Next-Generation iMac to Offer Two 'Compelling' New Features?

[fef714]

Give us the option, Apple!

24" as the "entry level" screen with 26, 28 & 30 options

Lose the "chin"

Ditch the black!

Class it up!

You can do it!

Can this happen by the holiday selling blitz?

I actually need a 20". 24" would not fit on my desk, although the extra screen is nice.

See, when they moved up from 17" to 20" as the base model, that was different because 17" has always been kinda small for a desktop.

The only things that they should change with the mirror, er sorry, 'screen' are; widescreen, matte, and while I am dreaming make it a full on 3-dimensional hologram

 

[zw-gator]

Errr.. A lot of not particularly expensive laptops have BD drives already. Much cheaper than MBPs or even MBs here in the UK.

You must not have a Mac laptop then....I do, and may other people can verify this, they get crazy hot when playing HD content.

Seriously, blu ray is going to cost a FORTUNE! Go to Lenovo and see how much it costs to add on (I'll do it for you, it's $560 Canadian)

 

[freddiecable]

I second that. They will probably make it slimmer than now with more horsepower. but i think we can forget about - 2 drive bays, 4 ram-slots, pci-slots etc. iMac is and will be a prosumer thing. And the more time will pass the less we will need those "extras".

My two year old 24" iMac is still doing great, but I am interested to see what these new features are.

 

[barkmonster]

:d

 

[Shake 'n' Bake]

Considering the imac uses laptop components perhaps the 20" can be made portable with a flipout keyboard and trackpad. Otherwise forget touch on a desktop purleese. This only works for the iphone and tablet solutions. Quad core would be a nice touch.

Dell had a 20'' laptop. It was a flop.

 

[mixel]

You must not have a Mac laptop then....I do, and may other people can verify this, they get crazy hot when playing HD content.

Seriously, blu ray is going to cost a FORTUNE! Go to Lenovo and see how much it costs to add on (I'll do it for you, it's $560 Canadian)

I have a 2009 15" Macbook Pro unibody, a 2007 MBP and a white plastic macbook in this house. I've only tried playing HD content on the Unibody, which is the only relevant one anyway. It doesn’t get any hotter than it does when playing games, and hasn't been a bother to me.

Doesn't seem to have to cost a fortune either. I'm not saying Apple won't overcharge for it, but not everyone else has.

 

[fef714]

Dell had a 20'' laptop. It was a flop.

Everything Dell does is a flop

 

[rumf]

OK - the limb is thin and based on nothing more than reviewing the stream of patents...

One feature will be the pDock for iPhones, iPods, and the new iNet. This side access slot loader will allow you to dock your mobile device for fast synch, and with OpenCL will allow the docked iNet to join the internal processing grid providing additional processing power to the iMac.

The iNet will use a shared filesystem with the host iMac (thank you ZFS) such that simply labelling a file or folder as shared will make it available to the undocked device - the notion of synching files disappears.

Then again maybe it is just wireless USB and FireWire 3200.

 

[iMacmatician]

why are folks jumping on slimmer design. maybe the redesign is to move towards solid state (as a custom item perhaps), bigger hard drives and a new design that would be able to use desktop not laptop CPUs without the dang things over heating and blowing up in the machine. that latter switch is one that has been cried for way longer than a matte screen option.

I am not surprised at a rumor of a slimmer design, given the focus of "slim" in many other Apple products. It has nothing to do with whether or not I want it.

If the iMac gets a 28" (or so) at the high end, that could mean more internal area for hotter components. But if the design gets slimmer, then the end result might be that the 20" and 24" iMacs have an even lower CPU TDP ceiling than now and the 28" is the only one that can handle 55 W CPUs.

 

[jbrenn]

Exactly. All the stores no longer sell HD-DVD movies.

Plus, in my opinion blu-ray is more a unique name then HD-DVD.

I agree that HD-dvd is not making a comeback but you are wrong when you say all stores no longer sell hd-dvd. Frys still sells them and they are dirt cheap starting at like $5. They are just not getting new shipments of them.

 

[147798]

Totally, if there's no matte screen option, then I can't even begin to consider purchasing an imac.

My white iMacs MB is smoking hot and I've got the fans revved up to keep it alive, just hoping, hoping, hoping for a matte screen and perhaps a better nVidia (or other graphics processor) set that doesn't burn out!

Don't care at all about Blu-Ray

 

[Target362]

Well you are going to care....

I agree that HD-dvd is not making a comeback but you are wrong when you say all stores no longer sell hd-dvd. Frys still sells them and they are dirt cheap starting at like $5. They are just not getting new shipments of them.

may be for you, but my frys doesn't have any.

 

[Bubba Satori]

iMac is and will be a prosumer thing. And the more time will pass the less we will need those "extras".

Why ? Because they are not offered or because we stopping doing the things that all those "extras" allow us to do ?

 

[Bubba Satori]

BD is dying on the vine. Check out your Netflix and Blockbuster cues.
Less and less BD available.
China is now committed to Toshiba and HD DVD.
But who cares anyway?

All physical media for music, film and tv is dead.
New AV features?

BD Fail
HDMI possible

Funniest post of the day. Absolutely hilarious. Thanks.

 

[dancingchiapet]

upgrades to iMac

I'm really excited to see what the next group of apple products are. Here are some of the things I'd like to see on the iMac

Dream 2 Upgrades
1. Touch Screen
2. Wireless Syncing with iPhones and iPods

Other ideas
3. More desktop appearance options so you don't need Geektool and ultimately slow down your computer
4. Blu-Ray
5. Matte Display

 

[bj3949]

The iMac Touch

 

[huntor]

blu-ray..

..and probably a new intel chip or something.

if they put touch screens in the imacs i'll sh*t myself.

 

[Buzz Bumble]

The current iMac form factor is 5 years old. What the computer can or cannot do hasn't *really* changed in that time.

If Apple expects people to upgrade their hardware, they're going to have to give them a compelling reason to do so.

Believe me, there are plenty of morons around who would still upgrade their brand new aluminium iMac just to gain 0.01GHz of processor speed ... they simply must have the latest and greatest.

 

[zw-gator]

I have a 2009 15" Macbook Pro unibody, a 2007 MBP and a white plastic macbook in this house. I've only tried playing HD content on the Unibody, which is the only relevant one anyway. It doesn’t get any hotter than it does when playing games, and hasn't been a bother to me.

Doesn't seem to have to cost a fortune either. I'm not saying Apple won't overcharge for it, but not everyone else has.

I don't know if I believe those prices as most desktop blu ray burners are going for ~$200...you would expect laptop burners to be more expensive.

Not to mention Apple only uses slot loading drives in their laptops (and iMacs? I think they do).

Either way, I don't think Lenovo would charge $560 for something that could be had for $60 on Amazon.

 

[uricmu]

My wishlist

My wishlist is very simple: Sell me a frigging standalone mid-range desktop computer.

I love macs dearly. I do most of my work on a day-of-release Mac Pro that I got from work. But I will not buy another desktop mac until I can buy one that is:

1) Not an overpriced box with features I don't need and a premium on memory or other options (the mac pro)
2) Not an underpowered box (the mac mini, if it even exists anymore)
3) Not a laptop. Sorry. I already have one, it's great for travel but underpowered for coding work and I don't want to pay the premium.

If Apple wants to one day take a major share of the market, it's about time they started competing beyond notebooks, phones, and really high-end workstations. I would be very happy with buying the Apple OS X equivalent of a mid-level Dell machine, and attach whatever displays I would like. For general coding and research work I have no use for a high quality cinema display, and with display prices falling all the time, I like changing screens every year while I keep my computers for longer.

I just built a fairly powerful gaming rig for under $700. It runs Linux for when I need number crunching and Windows for when I want to play, but most of the time I still use my old Mac pro. However, the temptation of using the faster machine for everything is there, even if I have to tolerate Win 7 in the process. I would have bought a mac and given up the gaming if there was an option to me that wasn't in the Mac Pro price range.

 

[sushiman]

Until the rest of the world gets Japan-like internet speeds, physical media isn't going anywhere. Also, a Blu-Ray movie with special features is what, 20-30 GB? The cost of storage will have to come down too. When everybody enjoys 60 Mbps connections and 5 TB drives are standard, then disc media will die. 2020, maybe?

Oh, and my number one wish for new iMacs? Non-crappy graphics cards. But that's a concept that seems to baffle Apple.

When you are talking about " Japan " with regards to fast internet speeds , you really should say the metro areas of Japan . Once you get out of the Tokyo , Osaka or Yokohama areas speeds are nothing to brag about . If you live in the countryside , like I do , forget it . ONE MB here !

 

[chedda]

Dell had a 20'' laptop. It was a flop.

Historically apple has never given you exactly what you wanted that's a given. If they produce something beautiful you will desire it. Form and style was great with that dell, okay it was heavy but given the size it could have been a beast and it folded into an attache case size, for all these reasons i could see it again. Imagine the worlds first truly portable desktop........

 

[uricmu]

I don't see what the excitement is about Blu Ray.

When CD burners became mainstream, most HDs were fairly tiny.

When DVD burners became mainstream, many hard drives were in the 40GB range (and below for laptops)

Now you can easily buy 1TB disks under $100, but blu-ray is not yet mainstream. By the time that it is, we will probably be at 4+TB.

In addition, external drives are getting cheaper constantly. You can get a 500GB for around $50 these days. I don't see the benefit of paying that much for burning 25GB or 50GB.

 

[sushiman]

The new iMac's will defiantly have quad cores.

Charging $1500+ for a C2D is robbery regardless of how may features are built in.

Hoping you are right , and that they have matte screens at least as an option . A bit lower price would be nice as well .

 

[nefster]

Hey, whatever happened to those patents we saw on this site of an iMac looking machine with a kind of tablet that slid into it? Could this be it?