Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
So great if you want those expansions next to the clean looking imac you have to have wires and boxes all around it?
Huh? It looks fine, all the cables are routed out the back and the boxes are in a neat little row on a shelf. And there's more flexibility and convenience too; I'm able to lend the Formac DV adapter out to friends (even ones with PCs!) so they can DVDify their old tapes; no _way_ would I consider doing that with a PCI card.
stuff everywhere with wires everywhere? who wants that?/
I suppose that all the PC users with scanners, printers, flash media dongles, cameras, DSL/cable interfaces and PDAs want them.
Funny thing is, I didn't buy an iMac because of its looks. It was about having a whole computer system that took up less desk space (and weighed less) than my last CRT, used no floor space, and had a display that would go where my body wanted it to go.
my point is apple has to build a box that fits everyone consumer wise not just a very tiny market segment that is buying less and less imacs. performance,utility,&style will sell the next generation imacs. style alone wont do it.
Apple have spoken about this, they're seeing the iMac/eMac sales (they report them as one product line) instead going into iBooks and PowerBooks. Especially looking at the latter two, why would consumers be buying smaller machines at the same price point, with fewer ports and truly horrendous cable management, if they were really looking for an ATX-ish form factor?
It's the window dressing. iMacs don't _look_ like computers, people think there's something missing. I've had the same conversation way too many times: "That looks neat, where did you hide the computer?" "Oh, it's the round thingy there on the desk." "No, I mean the computer, where do you hide it?" "Really, it's all right in there." "Yeah, right." It _looks_ too delicate and artsy-fartsy for its own good; the functional part of the design is fine.
