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

[Target362]

people who don't get blu-ray are

1. kids. They are too young to understand it. They never even experienced VHS, grew up in the early DVD era. They think VHS tapes are from their grandparents days.
2. High school/college drop outs
3. People who can't even afford it. they want it, but are upset because they can't afford it, so they have a little attitude problem.
4. people who have no clue whats so ever what goes on in the world. they wake up and say "theres a new formatt. I've still beein using cassette tapes. Whats the deal with this "iPod" and why does it have a large screen with no buttons.... (or god forbid wake up and hear news on a terror plot and 9/11 is menton and they ask "whats 9/11" )

 

[xbjllb]

I just dont get where people get these statements from, "the most requested feature is bluray".

According to whom exactly? I had no idea that there were polls and studies focused solely on macs that are released by a trustable source.

The most requested feature of all people who go HERE:

http://www.apple.com/pro/

which is evidently someplace you've never been, because you are not a PRO, is Blu-ray.

If you were a PRO, you'd understand the need for Blu-ray, LAST YEAR.

 

[CQd44]

I'm not sure if PCI slots will ever go away.

 

[andy721]

But that is lying, and not a very "cool" thing to do.

Ok soccer mom everyone is trying to save up once in a while here the economy sucks right now. Let it go, this reminds me of anti abortion protestors

 

[Target362]

Ok soccer mom everyone is trying to save up once in a while here the economy sucks right now. Let it go, this reminds me of anti abortion protestors

actually the encoomy is picking up.

Second, if I recall, you must provide some sort of proff. You can't go around braging on your myspace, facebook or twitters page "look at me, i lied to get a mac for 5-10% less! hehehehe

 

[kurosov]

actually the encoomy is picking up.

Second, if I recall, you must provide some sort of proff. You can't go around braging on your myspace, facebook or twitters page "look at me, i lied to get a mac for 5-10% less! hehehehe

Only for the student discount. You can access the education store for education discount from any computer.

Or you could further expand your knowledge at any age via an open university course and be officially deemed a uni student . £10 for an NUS card here in the UK and you save at least £100 on your mac.

 

[MattInOz]

Whats on my wish list......


5) Cheaper(subtract $100-$200
6) Built-in-battery & surge protector(for blackouts)
7) New, thinner design with less chin, less desk space wasted, more adjustable
...
9) SSDs standard

Well, thats about it...... hey, if they made this, they would have the best consumer computer ever. I'd buy one...

SG

Cheaper yes please although arround here currency price should make that happen but two fold even better.

Battery again yes please I know most people just don't understand why but it has lots of advantages and it doesn't need to gives us much time just some.

New design is due in the cycle less chin and get the lower edge of the screen lower to the desk, or height adjustable.

SSDs don't understand the hype personally can't see it being anything other that BTO

 

[sushi]

I'm not sure if PCI slots will ever go away.

Eventually they will, just like ISA, VESA, NuBus, etc.

Technology will keep moving forward.

 

[barkmonster]

Re: People who don't get blu-ray are

1. kids. They are too young to understand it. They never even experienced VHS, grew up in the early DVD era. They think VHS tapes are from their grandparents days.
2. High school/college drop outs
3. People who can't even afford it. they want it, but are upset because they can't afford it, so they have a little attitude problem.
4. people who have no clue whats so ever what goes on in the world. they wake up and say "theres a new formatt. I've still beein using cassette tapes. Whats the deal with this "iPod" and why does it have a large screen with no buttons.... (or god forbid wake up and hear news on a terror plot and 9/11 is menton and they ask "whats 9/11" )

I totally agree with you on that. For me personally, I'm waiting out blu-ray because I don't currently have an LCD TV.

A 32" Sony Bravia like the KDL-32V5500 can be had for less than £500, when that's more like £400, that's when I'll look at getting a TV, then I'm all set for blu-ray. The players can only drop in price in the meantime and if Apple are rolling out blu-ray playback on they're consumer desktops in the meantime then a Mac Mini with dual 23 or 24" LCDs with a 1080p resolution and a switchbox so the main display can be output to either the left LCD or the TV would be the perfect setup.

Throw in a PS3 and a remote control, add it to my multiregion upscaler DVD player and I'd have a sweet media/music making setup in my living room.

 

[chrisdee]

The only thing compelling would be core i7 or at least quad core. But I have no hopes that they ever will come out of the cpu stoneage.

 

[Tallest Skil]

The most requested feature of all people who go HERE:

http://www.apple.com/pro/

which is evidently someplace you've never been, because you are not a PRO, is Blu-ray.

If you were a PRO, you'd understand the need for Blu-ray, LAST YEAR.

How could you possibly know that? Do you have a chart that you can show us detailing the ratio of common requested features?

 

[macintoshtoffy]

1. kids. They are too young to understand it. They never even experienced VHS, grew up in the early DVD era. They think VHS tapes are from their grandparents days.
2. High school/college drop outs
3. People who can't even afford it. they want it, but are upset because they can't afford it, so they have a little attitude problem.
4. people who have no clue whats so ever what goes on in the world. they wake up and say "theres a new formatt. I've still beein using cassette tapes. Whats the deal with this "iPod" and why does it have a large screen with no buttons.... (or god forbid wake up and hear news on a terror plot and 9/11 is menton and they ask "whats 9/11" )

I am in neither of those - the problem I have is BluRay is too expensive. I want BluRay, scrap that, I want a BluRay writer as standard with all Mac's - but I know that given Sony's reluctance to stop being a grade 'a' prick, it isn't going to be a technology that is accessible to everyone.

I'm not anti-Sony or Anti-BluRay, but its almost a certaintity will be a rip off when made available like it is now; for example, right now it costs ~US$400 minimum for bluray writer external (marginally less for internal). Until the price of that comes down, its just not viable.

 

[-hh]

How about....
...Firewire 1600 - if not "1600", the next-generation of firewire

chips for FW1600 have been around for IIRC 2+ years now, so they obviously were rejected. FW3200 is a better bet; foundry chips have been available for 9+ months, and the MacBook 'Pro' reversal suggests Apple listening (a little).

I still think this is a good idea:

…but not for all circumstances of course.

Change its size...and envision this for the iPhone, Touch AND/OR MacTablet.

The iMac Touch

Possible, but some of us have aleady had touchscreen desktop PCs...and rejected them. Broadly speaking, they have a poor UI because of where your hand has to reach (vs keyboard shortcut, keypad or mouse/pointer).

Amazing how Americans forget their own foray into piracy when considering the nature of copyright laws in the US 200 years ago - where it was perfectly legal for a person to sell a non-authorised copy of a book and sell it to customers; the best example of this 'piracy' was Charles Dickens books and him getting annoyed that he was receiving no royalties off the books sold in the Americas.

A more recent example may be from the 1960s, when JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was appropriated by Donald A. Wollheim (Ace Books).

The only thing compelling would be core i7 or at least quad core. But I have no hopes that they ever will come out of the cpu stoneage.

An interesting Catch-22 debate, as some posters here say that it won't happen because of too much heat generation...and yet, when the financial implications of burning 'more power' comes up in a different conversation, the voices rise to claim that the i7 is now an extremely frugal sipper that burns no more power per year than the laptop Chips.

FWIW, what I see as a potentially interesting approach would be to add an SSD for the computer to use as its boot drive...this would differentiate the hardware and make it speedy.


-hh

 

[Eidorian]

I am in neither of those - the problem I have is BluRay is too expensive. I want BluRay, scrap that, I want a BluRay writer as standard with all Mac's - but I know that given Sony's reluctance to stop being a grade 'a' prick, it isn't going to be a technology that is accessible to everyone.

I'm not anti-Sony or Anti-BluRay, but its almost a certaintity will be a rip off when made available like it is now; for example, right now it costs ~US$400 minimum for bluray writer external (marginally less for internal). Until the price of that comes down, its just not viable.

I remember getting my first DVD burner for $99 and it was a nice Pioneer retail x16 box.

We're getting there for a $99 burner. On a good day you can get one for about $169 after rebates. I was taking a look at the viability of a 25 GB rewritable media. It's coming soon to my computer.

 

[Drag'nGT]

Blu-ray drive and a quad processor. The look is fine as it sits. No one I know gets upset about the glass screen. I only see people here complaining.

 

[chrislayton]

I HATE Matte. I understand that Matte is important for graphic design. I am former Art director myself. I prefer glossy screen for my personal user that feel like bring rich shinny and brightly.

If blu-ray "read only" then not worth at all. I don't watch movie on iMac instead watch on large TV display. I prefer to have blu-ray burner then It will be HUGE worth for my HD video camera to import and save storage on blu-ray disc.

 

[AidenShaw]

for example, right now it costs ~US$400 minimum for bluray writer external

I assume that's the equivalent price for you in New Zealand. Newegg has external writers for US $185 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827162001)

I remember getting my first DVD burner for $99 and it was a nice Pioneer retail x16 box.

My first CD-R personal burner was a 1X SCSI drive that was about $450 (I waited for "under $500" before buying). $5 per blank CD was a good price.

I was taking a look at the viability of a 25 GB rewritable media. It's coming soon to my computer.

BD-RE 25 GB is still around $10 per disk. Name brand 25 GB write-once BD-R is under $3/disk.

 

[yg17]

Name brand 25 GB write-once BD-R is under $3/disk.

Where are you finding that at? I checked NewEgg and BD-Rs seem to be averaging about 5 bucks a disc.

 

[Helmigurt]

Am I the only person who has no problem with matte AND glossy? I like both if the panel is ok, sometimes glare is distracting, but cleaning the all-glass displays on my imac and my macbook is so easy compared to my matte benq screen.

 

[faroZ06]

BluRay scam...

Low bitrate "HD" video is a bad idea...
BluRay uses H.264 which destroys the video's quality while technically being HD...it's a marketing thing!

I've seen Booray, and its quality sucks compared to a DVD in an upscaling DVD player (which costs less than a BooRay player). The player uses good pixel prediction to make the video better than the compressed @#$% from BooRay discs.

Besides, what good is 25GB of free space on a BDR if the video only uses 1 GB?!?!?! Wasted money on the extra 24GB!

 

[Target362]

Low bitrate "HD" video is a bad idea...
BluRay uses H.264 which destroys the video's quality while technically being HD...it's a marketing thing!

Think again. I'm one of the few who actully owns a blueray player and I can clearly see the difference.

I've seen Booray, and its quality sucks compared to a DVD in an upscaling DVD player (which costs less than a BooRay player). The player uses good pixel prediction to make the video better than the compressed @#$% from BooRay discs.

then you must have real bad eye sight.

Besides, what good is 25GB of free space on a BDR if the video only uses 1 GB?!?!?! Wasted money on the extra 24GB!

It uses more then 1GB my friend.

and why make fun of the name if you arnt gonna do it all the way?

Low bitrate "HD" video is a bad idea...
BluRay uses H.264 which destroys the video's quality while technically being HD...it's a marketing thing!

I've seen Booray, and its quality sucks compared to a DVD in an upscaling DVD player (which costs less than a BooRay player). The player uses good pixel prediction to make the video better than the compressed @#$% from BooRay discs.

Besides, what good is 25GB of free space on a BDR if the video only uses 1 GB?!?!?! Wasted money on the extra 24GB!

 

[xbjllb]

How could you possibly know that? Do you have a chart that you can show us detailing the ratio of common requested features?

Skil, the need for Blu-ray by pros who need to distribute their data at the highest fidelity possible to small and even large groups of people (beyond pirated torrent downloads) has been explained to you over and over again, ad infinitum, in several hundreds of posts, both by me and by many other pro content creators. We are NOT going to ship out hard drives to the 50 people who need to view the latest edit on a film/video project.

Look. I'm sorry you bought HD-DVD and passed on Blu-ray. I have an LG player that plays both just fine. The only thing I have against HD-DVD was whoever was the genius that decided it would be a no-menu system.

That, as far as I'm concerned, was the kiss of death for HD-DVD. A system that has menus is vastly superior to one that doesn't. The only thing you get on HD-DVD discs is numbered pop up boxes at the bottom of the screen that force you to guess which feature you're accessing from the time. Which are impossible to access if you have any kind of screen enlarging going on. Which shouldn't be necessary with HD-DVD discs, but has been with some releases in my experience.

Really stupid. I can't even believe there was any kind of format battle to begin with.

When you eventually get a plasma or large LCD TV and bite the bullet and get Blu-ray, you'll realize just like the rest of us what a better format it is and how nice it is to have friggin' MENUS to access features.

I've seen Booray, and its quality sucks compared to a DVD in an upscaling DVD player (which costs less than a BooRay player). The player uses good pixel prediction to make the video better than the compressed @#$% from BooRay discs.

Dude... we're talking Blu-ray here, not Booray. I agree, Booray sucks.

But even my half-blind cat can see the difference between Blu-ray and upscaled DVD. Even my roomate can tell if I put it in two different players with different upscaling algorithms, and NO UPSCALING comes even remotely close to Blu-ray.

But thanks for weighing in with the opinion from the Toshiba HD-DVD development section of the unemployment line.

 

[xIGmanIx]

It looks like BD is dominating the wanted feature portion of this post. what i don't understand is that this being a mac enthusiast site and i would gauge there is a significant percentage of folks that would like the option of native BD support and hardware availability, why so much friction over this? BD support takes compromises nothing about your current hardware solution all it does is allow for more options. I honestly don't understand the comments that say "blu-ray sucks" or "up scaled DVD's look just as good", it is the HD standard right now, allow us mac users the same hardware options as windows boxes. Not only that, but apple has been on the board of directors for BD since 2005, no excuses, give the people what they want.

 

[Ironduke]

Low bitrate "HD" video is a bad idea...
BluRay uses H.264 which destroys the video's quality while technically being HD...it's a marketing thing!

I've seen Booray, and its quality sucks compared to a DVD in an upscaling DVD player (which costs less than a BooRay player). The player uses good pixel prediction to make the video better than the compressed @#$% from BooRay discs.

Besides, what good is 25GB of free space on a BDR if the video only uses 1 GB?!?!?! Wasted money on the extra 24GB!

Laughing out loud violently at this guy

 

[Eidorian]

My first CD-R personal burner was a 1X SCSI drive that was about $450 (I waited for "under $500" before buying). $5 per blank CD was a good price.

Oh I waited longer then that.

BD-RE 25 GB is still around $10 per disk. Name brand 25 GB write-once BD-R is under $3/disk.

A single BD-RE runs for $14 here in the local stores. I'm quite fond of my DVD-RWs for image burning. It's very nice to just reuse the discs.