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Retail Sources Confirm iMac Refresh
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Tell Apple that they should have designed the iMac around Conroe in the first place.
Steve Jobs has beheaded people for stating the obvious.
"not gonna happen"
What has an Apple employee never said more than once?:
"Steve, you're wrong"
I don't think Time Machine works in that way but it's long past being able to make such a change.Steve Jobs has beheaded people for stating the obvious.
"not gonna happen"
I don't disagree, but my point was, that option is not going to appear, so people need to get over it.
One problem with these comparisons is that people treat it as apple against the rest of the industry. People pick the best (i.e. least favorable to apple) possible comparison in each case. So if dell has just refreshed its line, use that. If HP is having a sale, use that. But in reality, it's not "apple vs the other vendors," it's "apple vs dell vs sony vs hp... etc." You can't seriously expect apple to constantly be keeping up with every other manufacturer simultaneously.
And let me ask you this. Do those companies in Palo Alto and Round Rock have the same R&D costs as the Cupertino company? Do they subsidize the development of a superior OS and supporting software with hardware sales? Do they keep refining their designs to make them as thin, light, and aesthetically pleasing as possible? Or do they mass produce boxy, generic shells that run someone else's bloated, craptacular OS?
I'm not sure how this thread about new imacs degenerated in to the 3,476,546th discussion about apple's prices compared to other manufacturers, but the answer remains the same: If you care solely about price, by all means, buy an HP/Dell/whatever. Enjoy your heavy, ugly computer and Windows Vista - and that few hundred extra in your pocket. I'm willing to spend the money to have a well designed, elegant computer with a superior OS and excellent hardware/software integration.
Now - can we get back to talking about new imacs?
Depends on who you ask about value.
If I'm on the market for a car, I don't look at just the horsepower. Nor do I just look at performance. I look at the materials in its interior, the exterior lines that make it look sleek. The design aspect of the car is just as important to me as the engineering. Now, for you, you might just want a muscle car with no need for leather seats, refined interiors, etc.
Sure, I can find a Ford/Mazda/Toyota/Nissan sedan that is just as fast, if not faster, than my BMW 335i, for 30-40% less. But do I want that Ford/Mazda/Toyota/Nissan? No.
Is there any idea if there will be a BD-Rom (Blu Ray) drive in the new iMac? I actually just purchased the iMac last week and Best Buy will be giving me the oppurtunity to exchange it within 30 days. I think that will be a big incentive to do that? And what is the street date on these iMacs?
usually, announce date is street date. As in....go to the store and get one on tuesday. Well...at Apple stores...Best Buy may be a delayed.
I went and looked tonight. Couldn't get a straight answer out of the guy at Best Buy as it pertains to this upgrade. At the Apple store however, the salesperson told me it would be in my best interests to wait a few days if I didn't need a computer at that moment.
Personally I'm new to the Apple, changing over finally after many years of using PCs, and have been holding off seeing there most likely will be an upgrade soon. I wouldn't expect a blue-ray at all, and frankly what I'm using it for don't think I'd ever need one. I'm just deciding between the two lower end iMacs. If Apple does add a 256 mb video card to the $1199 one that will make my decision for me, although I understand that is probably unlikely
Personally I'm new to the Apple, changing over finally after many years of using PCs, and have been holding off seeing there most likely will be an upgrade soon. I wouldn't expect a blue-ray at all, and frankly what I'm using it for don't think I'd ever need one. I'm just deciding between the two lower end iMacs. If Apple does add a 256 mb video card to the $1199 one that will make my decision for me, although I understand that is probably unlikely
Trip to Best Buy...
I took a trip to Best Buy today to reluctantly find a hidden Apple "Shop" inside (run by Apple employees) and asked about twice about the update. The first guy shook his head and shrugged his shoulders and said "I don't know." The second guy (the full-fledged Apple employee) slowly shrugs his shoulders, looks to the other guy and after a few seconds of eye-contact they both said, "Haven't heard anything"...
(I know this sounds like all the others, but it seemed like an 'ah crap...what do I tell him?' ... kinda look)
Updates Tuesday the 29th (As I've said for a while...)
(AND he says Educational discounts work at Best Buy. Anyone else experience this?)
I took a trip to Best Buy today to reluctantly find a hidden Apple "Shop" inside (run by Apple employees) and asked about twice about the update. The first guy shook his head and shrugged his shoulders and said "I don't know." The second guy (the full-fledged Apple employee) slowly shrugs his shoulders, looks to the other guy and after a few seconds of eye-contact they both said, "Haven't heard anything"...
(I know this sounds like all the others, but it seemed like an 'ah crap...what do I tell him?' ... kinda look)
Updates Tuesday the 29th (As I've said for a while...)
(AND he says Educational discounts work at Best Buy. Anyone else experience this?)
Thank you for using an over-hyped, over-priced BMW in your car analogy.
It makes it perfect....
There's a huge majority out there that look at computers as tools to get a job done, not as status symbols to leave in the driveway or on the desk.
Anyway, like you, for me a thousand dollars or so on a computer, or a few tens of thousands on a car aren't major issues (I don't like the green one, I'll take the blue one for only $3700 more). We're rich, and we'll buy what we like even if the numbers don't add up.
For most consumers the idea that the $449 laptop is close to the $1099 laptop - or the $999 laptop blows the $1099 laptop out of the water - are important issues. The price gap between mini-towers and the monster Mac Pro is huge to most people.
I am so confused why the anti-Mac people are still here. Why do you care what us "silly" Mac people buy?
In any case, go ahead. Make the comparisons. Show me how stupid, unwise, and uneconomical it is to purchase a Mac.
But, it doesn't matter. I'm going to buy a Mac anyway because I like it. Period. End of Story.
Note that I was responding to:
This implies that extra engineering expense is needed to make hardware that can run OSX.
I was not responding to:
"since Apple includes a tax for OSX development in their hardware sale prices (while advertising that OSX is far cheaper than Vista at retail) it's reasonable for an Apple computer to cost twice what an HP does"
Thank you for being one of the few honest people here....
Your position can't be argued with - unlike the lame car analogies or OSX tax comments.
A number of companies and institutions have done extensive analyses comparing the cost of purchasing and servicing Macs to that of Windows-based machines and concluded that it would be less expensive to switch to Macs than it would be to continue with Windows systems. It's sort of like buying a fuel-efficient car instead of a gas-guzzler - the initial outlay may be more, but the total cost of ownership is less...
One caveat - any way you slice it, RAM upgrades at the Apple Store are overpriced (why doesn't Apple get it that RAM just doesn't cost that much anymore?)
Oh god, here we go again. I just love when someone uses the popularity metric on a Mac site.
Let me repeat that part: the popularity metric on a Mac site.
Because you know, if that Great Majority of the Public buys something, it must be superior, right?
So tell us, why are you hanging out on a Mac site when you clearly use Windows as that's what the Great Majority of the Public use? Don't tell me you're using a Mac. That can't be. Why wouldn't you use what the Great Majority of the Public uses? It must be the superior OS of course, so why would you ever dare to contradict the Great Majority of the Public and their collective, cattle-like ability to root out the best quality products for you to use?
What really is the lesser of two evils? The glare is atrocious with dark backgrounds in a room with light and the TN viewable angles are plain out embarrassing. Both issues are easily fixable though. You just buy a Mac that lets you BYOD. And that my friends (along with price), is why a lot of people are waiting for an updated Mac mini. It's just a shame Apple won't cooperate.
Nice work Mr. Jobs! Way to connect with your customers.
My point was in reference to the whining about Glossy finishes.
I don't have a problem as my office is set up to not worry about the glare off the gloss.
I do care immensely about 8 bit/10bit quality Blacks/Grays and color spectrum accuracy.
If Apple would take the lead on this and stop following with everyone else flooding the market with TN panels we'd have something worth justifying paying a bit more money on.
At the very least, as you pointed out, a choice between Gloss/Matte and PVA/H-IPS since I can't expect S-IPS for the price range the iMac is within.
I sure as hell don't ever want to see a TN Panel in any Apple product.
Then I'm glad Apple picked Steve Jobs over you, because your plan is exactly how Apple almost went bankrupt in the 90s. They had dozens computers at overlapping specs and price points, no clear sales vision, just trying to be everything to everyone. Apple was still selling tons of computers each tailor made for the users exact desires, but they were bleeding to death from the low margins.
You're in business so you must understand that every computer you don't sell cuts in to the profits of the ones you do sell. This can work for someone like Dell, but then again they have no extra overhead, they just buy the parts wholesale and assemble them, no R&D, no OS to write.
Apples strategy for the last, very profitable, 8 years has been to have a simplified clearly delineated line of computers with no overlap in pricing or functionality. Instead of making computers to fit the consumer, they make the consumers fit the computer, most peoples computer needs fall somewhere between the iMac and the mac mini, but Apple doesn't make anything in-between, it forces you to pick.
And this is Steve Jobs brilliance, don't chase the customer, make the customer chase you, high margin lower volume sales are the chosen path. The Mac Mini will always have bottom of the barrel chipset graphics because anything else would cut into iMac sales, there will never be an xMac(midrange mac with expansion slots) because it would hurt iMac and mac pro sales.
You're in business so you must understand that every computer you don't sell cuts in to the profits of the ones you do sell. This can work for someone like Dell, but then again they have no extra overhead, they just buy the parts wholesale and assemble them, no R&D, no OS to write.
Apples strategy for the last, very profitable, 8 years has been to have a simplified clearly delineated line of computers with no overlap in pricing or functionality. Instead of making computers to fit the consumer, they make the consumers fit the computer, most peoples computer needs fall somewhere between the iMac and the mac mini, but Apple doesn't make anything in-between, it forces you to pick.
And this is Steve Jobs brilliance, don't chase the customer, make the customer chase you, high margin lower volume sales are the chosen path. The Mac Mini will always have bottom of the barrel chipset graphics because anything else would cut into iMac sales, there will never be an xMac(midrange mac with expansion slots) because it would hurt iMac and mac pro sales.
The main problem in comparing Apple hardware to Dell or Hp is understanding how these companies earn profit. To my understanding the PC market is all about low profit margins across a large volume while Apple relies on higher profit margins and a smaller volume. Apple doesn't stand a chance when comparing volume sold by Dell any day of any week but the higher net per machine compensates that. All this discussion of R&D among other things may make some impact on price but certainly not as much as the afore mentioned reason. Frankly Apple charges as much as they do because they can, which by no means is great for a consumers wallet. Its not something I'm real wild about myself as I prefer to use OSX for most tasks.
That all being said I do appreciate Mac users that offer their criticism. This is a Mac rumor and discussion site is it not? I also appreciate the comparisons of Apple hardware to counterparts in the PC market. While not necessarily an apples to apples situation it does help me to be an informed consumer or sometimes just to give consolation to my complaints of their products. Comparing computers to cars and sometimes even food doesn't help nearly as much
That all being said I do appreciate Mac users that offer their criticism. This is a Mac rumor and discussion site is it not? I also appreciate the comparisons of Apple hardware to counterparts in the PC market. While not necessarily an apples to apples situation it does help me to be an informed consumer or sometimes just to give consolation to my complaints of their products. Comparing computers to cars and sometimes even food doesn't help nearly as much
You should really look at what other Intel vendors are selling.
I looked at today's Best Buy flyer, and they had an HP laptop for $999. That's $100 less than the cheapest Apple laptop, but for the sake of argument let's call them "like" prices.
Code:$999 HP DV6885SE $1099 Apple MacBook ----------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- 2.1 GHz Core 2 Duo T8100 2.1 GHz Core 2 Duo 800 MHz bus 800 MHz bus 3 GiB DDR2 RAM standard 1 GiB standard Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS - 256 MiB X3100 integrated graphics, 0 MiB RAM 15.4" 1280x800 screen 13.3" 1280x800 screen 250 GB 5400 RPM SATA hard drive 120 GB 5400 RPM SATA Double Layer 8x DVD±RW/CD-RW Combo - DVD-ROM & CD-RW Lightscribe -no- Media card reader (SD/MS/xD/MM) -no- Altec Lansing speakers Stereo speakers Builtin web cam Builtin web cam 10/100 Ethernet Builtin GigE 802.11/a/b/g/n WiFi 802.11/a/b/g/n WiFi S-video output S-video via optional dongle HDMI output HDMI via optional DVI dongle and DVI-HDMI dongle DVI via optional HDMI->DVI dongle DVI via optional dongle VGA output VGA via optional dongle 34/54 ExpressCard slot -no- 3 USB 2.0 ports 2 USB 2.0 ports 1 1394a port 1 1394a port
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...9501&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html
Dedicated graphics with 256 MiB VRAM, triple the standard memory, ExpressCard slot and a dual-layer DVD burner kind of shout that "THESE AREN'T 'LIKE' SPECS".
On the other hand, if you mean "like" specs -- that's a real hard one. The $449 Toshiba at Best Buy is closer to the MacBook $1099 specs (dual core, 1 GiB RAM, 120 GB drive, slower CPU (1.73 GHz)), but it has a dual-layer DVD burner and an ExpressCard slot. I guess it's really hard to find a laptop without a DVD burner....
You should try the same exercise with the Imac. The most expensive desktop in the Best Buy flyer is a quad core 2.66 GHz with 19" LCD and printer, 3 GiB, 750 GB, dual-layer burner and Radeon HD2600 XT 256 MiB graphics. Doesn't make the $1199 Imac look like a bargain...
Nice find. To the other poster that said, get a PC, as the above makes clear, Apple is far from being a good deal and I own a Macbook Pro.
My gripe is $600 for 4 GB of memory, yeah, I know, knowone buys memory from apple.
But then again, this is why the mac pro uses the special seats, so they can FURTHER RIP YOU OFF on their overpriced memory.
First, get this straight, you could never play a game on a mini or macbook, then, the bench marks went up to 171% for open GL on the macbook and mini, but still no games, but you could run motion. So, what does apple do to the 1/10th of 1% of the market (PRO USER BASE), they CRIPPLE it with a terrible X300. Why? Are they that desperate that they need to SCREW every pro user to buy a MAC PRO or MBP? Are they? Really?
Why not release a decent laptop GPU, why? What are they afraid of? The pro's hardly make up the market and even if the pro went out and bought 10 mini's or 3 mac books, the mini's and macbooks sold with DECENT graphic cards would FAR FAR FAR outsell anything that the MAC PRO (hardly sells) and Macbook Pro (2nd most non common) would ever sell as the iPhone and iMac then Macbooks are the staple. All the while, the PRO USER, the CREATIVE, the ARTIST, the people that made APPLE what they are get screwed and are told, in more or less terms, sorry, but no good graphics for you unless you pay through the noise.
I hope the CLONE business takes off and someone figures out how to emulate EFI and allow OSX to be installed on any machine.
So tired of Apple ripping off the people who put them where they are today.
18 bit panel for 20 inch iMac LCD again?
anyway i just got my 20 inch in January and totally disappointed by its LCD quality.
Though the new revision is none of my business, i do wish that the LCD quality could be upgraded....
If they could add an matt surface option it would be even better...
anyway i just got my 20 inch in January and totally disappointed by its LCD quality.
Though the new revision is none of my business, i do wish that the LCD quality could be upgraded....
If they could add an matt surface option it would be even better...
You went on to make a good point, but I'd like to emphasize another: there are a whole bunch of people that have been hearing great things about those iMacs, so when they finally got around to it, they bought the current model.
BUT... do they know that the current model is a downgrade with respect to the previous model in a pretty darned important component, namely the graphical display?
This reminds me of how Dell switched the type of display that was being sold with the same model number. Great reviews for one item, but by the time you ordered it from them, you'd get a lesser model.
Apple is doing a similar thing with the iMac, only slightly more honest in that there is an obvious difference between the aluminum iMac and the white plastic iMac that preceded it.
When I went to a store recently and did the off-axis viewing test on the 20" iMac displays, I was shocked. They have a pretty crappy drop in image quality. The white iMacs that I've been using have no such issue.
Soooo... if someone heard me say "oh, these iMacs look wonderful", could they be blamed for assuming that their purchase of a more recent model would receive the same praise?
It's a variation on bait-and-switch that's being done here by Apple. Pretty annoying.
No offense but Apple is like buying a Minni Cooper and paying for the top of the line BMW.
I've used Apples before and they aren't bad. I like the OS better than say Vista. However in my mind Apple is little more than a expensive computer case company. The components are always outdated and never compare to whats on the PC market specially when price in involved.
I "have" to buy a Apple for a project, so I'm buying a iMac. However I just sold a year and a half old laptop that had better specs than the current MBP. The CPU was ofcourse a little under spec, simply because it was a year and a half old but other than that everything else was better than whats in the MBP today.
Again I wont bash the OS because Apple does make a good OS. However on the hardware side.. IMO they are little more than a high priced computer case comany.