:

You are all aware, aren't you, that Paul is dead?



None-the-less, the biggest expo that occurs on or before the first week of September is as good a guess as any...

 

[MacFan25]

I wasn't surprised - I mean, what was Apple really supposed to do? They can't take orders for iMacs that they don't have any more of. If they're out of stock, and their stock will not be replenished, it's pretty simple what needs to be done. Some people have said this move is uncharacteristic of Apple, yet I don't see how they had any choice in the matter. They screwed up on their JIT inventory model, there are no more iMacs, the new iMacs will not be ready until September, so what can ya do?

I understand what you are saying. They must have screwed up somewhere. Most likely they are having more trouble cooling the 90nm G5 than they had anticipated, and have since run out of stock of the iMac G4. Of course, they can't just keep taking orders for something that they no longer have in stock. But I think the one thing that is out of character for them, is how they said that the newly designed iMacs will be available in September. They are usually so tight-lipped about new products and it they want us to be pleasantly surpised when new products are announced.

Last time something like this happened for Apple was at the beginning of last year. They said that "due to holiday demand, the 5 GB iPod is no longer available", and then at the end of April they announced the 3rd Generation iPods.

 

[BenRoethig]

Are you kidding? Check out http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/

Granted it's Apple's own tests, but they do show a HUGE difference between G5's and Athlon-64. If you are able to find competing scores that show a reversal between a dual-G5 and AMD-64, post it to this list so we can actually use some info rather than unsubstantiated claims.

The Athlon64 may mature into a better chip, but as of now, it is underpowered for a 64-bit chip.

Well they are comparing a consumer Alienware against a professional PowerMac in Professional MP enabled apps. Judging by the scores, The G5 and Opteron should be about the same per Megahertz. This is not surprising since IBM's chip division and AMD have close ties.

 

[MacFan25]

It makes sense to me too, however if you follow Apple's statement right on ther Apple Store to the letter it says that the new iMac line "will be announced and available in September" - this would indicate no early announcements. I'm still hoping to see it it sooner than later though, even if it isn't shipping until September.

I just hope that they won't pull the same stunt that they usually do, where it's announced in September, and doesn't ship until a month or two later. I think if they are announced in September, and ship in reasonable time, that they will have a good chance to sell a lot during the Christmas buying season.

Hopefully it will be a revolutionary design that they can start advertising in October and November to get people to buy it for Christmas.

 

[joeboy_45101]

Apple may be able to pull off high volume production of the new(er) iMac if they use a 130nm version of the G5, IBM is able to produce those chips very well.

My biggest hope is that Apple doesn't try and redesign the whole machine, I'm very fond of the flat-panel swivel neck design. I hope they find a way to sell the new(er) iMac at a cheaper price, the main reason the iMac G4 sold so poorly was that it was too much (money) for too little (technology).

This is not 1999, and this President's dumbF**k taxcuts have not saved the economy. So for the next iMac to succeed it has to be affordable, maybe not eMac affordable but you get my point.

 

[MacUnit]

Apple iMac News Report

=Apple Down After Delaying Launch Of New iMac>AAPL

Dow Jones Equity News, Friday, July 02, 2004 at 10:05


By Donna Fuscaldo Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Shares of Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) fell in trading Friday after the company said it would delay the launch of its new iMac desktop computer.

The Wall Street Journal reported in its Friday edition that Apple had stopped taking orders for its current generation of iMacs and expects inventory of these machines to run out in a few weeks. Apple had hoped to have its new iMac line ready by this time, but was unable to meet its internal goal.

Following news of the launch delay, shares of Apple fell 6.4%, or $2.08, to $30.22, on volume of 2.8 million shares. Average daily volume is 6.5 million.

Over the last two months, Apple's stock has been on a tear, as investors reward it for the success of its iPod digital player. But many watchers had expected Apple to unveil a new line of iMacs at its worldwide developers forum earlier this week and were disappointed when Apple didn't do so.

Apple didn't elaborate on what prompted the delay of the new iMacs. The company reports third-quarter results July 14. Industry watchers expect to hear more about the delay during Apple's conference call to discuss the results.

While some Wall Street watchers said the delay wasn't too worrisome, they did express concern over the fact that Apple will run out of its current line of iMacs likely by the end of July and won't have any iMacs for sale from August to mid-September. The end of the summer is a prime shopping time for computer makers, given the back-to-school season.

Charles Wolf, an analyst at Needham Company, had expected Apple to sell about 150,000 iMacs in the September quarter. Now he said the worst-case scenario is Apple sells only 50,000. The analyst noted in a research report that the misstep will remove about 5 cents of Apple's fiscal year 2004 earnings, bringing it to 55 cents instead of 60 cents. Analysts according to Thomson First Call expect Apple to report full-year earnings of 63 cents a share.

Meanwhile, Steven Milunovich, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, said he now expects Apple to sell 105,000 iMacs in the September quarter, down from 210,000."This bungled product transition gives credence to the bears' concerns about Apple's execution and will take some wind out of the stock's sails,"wrote Milunovich in a research report Friday.

Officials at Apple weren't immediately available to comment. Needham's Wolf and Merrill's Milunovich don't own shares of Apple. Merrill intends to seek an investment banking relationship with the company.

-By Donna Fuscaldo, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5253; donna.fuscaldo@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

07-02-04 1005ET

SOURCE Dow Jones Equity News

07/02/2004

 

[joeboy_45101]

I just hope that they won't pull the same stunt that they usually do, where it's announced in September, and doesn't ship until a month or two later. I think if they are announced in September, and ship in reasonable time, that they will have a good chance to sell a lot during the Christmas buying season.

Hopefully it will be a revolutionary design that they can start advertising in October and November to get people to buy it for Christmas.

I can't argue with you here, I hope Apple's learned a lesson from all of this:
DON'T PREVIEW CRAP WHEN IT WON'T BE AVAILABLE FOR MONTHS!

They should have left the PowerMacs and Airport Express for WWDC, instead of announcing them early. It was clear to everybody that they were saving something 'amazing' for WWDC, although the new displays and Tiger are cool they didn't knock anybody's socks off.

Hopefully the next time they announce something it will be ready to for people to purchase. I think that this garbage with showing a preview of stuff has got to stop.