The hardware and Windows Media Center were well worth it. Windows 7 is better as well.
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USB 3.0 and Faster FireWire in Next Mac Pro, iMac?
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I think copper isn't that expensive. HDBaseT can put 100W through standard cat5/6 cable and that cable doesn't cost many cents per meter.
Are we in The Matrix now?
I'd propose
1>iMac 22" $700
2>PowerMac Mini-Tower $1500 ($2000 equipped for power gaming).
3>Mac Pro
4> Macbooks should probably come down a bit in price, but otherwise they need not overlap since they are mobile market devices.
You could argue that someone might buy a Macbook instead of an iMac, so therefore the Macbook should be eliminated from the lineup.
You make some very good arguements. If there was a mini-tower, I'd go for that over the iMacs, but I'm one of those folks who do buy iMacs because the current MP is too much machine and too much $$. If I had another choice I'd like that, even though I've been loyal to the iMac for a long time. After the many problems I've had recently, I'd be willing try another Mac esp. if a mini-tower became available.
I hope they have sense enough to have a nice solid connection. USB makes a fairly decent plug in feel and doesn't come loose at the drop of a hat yet isn't so tight it'd likely take the computer with it on a laptop. I'm sad to say I cannot say that for Firewire 400. My PreSonus Firewire music adapter wiggles loose pretty easily and comes right out at the slightest tug.
Shareholders are the biggest problem problem for consumers around the world. Shareholders are the ones that make your favorite companies raise prices and drop quality, shareholders are the ones stopping your bluray due to costs.
Bluray is an important feature whether you care about it or not. It matters to Apple's success. The film industry is full of Mac's, they can get around not having Bluray but it would be much more convenient if they had it.
Also what's wrong with the idea of the iMac? What do you really need to upgrade? So your monitor is built in that just means your system is worth more when you get rid of it and replace it with another system with a built in monitor. Most professionals use their computer they don't fiddle with it hence why some of them buy a Mac in the first place. A PC might last longer in some instances if you are able to perform upgrades but the 2 year old Mac is going to have far more value than the 4 year old PC when you decide it's time to move on. Also if they went back to consumer desktop systems they would have to start writing drivers for all the possible pci-xpress cards people might use.
Bluray is an important feature whether you care about it or not. It matters to Apple's success. The film industry is full of Mac's, they can get around not having Bluray but it would be much more convenient if they had it.
Also what's wrong with the idea of the iMac? What do you really need to upgrade? So your monitor is built in that just means your system is worth more when you get rid of it and replace it with another system with a built in monitor. Most professionals use their computer they don't fiddle with it hence why some of them buy a Mac in the first place. A PC might last longer in some instances if you are able to perform upgrades but the 2 year old Mac is going to have far more value than the 4 year old PC when you decide it's time to move on. Also if they went back to consumer desktop systems they would have to start writing drivers for all the possible pci-xpress cards people might use.
My discussion was talking about Mac Pro's, and how I never saw the need for a BD player. And most Mac Pro sales are probably to professional users who do not fit into the "budget" category (and who pay almost $5000 when buying a MP system with thrid party extra RAM, multiple HDDs, and large/multiple monitors).
But regarding consumer Macs, you are probably right that a minority of users are so frustrated that they will leave the platform to get what they need.
I recently had to replace my monitor when it died. Thankfully I didn't have to replace the computer too because my computer isn't an iMac. If part of your iMac dies before the rest of it it isn't worth anything, is it?
Applecare. 3 years of protection. LCD goes out it's still worth money. You can pickup a replacement LCD and install it or sell it for parts. Most likely in the $400+ range after 3 years.
My company didn't spend $5000 each on Mac Pros. That's ridiculous!
Yup, the middle people are getting caught in the crossfire between premium pricing and iToys.
Because I don't want a built in monitor. I want 3 none glossy displays. I also want to be able to have multiple internal hard drives and 24gb RAM.
Not wanting to fiddle with it and not wanting to be able to spec the thing up to more than a fancy laptop are two totally different things.
I think blu-ray should be an option. When I first started reading the posts, I thought, "This is ridiculous. Not many people would ever use blu-ray frequently on their mac!" But then as I read the posts my thoughts changed. I completely forgot that the movie industry loves apple like a fat kid loves twinkies haha. So yes, for the big industry users, Blu-Ray may be a good selectable option to have for super users.
My company didn't spend $5000 each on Mac Pros. That's ridiculous!
Maybe your company used off the shelf, stripped-down MPs, but I doubt that is the "average", any more than people buying a new car with no extras. (Though I'm that sort of car buyer, LOL.)
I'll use my MP purchase of the newly released early 2008 MP as an example of a typical user - I bought the unit wiith NO apple extras, and then built it up myself with the cheapest third party parts I could buy. (I'll round down to minimize total price).
Base Unit (2 x 2.8Ghz/ 2GB / 320 GB) - $2500 + Calf tax = $2700
Additional 8 GB of RAM (OWC) = $470
3 @ 1 TB Seagate HDD (newegg) = $930
Base unit + 8 GB RAM + 3 TB HDD = $4100
I still haven't added ANY monitors, or my graphics card upgrade ($300). In my case the one luxury I splurged on at this point was an expensive Eizo 24" monitor for color correction ($2000) paired with a cheap Dell 24" ($400). But anyone buying a 30" monitor would have also dropped a lot of cash, priobably $1500-2000 as well.
Note that any of these upgrades via the Apple store would have brought the price WAY up, esp with Apple RAM at the time.
So given that I tend to buy middle of the road stuff and upgrade later when prices are even cheaper, I doubt that the "average" new MP user spends much less than $5000 on a new system. While a few will run a stripped down, bare bones system, there are others who will max out the same unit (current price for 64GB of RAM at OWC is almost $3000).
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Edit - I should also add for people used to buying cheap consumer models that the MPs, as professional workstations, are still very good value, and comparably priced to workstations from other companies. My 2.5 year old processors still beat out the latest, fastest i7 consumer desktop processor in speed. The beauty of the MPs is that users can use third party solutions to fix other important bottlenecks in their systems to extend the usable life. A nice eSATA PCI card and external HDDs can add in additional massive RAIDS for 250 MB/sec access, etc.
Please tell me you didn't spend over $900 on THREE 1 TB hard drives. I just purchased a couple of Seagate 1 TB drives for about $100 each. If you really paid that much, you got screwed out of about $600!
Note that he says that he bought "early 2008".
1 TB drives were much more expensive then.
You know, I wonder how many purchasers are actually loading those things out to be so expensive (although the high end dual quads get expensive very fast).
I'm sure a company like mine doesn't buy beast machines like universities who use them for super computers. I wonder if big ticket, big business applications are the primary market, and I overestimate the Mac Pro market share of small business owners (the majority of businesses in the US are small business).
The single quads, man, the single quads! The "low end" mac pro are the ones being dusted in performance/cost. The high end mac pros remain expensive (by my standards), but fast and very competitive in price with offerings from windows PC manufacturers.
Of course it sounds like you've got good use for the big form factor - esata cards and raid. Sweet stuff!
The 320m cannot be used with the intel core i series of processors. If apple uses the 320m, that means they are sticking with Core2Duo in the low end.
That is where Apple is really killing many of us. I'd love to drop close to $5000 on a new Mac Pro, but that 5 grand has to spread out to the tower, monitor and HDD bay.
So I have to get the bottom of the barrel kit which isn't spec'd for much other than turning on, and upgrade later, or grab the tower I need now and purchase a cheap monitor with it.
You can expect to still have the expensive server chips, so I'd say nothing less than i7 or possibly i9. Skip the USB 3.0 and I never want to see Apple waste space on a workstation for SDXC. That' something that can be added with a card reader.
The post you responded to was talking about the iMacs. Look at the first line.
I think those specs are likely, except I'm not convinced USB 3.0 is here yet for the Mac. However, I would be happy to see it. I'm also thinking 8GB RAM standard on the higher models plus 1TB or at least 640GB standard drives on the low end and 2TB standard on the high end. I don't know if the NVIDIA 320M is more likely than just going with the current ATI graphics across the board, but I'd welcome either.
jW
Apple seems to have somekind of secret masterplan with sd-card readers. Why else there would be one in the back of new macMini?
Given that it's the only REAL desktop Mac (and the only one worth owning), I think it makes perfect sense. Only the price is out of order. Apple needs a non-xeon consumer based Mac Pro at a lower price point. The new 4-core (say maybe $1500 to start) and 6-core (maybe $2000 to start) i7 models would be great for that along with a quality GPU and at least 1TB default and 4GB of ram minimum (8GB preferable). Add Blu-Ray support and USB 3.0 and they'd have a sale at around $2000 here. Otherwise, I'll spend $1200 and get those same things (probably with a 4-core, but with a really good GPU) in a Hackintosh. Apple needs to start offering value for the dollar and start keeping up with technology instead of looking like Bill's lost back woods cousin because it's absolutely silly over 4 years after Blu-Ray came out to not have it available for the Mac. All the newer models have HDCP and so the only thing holding it back is Steve. Likewise, the GPUs are getting really long in the tooth, especially on the Mac Pro. How is Apple supposed to make claims to be the best when their hardware is so terribly out-of-date? So they have a neat phone. Big deal. How does that help their computer lines?
I see where you are coming from, but I can't join you where you are going to.
Apple's strategy to not offer bargains has paid off quite well, and I don't see a point in a low-end Mac Pro.
What I'd rather like to see instead would be a 27" iMac with a matte display.
A stealth design (all matte and dark) would look terrific, and would satisfy also demanding users.
I could even imagine a iMac pro edition with a wide gamut display.
At the same time you'd get the well designed all-in-one solution of the iMac.
The iMac is no longer that little, starving brother of the Mac Pro. It's grown up to be a great and quite powerful computer - and Apple includes better graphic cards as well. They are masters of marketing and the i5 and i7 models are targeted at the higher end users.
I love the form factor of the 27" iMac and am just waiting for better screen options to buy one.