Retail Sources Confirm iMac Refresh

[wizard]

..........
Still, Apple needs to release a new MINI and MACBOOK with a decent Graphic card - -

If they (APPLE) did, how do you think they could differentiate themselves with the new macbook pro?

Peace

I don't think we will every see a Mini with a high performance GPU nor will we see such on the Mac Book. Here are some reasons:

1.
These products are competing against like configured machines in the PC world.

2.
Integrated GPU's are simply getting much better with each revision. There is little reason to walk away from the technology when it is improving steadily.

3.
For a given amount of performance integrated GPU's can deliver good results at a far lower power usage. See the AIR for an example.

4.
For the Mac Books Apple already has a machine with a high performance GPU, it is called Mac Book Pro.

5.
Admittedly Apple does not have a like machine for the Mini. This is really the XMAC that many long for. In any event the question on the Mini comes down to how would you build in a high performance GPU on the current platform? I don't believe Apple has much of an alternative here.

DAve

 

[netsql]

Screen Fix?

Any news on fixing the glossy screen?

It's cheap looking AND hard to read.
.V

 

[dobbin]

I've tidied my study and desk today, in preparation for buying a new iMac this week!

I think the current iMacs are already great (compared to my 12" iBook G4 that I've been using for 3 years), but when I decided around Christmas time to buy an iMac, I promised myself I would wait for an upgrade for buying one. It just seemed the sensible thing to do as I wasn't desperate for a new mac at the time (I'm getting close now though).

As I already think the current iMacs are great machines, any improvement at all on Tuesday, such as a speed bump will be a bonus. I plan to buy a 24" with a larger HDD and wireless k/b and mouse, and then buy some RAM from elsewhere. So if any of those come as standard after Tuesday then I'll be very pleased. An improved graphics card or anything else new would be nice but I'm not expecting it. Its best to aim low with these upgrades, rather than expect everything and then be disappointed when it doesn't come.

<48 hours now

 

[hiimamac]

Can someone explain to me how this can be? If you have the same panel behind two different pieces of glass, then it seems to me the only thing you can do is degrade the saturation, not boost it. Same goes for greyscale-- because of the scatter effect I described above, the matte display will have lower contrast than the gloss. So while it may be that you've gotten used to the desaturated output from a matte display and the glossy display seems more saturated as a result, what you should want in a professional display is maximum saturation and contrast which you would calibrate down to match your output medium.

What is it that people want to upgrade in their machine? It's not like Macs are awash in graphics card options-- most machines have one available, and if you're lucky maybe you can upgrade it once if the bus doesn't change before the next card comes out. Memory is the only thing I can think of and that can be upgraded-- albeit with a putty knife.

Can't explain that but the Macbook Pro and Air have different displays than the macbook - at an angle, the Pro and Air, still look good, the macbook however, looks washed out.

That said, there is a HUGES? (spelling) calibrator you can buy for $69.00 or so, that will give you, "what you see is what you get" color screen calibration for your monitors.
Just a thought.

The added plus (for me anyway) is my thinking was, sell MATTE, get a glossy and stronger CPU, more VRAM 128 to 256, for the money I made selling the 2.2 (got the 2.4 for $1500 can get at least $1800 or more for it in a few months (as its only 1 month old) and use a MATTE 30 inch if I really need MATTE and have the GLOSSY when I want (great for photo's, movies, games) and will probably try the calibration and see how it works.

GRIPES:
• Mini needs a better graphic card
• Macbook needs better graphic card (can differentiate vs Pro by display and quad core)
• Apples fear of pro using cheap systems for graphics unfounded as Pros make up a small percentage of market share.
• Apple needs to reduce prices of tech services, to pricey.
• ipods still to pricey
• iPhones still to pricey, need to add insurance to them in case of accidental damage/theft
• Apple needs to reduce RAM prices ($104 for 4GB macbook pro, macbook)
• Apple needs to add Blue Ray, movie studios demand it.
• Apple needs to add eSata port.

I would be happy with just the better graphic card and esata port.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Mini needs a better graphic card
Macbook needs better graphic card
ipods still to pricey
Apple needs to reduce RAM prices ($104 for 4GB macbook pro, macbook)
Apple needs to add Blue Ray, movie studios demand it.

Needs A graphics card.
Needs A graphics card.
Why? People are buying them.
Not going to happen. That's their source of income. Buy third party.
Not happening before the Mac Pro. If it's being demanded, there are external drives.

 

[Luscious]

I've been waiting to buy an iMac for the refresh but if Apple doesn't bump the GPU to something respectable then it'll be a hackintosh for me. I can't justify spending over $2,000 on a PC just to decent GPU. I could build a hackintosh for $700 - $800 bucks that has everything I need but I'd much rather buy an iMac even if I have to pay more so everything is supported but I just can't justify having to shell out more than $2,000.

Apple is really missing out on a big market segment by not producing an iMac with a respectable GPU or producing a headless Mac with an open PCI-e slot or two.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Ever heard of Psystar?

 

[hiimamac]

Needs A graphics card.
Needs A graphics card.
Why? People are buying them.
Not going to happen. That's their source of income. Buy third party.
Not happening before the Mac Pro. If it's being demanded, there are external drives.

Thought I replied to this, hmmmmmmm.

Apple Macbook 2nd GEN, still crappy gaming but OPEN GL went from 131% to 171% with Leopard upgrade.

So, what does apple do? They cripple the OPEN GL and it now benchmarks at 71%, so, you can't do anything on it except word processing.

They knew you couldn't play games on it but still, they crippled it for FEAR apples pro users who make up less than 1% might use it for motion. Remember when the MB first came out? Barefeats reported you could use motion. So, if you can't play games on it, why kill it? Because Apple is greed and fear driving.

Now, lets say you want GAMING and do AUDIO/VIDEO work.

Okay, you buy a iMAC, its not what you want, as you wanted a laptop, but you suffer and suck it up. But now what happens?

The Mac Pro and MBP both use Texas Instruments for FIREWIRE.
The Macbook and iMAC use a cheaper chip set which causes all kinds of problems, not only for the pro, but mom and pop users and iMovie (do a search at the Apple thread in iMovie for Camcorders).

So apple has essencitally BOXED you in.

You can't use a laptop for games, never could.
You can't use a mini for games.
So you buy a iMac thinking you can at least play games and maybe some audio work. Nope, cra ppy firewire causes problems.
Maybe you buy a Macbook thinking hey, I just need audio, nope, more problems with the firewire.

The only way to ever get good solid performance for audio/video is to buy a mac pro or MBP.

This is unfair business practices and the mom and pops that are buying are the clueless people that don't know the difference between RAM and HD space, it is not the PC gamer or audio/video enthusiast.

They are selling, but the AIR is not, I predicted it would go the way of the cube and all one has to do is look at the numbers reported last week.

Makes me love and hate apple at the same time. Why I have a decent machine (2.4 glossy MBP 256 ram/4MB Cache), I feel for those trying to get in with a machine at a good cost, but if you look closely, you will see that Apple has compromised in one area or the other and the iMac is not the answer.

Its one thing to put in crappy graphics, but its another to add in cheap firewire chipsets for the iMAC and then bringing the MACBOOK from 171% down to 70% in OPEN GL when it never played games anyway, but just to kill off the small .02 % of those that might have used a MAC BOOK for motion.

Terrible business practices.

 

[inkswamp]

I've been waiting to buy an iMac for the refresh but if Apple doesn't bump the GPU to something respectable then it'll be a hackintosh for me. I can't justify spending over $2,000 on a PC just to decent GPU. I could build a hackintosh for $700 - $800 bucks that has everything I need but I'd much rather buy an iMac even if I have to pay more so everything is supported but I just can't justify having to shell out more than $2,000.

Apple is really missing out on a big market segment by not producing an iMac with a respectable GPU or producing a headless Mac with an open PCI-e slot or two.

Couldn't agree more. I'm in the same boat as you, but you should save your breath. I don't think Apple is going to bother trying to accommodate that market segment. I don't know why. And there are numerous Apple defenders around here who will argue until they're blue in the face how pointless such a machine would be--and of course, those same people will fall madly in love with it the moment Apple releases such a thing.

 

[hiimamac]

I've been waiting to buy an iMac for the refresh but if Apple doesn't bump the GPU to something respectable then it'll be a hackintosh for me. I can't justify spending over $2,000 on a PC just to decent GPU. I could build a hackintosh for $700 - $800 bucks that has everything I need but I'd much rather buy an iMac even if I have to pay more so everything is supported but I just can't justify having to shell out more than $2,000.

Apple is really missing out on a big market segment by not producing an iMac with a respectable GPU or producing a headless Mac with an open PCI-e slot or two.

My sentiments exatly - build a hack that competes with a PRO for a fraction of the cost. Now they are reported EFI emulation which allows for APPLE updates.

If apple can cripple the MACBOOK for the small percentage that did not play games (as they never could on a mini or macbook) this should tell you, apple could care less about you. Then, to turn around and cripple the firewire chipset in the iMac, should tell you that Apple is really praticing bad business behavior.

Its a circle of deception.

 

[hiimamac]

For those that want to read about the firewire whooo's of apple imacs and some macbook pros (which they finally corrected)

http://www.gearspace.com/board/musi...ets-can-troublesome-okt-07-till-feb-08-a.html

I mean, what do you expect from a company that charges $600 for ram you can purchase online for $104? Or cripples a macbook in OPEN GL when it can't play games anyway? Or charges $350 for a Mac Pro graphic card that costs $100 from new egg?

 

[Dustman]

Apple has historically alternated GPU vendors. The current MBPs have Nvidia GPUs in them, so the iMacs will most likely stick with ATI.

I don't see a dedicated GPU in the mini happening. They would have to significantly alter the design of the system for it to happen. They will most probably get x1300 though.

- js

Non-sense. The mini had a dedicated GPU back in it's G4 days. It was taken out during the switch to intel. I find it retarded that they upped the price of the mini while taking out the GPU.

 

[inkswamp]

What is it that people want to upgrade in their machine? It's not like Macs are awash in graphics card options-- most machines have one available, and if you're lucky maybe you can upgrade it once if the bus doesn't change before the next card comes out. Memory is the only thing I can think of and that can be upgraded-- albeit with a putty knife.

You've had your head in Apple's Happy Happy World too long. You're limiting your upgrade examples to the only things Apple talks about when it comes to upgrades, but there's more to upgrades than GPUs and RAM. I remember the old PowerMac 7500 I had ages ago when the USB switchover started. I suddenly needed USB ports. Open PCI slots made it a snap to fix that problem.

It's not always about making the machine run faster and faster. Sometimes, upgrading is about adding things to the machine it didn't originally ship with. There's no sensible argument against Apple offering this in some consumer-level tower.

And when you say Apple isn't awash in graphics card options, maybe you've gotten the cause and effect swapped. You think maybe manufacturers of graphics cards and other upgrade cards might not produce Mac drivers because they assume there isn't enough market there to matter. If Apple doesn't offer a low- to mid-range tower where more Mac users can put those options to use, then of course nobody will produce the cards and drivers for Macs. Simple logic, and something Apple could address by giving upgrade options to more than just their pro users.

 

[imac123]

gaming on iMac?

so just how bad is the iMac for handling gaming? I'm not a big gamer at ALL. In fact, the only game i have on my PC now is a real old Unreal Tournament Demo that i play now and then. Would the new iMacs be able to handle something like that? My PC is about 4 yrs old..

 

[hiimamac]

so just how bad is the iMac for handling gaming? I'm not a big gamer at ALL. In fact, the only game i have on my PC now is a real old Unreal Tournament Demo that i play now and then. Would the new iMacs be able to handle something like that? My PC is about 4 yrs old..

Its a catch 22, the iMac is fine for gaming, I even installed the Unreal 3 demo on a boot camped iMac in the store once. It plays fine.

What it won't do, is handle Pro Audio and/or many firewire cam corders as they replaced the staple standard "Texas Instruments" with a cheaper chip set.
They even tried that with the mac book pro for a few months. Just to save some penny's. Un believable.


Its this sort of thing that makes me root for those building their own macs.
In fact, its a good skill to learn as with some luck, you can edit KEXT files and throw in any GPU you want in a Mac Pro without paying apple their over priced PRICING for a different graphic card.

 

[Darkroom]

Thanks for the wild goose chase. I read the wikipedia article, found where xhambonex plagiarized his post from, tracked the footnoted reference to a ranting blog post on ars-technica, and not only didn't find an explanation of how the glass can magically saturate the image beyond what the panel itself can output, but now can't figure out how that reference was meant to support the wikipedia statement.

nice detective work, i would have just take'n someone's word for it... and might i add, i'm soooo over people complaining about glossy screens...

That said, there is a HUGES? (spelling) calibrator you can buy for $69.00 or so, that will give you, "what you see is what you get" color screen calibration for your monitors.
Just a thought.

i wouldn't expect much accuracy from a $69 colorimeter... there are better options... at minimum you should get the Spyder 3...

 

[macrumorino]

All that....not gonna happen

Then what will happen is that 3rd party agents will step in and fill the need. It will be a better choice than Psystar, too.

A machine that is only aimed at the technologically-challenged upper-middle-class will, in the end, be a boutique item.

I made a case for spending $3000 on a Mac Pro, but if that's the only good machine that Apple is going to provide, with every other model being a bit of a rip-off in one way or another, then Apple as a computing platform is going to be saved by the clones, or else.

The reason Apple was in so much trouble ten years ago was that people were fed up with a company that provided few choices, restrained their users' ability to improve on their machines, and basically put out inferior product at inflated prices. The recent iMac was a step in THAT direction.

Don't blame the cloners for Apple's troubles in the 90's; blame Apple for putting out a product that was so easy to improve upon.

 

[CWallace]

Non-sense. The mini had a dedicated GPU back in it's G4 days. It was taken out during the switch to intel. I find it retarded that they upped the price of the mini while taking out the GPU.

To be fair, to my knowledge the PowerPC Alliance did not offer an integrated GPU so Apple had no choice but to source an independent unit.

 

[cheekybobcat]

The idea of new iMacs is making me randy.

 

[wordy]

Think this is 100% reliable?

 

[king974]

If the retail stores have part numbers wouldn't they be able to see the product and thus the specs for that part number?

 

[imac123]

If the retail stores have part numbers wouldn't they be able to see the product and thus the specs for that part number?

I expect that w/ most basic "lets check if we have this in stock" type of systems, all they see is the product name, its product stock #, and the QTY on hand, possibly the expected date of arrival. Most systems like that don't include any detailed info on the product.

Now the company WEBSITE is a different thing altogether, but those products are only gonna be posted online after they are released anyway, so employees don't have any special access there..

 

[Darkroom]

The idea of new iMacs is making me randy.

haha

Think this is 100% reliable?

death, taxes, and new iMacs this tuesday! you can bet on it.

 

[mags631]

Its this sort of thing that makes me root for those building their own macs.
In fact, its a good skill to learn as with some luck, you can edit KEXT files and throw in any GPU you want in a Mac Pro without paying apple their over priced PRICING for a different graphic card.

I'm not necessarily going to disagree with some of your criticisms of the Apple hardware, but let me make one observation on the "build-your-own" approach. I have done this several times (to run Windows and Linux) and it almost always results in:

1) Lots of time wasted trying to get things working, namely:
- Finding compatible hardware that works well together (you can most certainly not trust what you read on the boxes, nor on-line, so it ends up being a trial-by-error approach, unless you are copying someone else's specs, which then means you are usually not using the latest and greatest)
- Diagnosing strange error messages, machine states, failures, ...
- FINDing and then installing drivers which were certainly not tested on your specific hardware mix.
- Wiping everything and doing a fresh install (you think for the last time, but really not) once you think you have everything figured out
2) Eventually it works (mostly -- e.g., I still have problems with Intel video drivers for the X3100 integrated video outputing to HDMI, at least 5 months after the damn motherboard, ASUS P5E-VM HDMI, came out), as long as you ignore the odd, non-reproducible problem
3) But, then something has to be updated, like Linux, XP, and Vista, and the whole cycle starts again.

I fail to see how this would not occur on a homebrew mac.

Net-net: a lot of time, which isn't necessarily a bad thing if you love doing this sort of stuff and don't have a spouse who expects to spend time with you outside of work...

 

[chrisblaze]

Q9300 in the iMac would be awesome