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Online Ad Evidence of Imminent iMac, Mac Mini and MacBook Updates?

jmpage2 said:
1. Apple wants people like yourself to buy a Mac Pro.

2. With Snow Leopard you will see virtually every major app coded to use multiple processors since it is far easier than under windows.

Snow Leopard can absolutely benefit from quad core at lower clock cycles compared to high click dual core.
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No, coding for Multi core on a Mac is not easier than on Windows. I code for both systems. Microsoft did a damn good job with Visual Studio and the .NET framework.

On another note, yes Mac Mini needs a price drop... but I hope it's not a price drop to 499 euro because that's a lot of money still.
 
spriter said:
The Mini needs a price drop.
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and a all in one sound and video HDMI port, which would make it a great HTPC.

not that this would happen...but threw in a Blu Ray Drive as an option and you have the ultimate HTPC.

- Christopher Palian
 
Arcadie said:
.... you all are idiots...
Thinner does not mean no quad core... Look at the quad core notebooks that are currently on the market. Look how slim they are compared to a current imac. if anyone made a laptop as fat as an imac, no one would buy it and it would undoubtedly be the thickest laptop on the market.

So how do all of you assume that these companies can fit a whole computer plus a keyboard and trackpad AND battery into something THINNER than an imac, but Apple for some reason has no way of getting this all in to a computer that is not only thicker but much wider and taller than any laptop on the market?

Im not saying the new imacs wont have quads, but just because its thinner dosnt mean it cant
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Because the iMac isnt a pure laptop, it has Desktop parts in it too.
 
Praying for Higher Specs at Lower Price

Hey, I can dream right? Higher specs/Lower price for a mac mini or iMac 20". How else are recession strapped buyers to get their spouses to allow a BIG LUXURY purchase like an apple computer?

But my e-machine is averaging a reformat once every 6 months. So I'm kind of tired of the Windows merry-go-round. Plus I'd like some slick integrated photo and movie software on a reliable machine that I won't need to be replace for say five years. My e-machine started begging for that at less than 4 years old.

So what do you think? Is this a doable dream with an iMac 20" or even a Mac Mini? Opinions?

A *NEW* $500 Mac Mini or $1099 iMac 20" ?!?!?! ... please pass the napkin.
 
shanmugam said:
Agreed, SSD one component can bring lots of performance improvement. It is very expensive though.

80, 160, 256, 320 GB SSD still possible in iMacs (apple bring some cash out of bank!)
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Hopefully they aren't going to use those ancient samsung ssd's if that's the case, they seem alot slower than most SSD's out today and are just as expensive (per apple).
 
Wonder how they'll make the iMac thinner without sticking a laptop hard drive in it. I'd actually be happier with a THICKER iMac if it meant getting rid of the Jay Leno chin.

That said, let's talk shop:
* IPS displays are (currently) thicker than their TN siblings. Consider the 24" cinema display, it sounds like the target iMac would look about that thick, but have a computer in it. Could they fit a computer in a case that thin along with an IPS screen? I doubt it.

* Next processor. I would definitely hope for an i5, if not i7 in there. The new P55 based setups would work perfect, though I doubt Apple would dare use a performance chipset in the iMac. They'd probably use yet another nvidia IGP if they could get away with it - that may be why we won't see i5/i7 in this speed bump (I'd be kinda surprised if they DID NOT).

* Cooling! How are they going to cool it?! There's already plenty of people with overheating iMacs out there. If they make it any thinner, it'll have to use a mesh backplate.

(Not that I have a problem with that, and the i5/i7 should produce LESS heat than the core 2 does, but the GPUs have not gotten there).

* Laptop guts or desktop guts?

Will it continue to have an internal power supply? DVD drive? Blu-ray drive?

Why hasn't Apple announced their press event yet for such a large change?
 
stuffradio said:
No, coding for Multi core on a Mac is not easier than on Windows. I code for both systems. Microsoft did a damn good job with Visual Studio and the .NET framework.

On another note, yes Mac Mini needs a price drop... but I hope it's not a price drop to 499 euro because that's a lot of money still.
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Considering you can just block out code to call GCD and figure out how many threads are needed AUTOMATICALLY, I would be surprised to see MS making it just as easy.

Every technical article I've read on the technology leads me to believe that GCD is pretty revolutionary for coding multiple threads since you don't have to do any engineering on figuring out how many cores/threads are required, you let GCD do that for you.
 
I would actually prefer it were a bit THICKER if it meant they could cram better components inside while keeping the insides cooler.
 
achansonjr said:
Just ordered a new macbook pro last tuesday.
If they do do a refresh, whats the likelihood of being able to take it into the store and swap it out if I don't open the box?

What is the typical way of handling something like this since I purchased from the online store?
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The rumour is for updated iMac, Mac Mini and MacBook ... not MacBook Pro.
 
At what point will the iMac be an LED screen with a tiny SSD and the MacBook Air guts? I'm all for making stuff thin, but I don't think the current iMacs are exactly hefty. I'd rather see a Blu-ray Disc option and the latest chipsets and CPUs instead of thinness.

I'm kinda the same about MacBooks. Weight is more of an issue than thickness, and I don't want the thing to melt because someone had to make it 1.1" thick instead of 1.2" thick. This 2-year-old MBP is still about half the thickness and weight of the Dell and HP notebooks I owned before.

On a side note, I guess Apple will never decide to offer a $1,500-ish midtower for people who want a desktop but not an all-in-one.
 
I hate to throw a wrench into what may have or not have been seen. The images I noticed at AI were similar to sponsored/paid ads at Google. Anyone could make an ad like that.

Now maybe there is true verification linking back to an official Apple website.

If it's real, I am most curious to learn the chipsets being used. It should give us some huge insights on the future of Macs!

I cannot wait for a Tuesday am update - I hope...
 
stuffradio said:
No, coding for Multi core on a Mac is not easier than on Windows. I code for both systems. Microsoft did a damn good job with Visual Studio and the .NET framework.
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.Net is past its glory days, Ever since V3.0 its become bloated. Visual Studio 2008 was a bit of a shocker to use as well. I went back to Visual Studio 2005 with in a few minutes.

Oh, and I don't believe you.
 
I have seen some argument over whether the new iMacs need to be quad core or not, and I don't want to speak for anyone but myself. Everyone has different things that are important to them or interest them, and to me, buying a computer in 2009 that I will have for 3+ years that is not quad core feels shortsighted.

I fully expect Grand Central Dispatch to be heavily leveraged in future OS releases, and I personally feel like committing to a dual core - no SMT processor right now is not sufficiently forward looking to get my 1500-2000 bucks.

I have had a mix of Macs (5200 series, iMac DV SE, I am due...) and PC's over the years, and with the Macs the #1 thing I have taken away is to be careful what you lock into that can't be upgraded... because this drives how long you can continue to run future cool OS versions. It's always about opportunity cost not just $$$ cost, and I am just not going to buy into a dual core box at this point.

If this refresh is not quad core, I am going to have to really evaluate waiting until the line up changes again, or building a PC, which would be a hard core performer for the same price. I wouldn't be bothering to type this up if I wasn't leaning towards Apple and rooting for them to satisfy me on this point.

This is just me. I like Apple, I dont "want" this refresh to flop, or care to evaluate what the specs might mean to how well these models do for others, I just care that there needs to be at least one forward looking option, or I am not going to bite right now.

(and personally I bet them being thinner is just normal apple high asthetic standards. I predict they will have more powerful tech specs and the thinner part is just a side effect of some engineering decisions)
 
wdaleherring said:
Third, do you think apple will actually bring a system down in terms of specs JUST to make a system thinner.
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Are you serious?

I wish I could agree with you but unfortunately, Apple has put the aesthetics of their products before many other aspects in the past and I wouldn't be surprised it they do it again.
 
The only problem with the idea that Apple will offer dual-core in the low-end iMacs and quad-core in the high end is that there is no currently available CPU/system architecture from Intel that would allow Apple to design one motherboard that would easily support both options. Right now, dual-core would pretty much mean they would have to stick with the current Core 2 Duo. However, quad-core means that they would have to use the new Core i7 Mobile processor which requires a completely different chip set and motherboard. Frankly, I don't see Apple designing a completely new iMac that would depend upon two such different chips and motherboard designs.

However, early in 2010 Intel will be introducing the dual-core Arrandale processor which most likely be used in the next major upgrades to the MacBook Pros. You can consider Arrandale to be the dual-core cousin of the quad-core i7 Mobile. There are differences (obviously) but they share the same CPU architecture and they appear to use the same motherboard socket.

Frankly, if we don't get a quad-core in the next redesign of the iMac then it probably means that Apple is waiting on Arrandale for the next big upgrade to the iMac. Thus, there is some possibility that the changes in the next iMac will be mostly cosmetic and that the "real" upgrades will come early next year with the Arrandale processor and with a high-end option for the quad-core i7 Mobile.

Another possibility, is that they would keep the current Core 2 Duo iMacs for the low end (i.e. no significant changes, same hardware and design as the existing models) and introduce a totally redesigned high end that would use the quad-core i7 Mobile CPU. Then next year the low end would be replaced by the dual-core Arrandale.

Remember also that neither Arrandale nor the i7 Mobile can use NVIDIA's 9400M (integrated-graphics chip set that is used in today's low-end iMacs). Thus, this makes the "best" hardware choices a bit more complex or difficult.
 
fpnc said:
The only problem with the idea that Apple will offer dual-core in the low-end iMacs and quad-core in the high end is that there is no currently available CPU/system architecture from Intel that would allow Apple to design one motherboard that would easily support both options. Right now, dual-core would pretty much mean they would have to stick with the current Core 2 Duo. However, quad-core means that they would have to use the new Core i7 Mobile processor which requires a completely different chip set and motherboard. Frankly, I don't see Apple designing a completely new iMac that would depend upon two such different chips and motherboard designs.

However, early in 2010 Intel will be introducing the dual-core Arrandale processor which most likely be used in the next major upgrades to the MacBook Pros. You can consider Arrandale to be the dual-core cousin of the quad-core i7 Mobile. There are differences (obviously) but they share the same CPU architecture and they appear to use the same motherboard socket.

Frankly, if we don't get a quad-core in the next redesign of the iMac then it probably means that Apple is waiting on Arrandale for the next big upgrade to the iMac. Thus, there is some possibility that the changes in the next iMac will be mostly cosmetic and that the "real" upgrades will come early next year with the Arrandale processor and with a high-end option for the quad-core i7 Mobile.

Another possibility, is that they would keep the current Core 2 Duo iMacs for the low end (i.e. no significant changes, same hardware and design as the existing models) and introduce a totally redesigned high end that would use the quad-core i7 Mobile CPU. Then next year the low end would be replaced by the dual-core Arrandale.

Remember also that neither Arrandale nor the i7 Mobile can use NVIDIA's 9400M (integrated-graphics chip set that is used in today's low-end iMacs). Thus, this makes the "best" hardware choices a bit more complex or difficult.
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Maybe it'll be like the iPhone and iPod touch, where they keep the same design but shove completely new internals into it and use it as the high-end model while keeping the previous generation model for the low-end.
 
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