WWDC - No iMacs, but Yes Displays?

[aethier]

the imac line is, frankly, an embarrassment at this point. It's the power of an emac for a little less than a G5 powermac. Add to that the fact that Apple has already told suppliers that no more of the current imacs will be getting delivered... what does that say to you?

The only reason I'd say no imacs is that this is a developers conference and the imacs are a consumer machine... but still. Continuing to leave them at this price and power is just absurd. Apple has been selling very few imacs, and it's no wonder why. They need either A) massive price drops, B) massive upgrades, or C) to be discontinued entirely.

Apple has done some dumb things in the past, but we already know the current line up has been discontinued. So it's either new imacs, or the end of imacs.

more then i think putting the LCD on the imac when it got rev amped to G4, ruined the iMac. as it went from being the "powerfull" cheap all in one at 799$, to mediocer power, at like 2000 or something. it wasn't nearly the success apple hope for, and you can back that up by checking apple's PR library for the quarter results. before the g4 imac, they were selling an average of about 700-800 000 imacs per quarter. now they are selling about 200 000 imacs per quarter, and 800 000 computers in total. the eMac is pretty much what the iMac would have been had it not gone LCD, but again it is kind off ugly, and people don't seem to be buying it as much as the g3 imacs.

aethier

 

[Phat_Pat]

Call it a hunch, but I think iMacs are getting discontinued in lieu of something new.

Yeah it'll be called an aMac (a for advanced) it'll be right inbetween the power of a emac and a pm. Its price will be dirt cheap and it will blow away the competitors. It will be screen less but for a limited time offer you will be able to get 50% off of a new 30" screen. People will line up for miles to get their amacs. They'll be low on stock just like the iPod Mini also, by the way was denied just like the iMacs are right now............

it makes you think......






i want a aMac

 

[Squire]

Agreed, but it's a big occasion, Mr Jobs is a showman and brand new hardware has developer opportunities. We'll see.

As for the webcast - I'm peeved. I'm as interested in what Tiger has to offer as any anonymous developer dude (or dudette). Shame on you, Apple.

I agree. And with Steve giving MacWorld Expos the cold shoulder of late, I think we can expect a few other goodies. (Of course, without the broadcast, maybe we should assume less.) So it's one hour with Tiger and, as others have pointed out, the new displays. How long could a display introduction take? "You plug it in here, and the picture appears here. See how nice and big it is! Oh, and we've added a few ports. Yes, it's a nice new display!"

What about a new remote-control type of device to interact with Airport Express? What about other software?

Squire

 

[joeboy_45101]

maybe...just maybe, steve's got a fat rabbit up his sleeve.

with the rumors of hanging displays, rumors of wifi keyboard and mouse coming standard on the new "imac," and the reality of airport express exporting to speakers; maybe apple's changing the design of its consumer computer. maybe the new mac won't be an "imac." maybe apple will come through on its promise of making the core to your digital life. think different.

With my idea you could call the iMac the wiMac.

 

[bob_the_gorilla]

Maybe the stuff SJ will show is under NDA? Tiger is quite a few months off so perhaps Apple wants things to be kept under wraps for a little while longer.
And with no webcast Apple has more control over what is presented to the public via Apple's web page.

Also it could be that some Tiger stuff is not stable enough to demo live. We know how much SJ hates crashing demos. A delayed webcast gives Apple the chance to edit out any 'hiccups'.

Ok, IMHO, the first part is rubbish - you can't show stuff to a room full of people and expect them to keep it quiet.

The second part I'm more willing to believe. An edited video later might prevent red faces if Tiger goes belly-up on stage.

 

[quagmire]

Where do people get the impression that Apple is out of stock on the iMacs??? I just tried buying the 17". Estimated shipping: 'Same bus. day.' That doesn't sound like out of stock to me.

As far as rumor consistency goes, Thinksecret has NEVER suggested that iMacs be updated at WWDC. They haven't mentioned a peep about iMacs, so they're being consistent. Appleinsider, on the other hand... I have to go with Thinksecret on this one. But we'll know soon enough.

When I said apple stores, I meant the retail stores. There was an article on appleinsider.com about apple no longer is supplying Powermac G5(pre rev b) and imac G4 to retail stores. They are still available at the online store.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=474

 

[aethier]

Ok, IMHO, the first part is rubbish - you can't show stuff to a room full of people and expect them to keep it quiet.

The second part I'm more willing to believe. An edited video later might prevent red faces if Tiger goes belly-up on stage.

yeah,but even if it is for editing reasons, i am sure someone who is there will mention that it crashed....

windows 98 crashed when gates was demoing it, people had a laugh and got over it, (probably because they thought the final build wouldn't be the same level of stability)

my point thought, it is a beta, everyone watching knows it is a beta. its not the end of the world, if the *beta* crashes.
aethier

 

[morkintosh]

It isn't going to happen

I think Apple is trying to create a little FUD here. When looked at in the context of Apple's line-up, the iMac is seriously lacking. At the very least they need to bump the line to 1.5GHz G4s, 8x SuperDrives, better video, etc. However, I am still betting on sub-2.0GHz G5s.

I don't know how anyone could possibly "bet" G5 iMacs at this point; it just isn't going to happen. The G5 is a helluva chip but she runs a little warm, even in that giant enclosure sitting under my desk (my office is noticable warmer since moving from a G4 iMac to the G5). In order for the comsumer flagship to keep it's trendy form factor it will have to stay a G4. That aside, a G5 iMac would narrow the gap between high-end and consumer products way too much, and Apple isn't going to alienate it's deep pocket customers who love bragging rights.

Maybe a new form factor on Monday but I doubt it ... it would just piss people off to do a iMac form factor update with a G4, and there were enough pissed off people after that lack luster power mac update a few weeks a go. I'd look for a 1.5GhZ iMac with some slightly modified specs.

 

[Dreamail]

Ok, IMHO, the first part is rubbish - you can't show stuff to a room full of people and expect them to keep it quiet.

Sorry if this wasn't clear enough.
Of course they won't keep quiet. And they don't have to unless Apple makes them all sign an NDA (which is unlikely given the huge audience).
But it's one thing having people write about the new features adding a hastily shot video or picture - vs. the full experience in QT quality.
Apple surely will tout Tiger on its web page once presented at WWDC, but perhaps Apple does not intend to present all features in as much detail as to the keynote audience.

 

[må¥å]

I agree people get all hyped up over rumours before a Mac show and when products are announced and its something that doesn't live up to the rumour(s) hype they complain.

Sit back and watch the show its fun to speculate what new hardware and software will be announced however leave it to that.

speaking of:

Loose (wrong) - Lose (correct)

rumors (wrong) - rumours (correct)

check (wrong) - cheque (correct)

its a shame we have powerful computers with spell check and don't use even a portion of its power

Plus it would seem people are getting agiteated since they can no longer predict Apple's product releases, I think Apple is doing this to get the rumour sites off track.

It won't however still funny people who depend on rumour sites on buying hardware can be seen as a positive and(or) negative thing.

Before WWDC
During WWDC
After WWDC

Cheers mates

 

[stefman]

Yessss!! new screens at last!!...it was about time...I badly nned a new screen!

 

[bob_the_gorilla]

rumors (wrong) - rumours (correct)

check (wrong) - cheque (correct)

I'd love to re-educate Americans, but unfortunately I don't see it happening

Don't take offence, guys and gals, but I really do find your spellings amusing sometimes. Especially "sulfur". Tee hee.

Oh, and I think I spotted a "should of" earlier, which is a definite grammatical no-no. It's should have, hence the contraction "should've" - which, of course, sounds like "should of" - hence the confusion.

Sorry, my parents were really persistent in correcting my language use.

Anyway... These new displays. Am I the only one thinking who the hell cares? I mean, it's a display. You look at things on it. If the current ones were pig ugly, I might be interested. However, they're actually rather good-looking. So, a slightly larger display, which costs more than my yearly rent, and requires a Mac of a similar price to run it, now in classy aluminium (please take notice of spelling, and pronounce accordingly ) instead of classy aqua-esque plastics. Big deal!

Anyway, this article is only a clarification of TS's existing opinions. Everyone's acting like it's brand new information, and gospel truth. Neither of which is true!

I'm off to take a chill pill.

 

[Squire]

I agree people get all hyped up over rumours before a Mac show and when products are announced and its something that doesn't live up to the rumour(s) hype they complain.

Sit back and watch the show its fun to speculate what new hardware and software will be announced however leave it to that.

speaking of:

Loose (wrong) - Lose (correct)

rumors (wrong) - rumours (correct)

check (wrong) - cheque (correct)

its a shame we have powerful computers with spell check and don't use even a portion of its power

Funny you mention that. Loose is probably the most commonly misspelled word on these boards. (The other two, you realize, are simply Americanized spellings.)

As for product announcements, I'd like to think there's going to be a ton of new stuff announced. I think, though, that we should expect very little and be content - then get blown away if there are some new treats.

Squire

 

[BornAgainMac]

One more thing...

New iMac:

17-inch widescreen LCD
1.33 Ghz PowerPC G4 (New!)
NVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
128MB DDR video memory (New!)
56k internal modem
512MB DDR333 SDRAM (New!)
120 GB Ultra ATA hard drive (New!)
8x Superdrive (New!)
AirPort Extreme Ready
Long-in-the-Bluetooth Option

$1,599.00 (At a new reduced price!)

 

[Squire]

Anyway... These new displays. Am I the only one thinking who the hell cares? I mean, it's a display. You look at things on it. If the current ones were pig ugly, I might be interested. However, they're actually rather good-looking. So, a slightly larger display, which costs more than my yearly rent, and requires a Mac of a similar price to run it, now in classy aluminium (please take notice of spelling, and pronounce accordingly ) instead of classy aqua-esque plastics. Big deal!

I'm with you, bob. Unfortunately, I'm not in the market for 5 grand worth of computer. That is, essentially, what a Powermac and kickass display would cost.

Someone mentioned the removable display iMac before. Although I don't really see the need for a Tablet, taking the screen off my iMac and surfing the Web in bed instead of, say, reading a book would be kind of neat.

I guess I hope Apple just introduces something I can afford.

Squire

 

[intrepkid21]

One more thing...

New iMac:

17-inch widescreen LCD
1.33 Ghz PowerPC G4 (New!)
NVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
128MB DDR video memory (New!)
56k internal modem
512MB DDR333 SDRAM (New!)
120 GB Ultra ATA hard drive (New!)
8x Superdrive (New!)
AirPort Extreme Ready
Long-in-the-Bluetooth Option

$1,599.00 (At a new reduced price!)

Sign me up if its 1.5 ghz

 

[wizard]

The current iMacs are old and expensive in any market they are in. Grossly expensive if you ask me. TS mus be wrong on this item, atleast in part.

The replacement iMacs may not come at the WWDC but it will have to be soon. Apple can't have a product sitting in its catalog that doesn't sell. Make no sense at all.

No maybe what TS doesn't know or maybe didn't pick up on is that the iMac may be replaced with something else. No iMac at WWDC may mean just that. It could also mean the end of the line. Maybe the next consumer machine is something different completely.

Dave

Well over here in Portugal, the 20" imac costs no less than 2500 Euros (3030 dollars) and the 17" 2000 Euros (2424 dollars) Stick that up your "prosumer" Apple. These machine look nice, but are old old spec and ought to be selling for 60% of that price IMO

 

[nsb3000]

I agree. And with Steve giving MacWorld Expos the cold shoulder of late, I think we can expect a few other goodies. (Of course, without the broadcast, maybe we should assume less.) So it's one hour with Tiger and, as others have pointed out, the new displays. How long could a display introduction take? "You plug it in here, and the picture appears here. See how nice and big it is! Oh, and we've added a few ports. Yes, it's a nice new display!"
Squire

You forget about the Steve Jobs reality distortion filed. If anyone can make a LCD display seem revolutionary, its Steve Jobs.

 

[jwmci]

The big news...

If you were Apple and a very large percentage of your legacy customers were not developing on Xcode, but on Codewarrior, the most exciting thing you could announce at the WWDC is a Codewarrior "killer." This could be the Xcode 1.5 with the capability to import Codewarriors. If it worked well, a number of fence-sitters could be pushed into the Xcode conversion which means many nice things.

The biggest things it means is that more software would take advantage of Cocoa and that all those developers would need new G5 development systems.

 

[zoozx]

Unless some new dramatic technology comes with the new screens,
Color calibration stabilization and color and contrast accuracy, and the price drops a lot to a realistic amount to be competitive, who gives a rats ass if they are metal.
Show me the beef and forget the fluff apple.

 

[wizard]

Well how about a 90nm G4 running at 2.5GHz would that put people off? I'm with you on the heat issue, plus Apple has stated that the G4 will be around for awhile, so maybe this is a reasonable alternative?

Manufacture that G4 with an on board memory controller and it will perform very nearly like a 970 based machine. At 90nm it should be very cool. Its a possibility!

I'd prefer to see Apple go 970 across the board but there are a couple of issues with that. Heat still is an issue along with the outlandish chip set requirments. Chip sets can be addressed but heat appears to be with us for awhile. The other problem is that there is great danger in getting into bed to deeply with any one PPC vendor. Apple needs to cultivate a alternative PPC vendor just to keep each of them on their toes. Either could loose leadership in technology so alternative are best maintianed.

Just look at what AMD has done with its technology. The literally have caused the giant Intel to shuffle its plans. There is good reason for Apple to maintain competition with respect to the PPC platform. Unfortuantely Apple is not that huge of a customer for either manufacture, thus the need for them to attack market share and for alternative hardware implementations. In other words not only do Apple/IBM & Freescale need to grow Mac market share they need alternatives (motherboards and Linux) to keep Freescale and IBM healthy with respect ot PPC.

DAve

Maybe a new form factor on Monday but I doubt it ... it would just piss people off to do a iMac form factor update with a G4, and there were enough pissed off people after that lack luster power mac update a few weeks a go. I'd look for a 1.5GhZ iMac with some slightly modified specs.

 

[Wonder Boy]

my sig says it all.

 

[gskiser]

I agree...Something is going to happen to the iMac

Exactly. I think we will see G5 iMacs or at least an announcement. The iMacs weren't updated. Something gives.

In fact, the article is written in a jovial, jokey and coloquial sort of way - completely out of sync with the normal professional and serious manner of writing that Think Secret is legendary for. Seems like they were drunk when they wrote it.

I have to agree with Johnnyjibbs on this one for several reasons. I've been following Thinksecret for 3 years and they are almost always 100% on target. However, the manner and tone of which this article is written so unlike anything I have ever seen on ThinkSecret. It sounds like it was written by a satirist; not by a serious professional for which ThinkSecret is known. It just sounded like it didn't belong on ThinkSecret, which questions its credibility.

That said, I experienced something really strange. I went to the AppleStore two days ago and put an iMac in my shopping cart. It said the shipping time was 10-15 business days! Never is there a wait like that for an old old product. They typically do that when they're releasing a new model within 2 weeks, so they can give the buyers the option to upgrade. When I did the same today, it said that it ships the same business day! Thats not a good sign, and ThinkSecret may be half right. Its almost like they were planning on releasing something, but ran into last minute problems.

There is no doubt the iMac is way behind every other mac model in terms of technology for the price. They're going to do something, and soon. Maybe not at WWDC, but within the next 2-3 weeks. They gave it a bigger monitor in October, but the inside has been the same for almost a year. The eMac is far superior to it now, while also several hundred $$$ cheaper! Apple's going to do something. Apple loves to milk old technology, and if they hadn't released the eMac, they probably would milk the current iMac for another few months. However, with the eMac's updates, the iMac in its current form/specs is pointless. Apple's working on an iMac G5, but they may have run into trouble. If that's the case, I expect we'll see an upgraded G4 version in the meantime...kind of like what they did with the powerbooks. Milk that G4...

I have to say I'm extremely disappointed with Apple, especially considering this is their anniversary year. Pathetic speed bumps of the old G4 processor in the eMac, iBook, & Powerbook. Then a disappointing speed bump for one Powermac model, the the other two models are still the same speed available a year ago. The Powermac is a great machine, but the progress is disappointing. Even Apple knows this, which is why the released the 2.5 in early June with no fanfare. In fact each portable upgrade was disappointing. What monumental feat did apple accomplis this year? They finally got all of their models over 1Gz, yippee. Apple's embarrased. Can you picture Stevo, the showman that he is, getting up in front of a croud and giving us...minor G4 powerbook speed increases or only one new speed Powermac model? Nothing groundbreaking or a new form factor from Apple in a long time. Unfortunately the lack of a G5 iMac would at least be consistent with their progress so far this year.

 

[bdkennedy1]

Then how does ThinkSecret explain the low inventory on iMacs?

However, ThinkSecret essentially eliminates an iMac update as a possibility, discounting analyst and rumor predictions of an imminent iMac update.

Then how does ThinkSecret explain the low inventory on iMacs?

 

[Koodauw]

I love how everyone gets in a tizy when Apple "denies" or "Speculates" about new products. Seriously you would think we would have better things to do than b*tch and moan that the iMac hasn't been updated or whatnot. But for some reason, no new iMac would really piss me off. The last time I got mad like this was before the emac updates. I really do like the current iMac design, and would love to pick one up at a bargin basement price once a new G5 comes out, unless the new G5 is way Cool. (Pizzabox style just doen't do it for me.) Anyways, I hope for new iMacs, but lets remember, in the the big scheme of things, iMac updates at WWDC, are not life and death.