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Whispers Suggest a Mid November iMac and Mac Mini Updates

macthetiger85: that looks like an Apple branded Slingbox.

One thing that gets me is how is Apple going to top the current iMac? The prior one was 'revolutionary' and the new one (current models) were as well. What could Apple do to top what they already have?

If you ask me, Apple really flirts with a world of hurt being so advanced and forward thinking. What if the new iMac is a 'new design' and it blows? Are they going to keep the current design for a decade? I guess it's the old question of how do you perfect perfection. Is it possible to come up with a more perfect iMac? I mean, aside from the bickering about firewire or not, what would Apple do to redesign the iMac and wow people.

As far as predictions and wants, I fall into the ITX or micro-ATX Mac Box group. Make the mini a Mac Pro Jr. Put some killer slots in it, space for at least 2 HDD's, a backplane that is upgradable, a glowing Apple emblem on the side, some upgradability for those that want or need to, include 11.n and maybe one of the 3.5 headphone/optical outputs. It could turn into the everything box. It can't be too expandable or it will eat into the Mac Pro but I think such a box would be a huge hit.

Why won't it happen? Steve hates slots. The Mac Pro is for those that have to have slots (it does have slots, right? I've never seen one 'nekud'). If you want mucho expandability, pay the toll for THE box, otherwise live with what you get (not that it's at all bad).

But, how does Apple perfect perfection? They have a huge task before them in a redesign...

EDIT: Why 2-drives? RAID 1 mirroring. People are using their Macs for more things everyday and the inability to add a second drive and provide some redundancy is probably a concern for some people. I'm doing more and more desktop RAID upgrades for clients... From a business continuity reason alone, RAID has the ability to save a lot of time and heartache...
 
hal1984 said:
With the introduction in the near future of the USB 3.0, the firewire (or IEEE1394) will be a legacy port. The main reason of that port on the MB Pro is almost to maintain "professional" retrocompatibility.
Click to expand...

thank you

now did you guys know that you can get a third party 250 GB SSD for the Mac books and mac book pros ?
 
dohardthings said:
thank you

now did you guys know that you can get a third party 250 GB SSD for the Mac books and mac book pros ?
Click to expand...

NOT TO MENTION that the late 2008 models have a much speedier implementation of USB 2.0, as shown by Barefeats...it has virtually the same performance as FW, so yep...the absence of FW is perfectly remedied by the presence of an overperforming USB.

mbp10_sw.gif


p.s.: Cool, I got to 65832 status!!! :)
 
BRLawyer said:
NOT TO MENTION that the late 2008 models have a much speedier implementation of USB 2.0, as shown by Barefeats...it has virtually the same performance as FW, so yep...the absence of FW is perfectly remedied by the presence of an overperforming USB.

mbp10_sw.gif


p.s.: Cool, I got to 65832 status!!! :)
Click to expand...

thank you for this gragh once usb 3 comes out it should be as fast as 800 (hopefully)
it is my opinion that usb will be come the standard for all connections that is until a smaller and speedier cable is developed
 
hal1984 said:
USB 3.0 allows up to 4.8 Gbit/s transfer (600 MBytes/s). Should burn these figures.
Click to expand...

but it won't burn fw 1600 let alone fw 3200 speeds. The fact is that apple abandoning fw on some consumer hardware is a shame and will be a loss for many of us. The USB architecture is simply inferior for certain tasks. And I just don't see the unnecessary expense argument.
 
dernhelm said:
but it won't burn fw 1600 let alone fw 3200 speeds. The fact is that apple abandoning fw on some consumer hardware is a shame and will be a loss for many of us. The USB architecture is simply inferior for certain tasks. And I just don't see the unnecessary expense argument.
Click to expand...

i knew you would come up with a retort sooner or later apple is moving to usb and we need to deal with it not moan and groan and complain it will not do an ounce of good
 
rhett7660 said:
Umm.. Weren't the pros updated in January? It hasn't even been a year yet.

Very skeptical that this will come true.
Click to expand...

Well if you are skeptical about the Mac Pro update then you should be REALLY skeptical about the iMac update because it has only been about 6 months from its last update.

It has been WAY to long for the for the Mac Pro it is the Flagship desktop and it is getting long in the tooth.
 
dernhelm said:
but it won't burn fw 1600 let alone fw 3200 speeds. The fact is that apple abandoning fw on some consumer hardware is a shame and will be a loss for many of us. The USB architecture is simply inferior for certain tasks. And I just don't see the unnecessary expense argument.
Click to expand...

The firewire now is a port of declining popularity. The cams, the audio devices that before use Firewire are now being shipping with USB 2.0. And yes, the Firewire is far better than USB 2.0, but that is the scenario. When the USB become equal or better than firewire 3200, do you think that a few limitations (lower max cable distance p.example) can do that the firewire survives ? I think : not.
 
New iMacs

I am waiting to buy a quad core iMac with OS 10.6. I need to upgrade a G5 iMac which seems slow even on the internet.
 
Solid State Drive?

Any one notice the SSD Icon on built to order Mac Minis? Probably just a mistake but Apple does like to drop clues lol
 

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Hybid GPUs

:apple: Hopefully apple will put in the "NVIDIA GeForce 9400M" and maybe a PCIe upgrade slot so users can have the choice to upgrade to better graphics card (how would they ever fit it though?:confused:) The mac mini needs to be more expandable.

:apple: Also the new mac mini needs to be able to support more RAM.

:apple: I think it would be a step backwards to remove the full size DVI from the mac mini.

:apple: I also think it needs SSD support so people can use it as "carputers"
 
PinkyMacGodess said:
macthetiger85: that looks like an Apple branded Slingbox.

One thing that gets me is how is Apple going to top the current iMac? The prior one was 'revolutionary' and the new one (current models) were as well. What could Apple do to top what they already have?

If you ask me, Apple really flirts with a world of hurt being so advanced and forward thinking. What if the new iMac is a 'new design' and it blows? Are they going to keep the current design for a decade? I guess it's the old question of how do you perfect perfection. Is it possible to come up with a more perfect iMac? I mean, aside from the bickering about firewire or not, what would Apple do to redesign the iMac and wow people.
Click to expand...



The redesign will be more internal than anything else. I would agree with the design being near perfect. But what about HD, and ram expandability. What about faster processors? I tihink this is what we will see. It's what they did with the new MB, and I think that is what they are going to do with the new Imacs.
 
hal1984 said:
With the introduction in the near future of the USB 3.0, the firewire (or IEEE1394) will be a legacy port.
Click to expand...

USB 3.0 is a year away at least. By that argument, people with Firewire devices should, what, dump them now and buy USB 2.0 devices that will be obsolete in a year?

Even if your contention is true, it's another case of Apple dropping a technology a year too early. But of course this really has no connection to the actual reason Apple dropped Firewire on the Macbook, which leads us to ...

The main reason of that port on the MB Pro is almost to maintain "professional" retrocompatibility.
Click to expand...

The "consumer" vs. "pro" categories are arbitrary distinctions that Apple wants customers to buy into, because it forces an entire customer segment onto machines that cost $700 more. That is the real reason Firewire was dropped from the Macbook.
 
hal1984 said:
USB 3.0 allows up to 4.8 Gbit/s transfer (600 MBytes/s). Should burn these figures.
Click to expand...

Hahaha... sure...

USB 2.0 (480Mbit) can't push 480Mbit (60 MB/s) sustained. Drives can sustain ~80MB/s.

OK, let's say that the sustained rate for USB 3.0 is 10x USB 2.0. You won't "burn" these numbers. It will approach drive interface numbers, but not exceed. Because the data has to go through the SATA connection anyhow. You can't send data faster than the drive can accept it.

Also, does USB 3.0 have any of the command queueing options that SATA and SCSI have? If not, then at best you can expect single threaded writes (i.e single large transfers) to match the speed of the drive you are sending it to (great for backups or working with single large files), but lousy for interactive or multithreaded access where large numbers of files are read/written simultaneously, like on a boot device, or for use by a web server, DB server (think: MAMP).

I want my USB to be fast, don't get me wrong. But it's no replacement for SATA.
 
hal1984 said:
With the introduction in the near future of the USB 3.0, the firewire (or IEEE1394) will be a legacy port. The main reason of that port on the MB Pro is almost to maintain "professional" retrocompatibility.
Click to expand...

Yeah

Except that Firewire leaves USB in the dust.

USB is legacy, and always has been to Firewire.
 
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